Sneak Peeks – Page 32 – 🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺

Survival Ep. 4: description & name revealed!

May 31, 2014May 31, 2014 Samwow5

Hey everyone! I just went go check the Survival tour page, and I noticed that a description has now been added for Episode 4! Here’s what it says:

Your rescuer offers a hot meal and a comfy bed, but you’re not his guest – you’re a prisoner. Can you escape the wilderness lodge before his next hunt begins?!

Sounds a lot like our Van Buren theory, inspired by General Zaroff in the short story The Most Dangerous Game! Of course, we already knew about this. The name of Episode 4 is Cabin Fever, which has not yet been updated on the Survival tour page – but we know this from a look at Poptropica’s code:

siep41

This can be used to find new and unreleased Poptropica pics and details – as you can see from the sample above, Episode 4: Cabin Fever involves a bear claw, security code, empty pitcher, full pitcher, and some tainted meat. Stay tuned to the PHB, where we’ll be uncovering more in an upcoming entry of the Survival Files!

~SW5~

PHB Sneak Peeks, Survival Island

The Survival Files: more on the story

May 13, 2014August 2, 2018 HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

Since we already covered most of the back story of Survival in the last file, I decided to make the rest of the files all about the upcoming episodes and give sneak peeks for what’s coming next.

—

First of all, the items for the second episode of Survival: a fishing pole, some grubs, another handbook (it’s different this time), handbook pages, a fishing costume, a hook, some pill bugs, 2 shoelaces, worms, and the island medallion. In total, there are 10 items in the quest. From the looks of it, you’ll be experimenting with different types of bait in order to get some fish.

S2items

The forest is approaching spring in the episode, and things are starting to melt (if you don’t remember, Survival 1 was set in a winter theme). This allows you to fish around and get some food in order to survive.

With no help in sight, your hunger threatens to overtake you. Can you catch your next meal under the ice — or will you become fish food?

The episode’s game play involves assembling a working fishing pole and obtaining a sufficient bait. Along with that, a suspicious character whom we don’t know the name of will cross paths with you on the quest, and from the looks of it, he’s quite superstitious and perhaps a fisherman.

fisherManS2

But Survival 2 isn’t where the story starts to get interesting — it’s the third chapter that the events lead up to the rumored Van Buren character — and I’m here to say that Van Buren is real.

vanBuren

They’ll probably take a different route with the story this time — Van Buren rescues you, but the more that you learn, he’s actually an evil poacher. I really like how the story is going, and it’s becoming my favorite out of the two, even though I was leaning toward Mission Atlantis previously. I have a good feeling about the Survival series. 😀

-HPuterpop

Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, Sneak Peeks, Survival Island

A look ahead: who is Van Buren?

May 11, 2014May 11, 2014 Brave Tomato

._. What? No, I don’t mean the 8th president of the United States, Martin Van Buren, thank you very much.

I’m talking about Poptropica’s upcoming character for Survival, Van Buren, his household, and a prediction as to what may be coming up in this island.

Okay, let’s start by looking at some Daily Pops…

Hail to the Chef: Cleaver? I hardly know her!

Welcome Home: We’re rolling out the red carpet for you.

Log Files: Always be sure to keep a back-up.

Fish Story: But this one is actually true.

Motto: Strength rejoices in the challenge.

Hot Stove: Let’s not put this adventure on the back burner.

There are a few more Daily Pops, but these are the major ones. From these, I can determine the following:

Van Buren seems to be a big game hunter who just so happened to take residence in the same woods that you and your blimp crashed on. He seems to be pretty talented at his sport. He’s even rich to have a cook with him and own a nice log cabin and all.

However, I have the strangest comparison that’ll not give this character a good name:

Van Buren kinda reminds me of General Zaroff.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Who the heck is General Zaroff? Well, he was a rich and essentric Cossack hunter who took up residence on the island another hunter named Rainsford ended up washing up on in the 1924 short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. Zaroff has a bulky servant named Ivan as well. Zaroff shows Rainsford his achievements in the hunting buisness, but lends him on with a dark secret: he had grown bored of hunting ordinary animals and decided to go bigger, to hunt the most dangerous game that comes to his island, and the only animal that can reason: humans.

He offers Rainsford to join him in his hunting, but he refuses. Zaroff tells him of the game he plays with whoever comes to this island, where the victims have to go around and gather supplies, and most importantly, not get killed by Zaroff, Ivan, or his hounds. Rainsford, desperate to get out of this island, makes a deal with Zaroff: He will be the next person to take part in Zaroff’s game for three days. If he wins, Zaroff lets him go, and if he dies… well, he dies. If you want to read it, here’s the full story.

I noticed that both Zaroff and Van Buren have a stocky-looking servant- Van Buren with that chef and Zaroff with Ivan. They’re both well-accomplished hunters. Although I doubt Van Buren would follow Zaroff’s man-hunting ways since this is a kid’s game, it doesn’t stop him from having the ability to be villainous in another way… (although I have no idea why the heck the stand-in looks like a corpse in the “Hot Stove” Daily Pop).

We know well of the binoculars that spied on us at the end of Crash Landing. We know well that the Distress Signal’s description warns to “beware of who might be listening”. Well, no matter what Van Buren’s goal is, I have a feeling it won’t be good. Besides, sleeping with a dagger underneath your pillow sounds rather uncomfortable.

