Category: PopTROPEica

This is a guest post by Silver Shell. Enjoy!

Hello again, Poptropicans! It’s Silver Shell, back again for another Pop-TROPE-ica post. Similar to my last one about time travel, this post is about how Poptropica rarely sends us to the same place twice.

I can’t even make a list for this one. Every single Poptropica island has its own unique setting (unless you count remakes such as the new Mythology Island or episodic islands, like Survival, or the time you go to Early Poptropica to complete the quest from Counterfeit).

Although each island always seems to be set in different places, there are times when we find Easter Eggs on an island that reminds us of another place on the map. For example, in the Baron’s Crusade mini-quest, we see the cove from the Pirate Outpost on Skullduggery Island.

Islands also contain references to items or brands from other islands. There are quite a few on PoptropiCon, such as the back of a sign for Queequeg’s Coffeehouse which first appeared in Back Lot Island, or the guy eating pizza puffs outside Pepe’s stand, who’s wearing the goblin hat from Twisted Thicket. 

However, there are some mysteries about whether or not certain islands take place in the same setting. For example, both Skullduggery and Shark Tooth have a part where you sail or swim through the ocean, but on the Poptropica map, there is only one large ocean containing all the islands (Pop-cific Ocean? Atlant-ica Ocean?). Do those quests take place in the same ocean, and by extension, the same area?

There’s a similar question with Astro-Knights and Lunar Colony. When you’re in your spaceship on Astro-Knights, you can bring up a whole map of Poptropica’s solar system. It appears Planet Poptropica has only one moon, and it is inhabited by hospitable aliens all around.

Yet, on Lunar Colony, we seem to cross the entire moon, or at least one half of it, and there is hardly a bit of proof of alien occupancy. (Sure, Salerno discovers an alien world in the end, but we never see it.) What we do see are what appear to be ancient alien artifacts, left behind a long time ago. Are we still on the same moon?

Maybe we went to a moon of one of the other planets, like the Fire Planet? Or did one of the two islands take place in a completely different solar system?

Whatever the case, I think it’s still safe to say that, regardless of how confusing some of Poptropica’s inter-island logic may be, Poptropica takes place in all sorts of different places, all across the world, and never seems to repeat itself. So thanks for reading! Comment below! 👇

Pop Nonstop,
Silver Shell 🥈🐚

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Silver Shell. If you did, you might also like another one of hers: Pop-TROPE-ica: 10 Times We Time Travel.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by White Fox. Enjoy!

Hey, Poptropicans! Today I’m going to talk about the Poptropica trope of us meeting cool characters who eventually betray us.

Off the top of my head, the first person who comes to mind when I think of Poptropica betrayers is the one and only Director D from Spy Island. He played the part of seeming extremely trustworthy, because he could persuade everyone at the Spy HQ to do his bidding, and they thought they were doing it for the good of Poptropica. That’s why I was so surprised when I saw this:

So now you see why I have trust issues…

Now I have come up with 10 islands where someone you trust ends up being the bad guy. Okay, I’m gonna take a deep breath and list them all…

1. Mordred on Astro-Knights Island, after he became the Binary Bard and tried to take the princess.

2. Director D on Spy Island, who secretly works for the B.A.D (Bald and Dangerous).

3. Zeus on Mythology Island, who steals your items after you worked so hard to gather them, and tries to take over Poptropica.

4. Dr Jupiter on Super Villain Island, who is Zeus in disguise and tries to take over Poptropica — again!

5. The captain of the ship on SOS Island, who isn’t really a bad guy, but he kinda betrayed you because he caused the whole shipwreck in the first place but said he didn’t.

6. Ringmaster Raven on Monster Carnival Island, who tried to hypnotize the whole town. Well, the betrayal lies more in the fact that it turns out the carnies weren’t just regular people when night fell, thanks to Raven’s meddling monster-making!

7. Mr Silva on Shrink Ray Island, the teacher who tries to steal CJ’s invention.

8. Inspector Veuvre-noire on Counterfeit Island, or Black Widow, who attempts to steal “The Scream” painting.

9. Myron van Buren in Survival Island: Episode 4, who takes you in but has bad intentions in mind — keeping you hostage in his log cabin and hunting you for sport!

10. The governor’s aide on Skullduggery Island, who, it turns out, secretly works for Captain Crawfish.

That’s all I thought up, but I might have missed some. Please put any others in the comments!

