Category: Sneak Peeks

Advertisements, Contests, Daily Pop, Sneak Peeks

Shaun the Sheep ad, Pelican Rock, & Jeff Heim’s Poppie

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! SFish here with the latest Poptropica happenings.

There’s currently an advertisement building for the Shaun the Sheep movie (in theaters August 5) on Main Streets. Inside, you can customize two fluffy sheep costumes, interact with other players like in common rooms, and grab two prizes: the Woolly Blow, a gun that adds a poof of sheep hair to the heads of characters you point at, and the Sheep Belch, which makes you belch comically.

(Thanks to Slippery Raptor for the ad pics!)

The Shaun the Sheep ad is on the Poptropica mobile app as well, but the prizes are a Timmy Follower (Timmy being a sheep character) and a sheep piggyback item. (Thanks to Anonymous for the tip!)

Meanwhile, the Creators haven’t posted many Daily Pop sneak peeks this month (slackers 😛 just kidding), but a more recent one gives us a peek at the name of the prison facility in the unnamed prison island: Pelican Rock – possibly modeled after the Pelican Bay State Prison in California.

Well, we’ve seen seaside jails on Ghost Story and Super Villain Island, and they haven’t worked out too well… wonder how this one will hold up. 😉

Supercell: Knock your block off.
Blocked: See you between the bars.
Pipe Dream: This corridor holds some utility for you.

Finally, a bit of post-Poppies news: check out the Poppie trophy Spotted Dragon sent to Jeff Heim, which he constructed (with a few scissor mishaps) and posted on social media! 😀

(Plus, you can get your own Poppies Participant paper craft like this one on our event recap post!)

11700550_10153238238011107_1136144243842517932_o

Congratulations to the Monster Carnival Island Main Theme for winning Best Soundtrack among the PHB readership. If you haven’t already, check out the list of all Poppies winners here, plus click here for a recap of the event with pictures – and Captain Crawfish’s reaction! 🙂

– 🐟 SFish 🐠 –

Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, New Islands, Sneak Peeks, Timmy Failure Island

Timmy Failure Island is coming this September!

Brave Tomato

Hey guys, BT here to try and bring in some good news after the downer of the 7 sponsored members-only islands news.

Timmy Failure Island is officially announced, in, I shall say, in a unique way. Instead of the standard YouTube trailer, we’re given a short gif revealing an approximate release month for the island: September 2015.

There is an emphasis on the fact that this island is going to be in full color, similar to how Wimpy Boardwalk was advertised to be (as opposed to Wimpy Wonderland). Captain Crawfish also notes to keep an eye out for more “news, giveaways, and other great stuff” on the Creators’ Blog. I’m particularly curious about the giveaway part.

Although I have never personally read the series, I’m still semi-curious. HPuterpop told me it was about a kid who solves mysteries. I can see that working in a Poptropican environment. Can’t judge a book by its cover, so I’m willing to give this island a chance.

While we wait till September, please enjoy what I assume to be the product a bored Creator who must’ve been playing Silent Hill lately. And then decided to show a Poptropican version of a gore-free Pyramid Head off on the Daily Pop because why not.

pyramid head poptropican

BT out!

The Missing Link

The Missing Link: The Island Misconception

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

Something I noticed about the recent Future Island book (and no, I haven’t received or ever ordered it yet, just received a ton of new Poptropica books) is that the story takes place on Verdana Island, according to the description. This said, I started to wonder – what if island names – like ‘Monster Carnival Island’ or ‘Time Tangled Island’ – are merely quest names. They always refer to islands as ‘Island Quests’.

Night Watch Island Logo

And the evidence sorta matches up – why would one of these islands be named ‘Night Watch Island’? There is a mall, but otherwise, there’s no reason for anyone in their right mind to name it Night Watch.

So these ‘islands’ are quests, and this explains a lot – for example, sponsored islands. In their respective universes, they don’t all live on islands. Plus, what about Skullduggery Island? That quest is made up of several islands. Fort Ridley is the island you land on, not the island that the quest is named after.

Anyway, this was just a short post to mention that thought. It clears up some things, but raises some big questions, like what are the real island names? Tell me in the comments what you think!