BT out…

PHB Sneak Peeks, Super Villain Island, The Missing Link

The Missing Link: El Mustachio, the 5th Super Villain

May 5, 2014May 6, 2014 HPuterpop

Hi Gs, (yes, I’m back to my old intro, what are the odds 😛 )

You’re probably wondering about the title, and you should be — I have solid proof this time! Or not. But I’m pretty sure about this, so let’s get started! 😀

The picture above shows one of the numerous pop quizzes that abide in the Friends feature. This particular quiz challenges you on what your favorite Poptropica villain is – note that the villains in the list are the main ones – except one. Along with legendary villains such as Captain Crawfish, Black Widow, and Dr. Hare is a not-so-famous villain, El Mustachio Grande (from Wild West Island). Why would he be in the list? That itself seems odd.

But it goes even further; a Daily Pop from the developmental stages of Super Villain Island, which combines some of the most famous villains of Poptropica, shows an apparent mega boss combining the four villains of the island – but you may notice that along with the jester/bunny/artist/pirate look of the robot, there are a couple hints as to something else in the works. Notice the mustache and sombrero kind of hat – some main attributes of El Mustachio.

There still is one more thing about another Daily Pop around that time. Take a look at the sneak peek picture below. It’s showing a primary working of the Prison Lab where the sleep machine and Dr. Jupiter reside on Super Villain Island. Remember, there are only 4 main villains whose dreams you infiltrate – but there is one more sleep containment in the picture. It’s obviously meant for El Mustachio.

The question is, why was El Mustachio taken out of the island? Maybe because he didn’t have a Creator alias, or he wasn’t popular enough – but if that was the case, then what was the motive in the first place? Did he interfere with the story line, or did he just not cut it? What if he was put back into the SUI for Super Villain Island? That would be pretty awesome. 😀

So what do you think? Am I right about El Mustachio, or is my theory as weak as the Wild West Island pea shooter? Tell me in the comments. 😉

-HPuterpop

Bonus Items, Contests, Cryptids Island, Daily Pop, New Islands, Night Watch Island, Sneak Peeks

CYDI runner-up (Fashion Crisis), more music men, and possible Night Watch book!

April 24, 2014June 3, 2014 HPuterpop

What isn’t happening in the world of Poptropica? Prepare to have your mind blown with all the new things happening in the Poptropica universe! 😀

Runner-up #2 in the CYDI contest

The next runner-up of the Create Your Dream Island contest, without further ado, is…

Fashion Crisis Island!

Now, even though I’m not that big on fashion 😆 , I still am pretty impressed and pleased that this girl won. I’ve never heard of the idea being used, and the prospect of an island based on the costumizing feature is pretty smart —

When you’re on Fashion Crisis Island, you must recover a stolen line of clothes for a very famous designer right before an important show.

Is it just me, or is it strange that all the winners up until now have been girls? I’m excited to see a boy’s idea, but in the meantime, I’d like to congratulate Elsa W. of Illinois — or Bronze Fox — for the awesome idea and the impressive ranking. 😀 Here’s why the Creators liked the idea:

Costumizing is one of the most popular things to do on Poptropica, and yet we’ve never made an Island based entirely around using the Costumizer. Elsa’s idea presented a lot of opportunities to let players create new costumes. It was also set in the the 1940s, which we haven’t done before, and featured some famous fashion icons as characters.

More music men

Kyle Fox now has a Soundcloud, and he’s uploaded his few but wholesome tracks that he’s made for Poptropica. I want to give him a shout out for all the music work that slips by as Jeff Heim’s — I personally love the MFB theme. 😀

Another unknown composer for the theme and sound effects of the Forgotten Islands app has now been uncovered: Bob Baffy! The theme sounds great as do the sound effects, and I hope he might do more soundtracks for Poptropica in the future. 😉

Jeff Heim recently posted a Demo Reel for his work on Poptropica, including a new Villain theme for the island Super Power. Sounds awesome!

Mythology SUI offers easier River Styx

As mentioned the recent PCB post, the upcoming Mythology Island SUI is going to have an easier River Styx scene (check it out here), and I immediately had to check and see what it was like. Well, they weren’t lying — all you do is jump over an alligator and you’re home free!

I wonder if they’ve made any of the other hard parts of the island easier — maybe the red eyed snake game and the Aphrodite test. Either way, I’m happy! 😛

Who is Catie?

There’s a question that remains a mystery, and that question is “Who is Catie?”. Written on a wall on Virus Hunter Island, we see “Catie was here” scribbled onto it. Designers often do this sort of thing in Poptropica – for example, in Mocktropica, written on the wall in the Poptropica Headquarters is “Nasan was here”. Nasan Hardcastle is a designer for Poptropica, and he wrote it there. So who is Catie? An unknown designer? There are multiple possible answers.

Catherine Prentice is a writer for Pearson, but it seems unlikely that she would be designing anything. There’s also Catherine Gilliland, a person who strangely liked a Poptropica tour on YouTube, and that was pretty much it. Who do you think Catie is? We may never know…

And did you notice the view count on the tour? Over 5 million hits!

Night Watch book may be coming soon

Here’s some forewarning — a written book for Night Watch Island may be coming soon. Why? First, I don’t think that they will be releasing books for all of the islands — just a select few that have a strong enough story and cast of characters to work with. For sure, Night Watch Island has a pretty good story to begin with, but I’m not just going out on a limb like that. You guys know I wouldn’t do that. ;p

Around mid-2012, around the time that Night Watch Island was being made, multiple preliminary sketches for the illustrations for the book pertaining to Cryptids Island were posted to the Daily Pop. Around the same time, a sketch looking very similar to the drawings for Cryptids Island was posted — showing the rare Cat Burglar costume being worn and the Poptropican posing in multiple positions. I have a hunch that the picture was actually some preliminary sketches for a new book pertaining to Night Watch, where a Cat Burglar contributes to the plot. What do you think?