Because Poptropicans have been tricked and backstabbed countless times, it is often a surprise when you come across someone who actually holds up their end of the deal.

For example, the weight guesser on Monster Carnival Island. He actually gave you the bouncy ball. Since when do carnies just give away the prize? I guess they aren’t all cheap, lazy, and cheating, but all I got was a cup when I won the dart throwing contest!

Yay. My point is, Poptropicans are so often tricked on islands, it’s kind of hard to believe when people actually do what they say they will. A lot of people are suspicious in Poptropica. Next time you play a new island, don’t let anyone double-cross you… 🕶

That’s all for this post! Thanks for reading!

Peace, 
White Fox

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by White Fox. If you did, you might also enjoy other guest posts of hers, such as this Ramble Review on Vampire’s Curse Island or her My Place in Poptropica story.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you! 📰✨

Hey Poptropicans—this is a guest post by Beefy Dragon, who’s bringing back our “Pop-TROPE-ica” series with her take on Poptropica’s approach to education, particularly to the trope of exhibits more commonly seen on Poptropica Worlds. Enjoy!

What’s up, PHB readers? It’s guest writer Beefy Dragon. Welcome to another installment in the Pop-TROPE-ica series. It’s been a while since the last one, so for the new readers, Pop-trope-ica posts discuss common threads that run through many Poptropica islands, a.k.a. “tropes.”

This time, we’ll be discussing education, a core feature of Poptropica, from Original to Worlds, manifested in exhibits and other fun forms.

Education has been one of Poptropica’s goals since the beginning. Heck, their About Us page even includes the word “learning.” The first island, Early Poptropica, features an art gallery, where you can talk to and learn about various painters, as well as view famous works of art. Since then, learning has been more seamlessly woven into gameplay.

On Counterfeit Island, you learn about some of the ways museums identify forgeries (and learn a few words of French, Ballon Boy’s native language). Time Tangled Island has you interacting with different points in history. Zomberry Island has you finding clues to solve a logic puzzle. Game Show Island has a quiz show teaching you about such topics as homophones, sports, famous landmarks, and pop culture.

These types of educational puzzles and games are on every Poptropica island in various forms, and they tend to be enjoyable and interesting.

That’s not even getting into the many references to books and other pieces of popular culture scattered throughout the islands. On Vampire’s Curse, for example, we encounter lots of vampire lore, stemming from the classic Dracula by Bram Stoker. Not coincidentally, the island features Count “Bram.” (Eh?) The plot of the last two episodes of Survival Island is heavily inspired by The Most Dangerous Game, a short story featured in many a high school English class. There are also islands based explicitly on more modern books, such as the two Wimpy Kid islands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Nabooti, and Red Dragon (based on the Magic Tree House series).

All of these examples are expertly incorporated into the plots of the islands. They all feel perfectly natural, and are important for completing the quest of the island. You feel like you’re doing good things by completing these games.

This brings us to Poptropica Worlds. While looking for ways to continue this pattern of learning, the Creators have taken the concept of Early Poptropica’s Pop Art Museum and applied it to every single Island on Worlds so far (we’re not counting Dr. Hare’s Revenge).

The issue for me is, the Museums on Worlds feel considerably less fun, considering there is less interaction with characters. They’ve got many plaques you can click on to learn about whatever the island’s “thing” is—so far, natural parks, Greek mythology, and carrots. Thrilling.

The museums are not requirements for completing the island, and I personally find them pretty boring. (Seriously, real-life museums are more interesting, because you get to see the artifacts and exhibits they’re referring to in 3D Ultra-HD graphics.) I imagine it’s not uncommon for players to simply skip over most of the exhibits after reading one or two.

Now, imagine if the islands had found a way to incorporate this information naturally! Instead of a few minor changes to the quests, the remastered 24 Carrot Island could have featured a mini-game where you sort carrots by color, conveying information about different types of carrots in a much more interactive way. Greek Sea Odyssey could have revealed more about the characters and myths behind them while we actually talked to them, rather than just hiding it away in a little museum in the back of the ship. You see what I mean?

Hopefully Worlds will try a different approach that has the fun of what Poptropica Original offered. Maybe while remaking old islands, the Creators will begin to see the value in interactive and fun mini-games, and future original stories will include more of them. Looking forward to many more Poptropica adventures!

–Beefy Dragon

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Beefy Dragon! If you did, be sure to check out the other posts in our Pop-TROPE-ica series.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our Write for the PHB page. We also encourage sharing blog posts on the PHC.

If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in!