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Advertisements, Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, Escape from Pelican Rock Island

Prisons and caves; masks and balloon launchers

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! If you’ve read our Q&A with Poptropica CEO Jess Brallier in this recent PHB post, you may have wondered what was meant by the ominous hint of an island to come: “Some place you don’t wanna be.” We gave a few clues in the comments, and some of you have figured it out – after Timmy Failure Island and Arabian Nights Ep. 3, we’re headed to a prison, of all places!

The Daily Pop recently revealed some jail scenes, and don’t forget about the sneak peek of dogs and police officers Poptropica tweeted as a behind-the-scenes pic:

Cellular: Won’t be getting calls in here.
Barred: Once you go behind these walls, you may never come out.

Our Daily Pop Sneak Peek Archive was recently updated as well, and amid all the Timmy Failure peeks was a hint that the underground cave island had not been forgotten (although “Mole Man” is for TF Island, the caption is worth a mention). Maybe due to some nudging over on Twitter, though. 😉

Down Under: Will this island ever come to light?
Mole Man: Also not the underground island you were thinking of.

On a different note, if you head over to some of the Main Streets, you may find an ad poster for Scholastic books: in particular, Tombquest, Spirit Animals, 39 Clues, and Infinity Ring. Clicking on it will give you Character Masks (a mummy, leopard, fedora, and pirate’s hat for each series respectively) and a printable Summer Wish List.

There is also a CapriSun Push Play advertisement on Night Watch Island, and the prize is a Balloon Launcher. Press the spacebar while holding it, and your character shoots other Poptropicans with blue, indigo, and green balloons. (Thanks to Cuddly Knuckle for the tip, and HPuterpop for providing pictures!)

caprisun pushplay ad

Stay popping, Poptropicans. 😉

Advertisements, Popspiracy Theories, Social Media, The Missing Link

The Missing Link: Poptropica’s Glitchy Cash Cow

HPuterpop

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post represent those of the author, not the entire Poptropica Help Blog or its community. Further discussion can be found in the comments.)

Hi Gs,

In 2013, Jeff Kinney was interviewed on Skype. One of his points was that in order to keep up with the times, they would have to update to mobile soon. Now, I for one object. Poptropica is not a mobile game. There are 40+ islands online to play, each taking 1-2 hours, some exceeding, with amazing art, dialogue, story, and overall gameplay. Poptropica is just simply not a flippant game that you play whenever you’re bored. You have to set down and devote yourself to an island.

So the absurd idea that kids aren’t playing Poptropica online any more is, well, absurd. Poptropica is a game for your computer, it’s a desktop game. I’m excited for the day whenever they actually release a desktop version. With that said, Poptropica didn’t really seem to care about the obvious facts. They went ahead and started to pursue mobile.

poptropicaApp-head

And in this process, they became extremely greedy, and lost a lot of their quality. Here’s why:

I’ve extracted the Android Poptropica app, and found some key files that have traces of a company called ‘Milkman Games’. Looking that up, I found that this company specializes in converting flash games into apps – Android and iOS. With this said, you have to realize that Poptropica isn’t solely a flash game. It uses PHP & a number of other codes, which contributes to the majority of the major game play elements.

milkMan

So in an attempt to fix the game and be able to quickly and cheaply convert it into an app, they rebuilt the engine – in a matter of months, and with different developers than from the original game. This lead to what we know as SUIs. Anyone who has played SUIs know – they’re not as good as classic Poptropica islands. They aren’t as fluid, they’re glitchy, and likely to crash.

This is the one bad thing that’s happening to Poptropica.

Now we know the reason, and Poptropica can’t keep it under wraps any more. To prove it, you can just take a peek in the files. They have ‘Home’ Island, which is Tutorial Island on the app – verbatim, and updated to match the app. In fact, that’s where I got the Arcade sneak peaks.

homeIsTheree

So with this said, Poptropica’s little cheap scheme has been unveiled, and sadly, it’s growing every day as something irreversible. Unless the team gets their heads screwed on straight, Poptropica is going to become something not even considered a game, even less-so than what the gaming community once considered it.

TAFN.

-HPuterpop