Bonus Items, Member Gifts, Membership, Social Media

The mathematical art of wintry member gifts

Merry (almost) Christmas, Poptropicans! ๐ŸŽ„

We’ve already covered the first, second, and third waves of member gifts. Now it’s time to unwrap these last few gifts! This final batch of member gifts are pretty cool, pun fully intended.

And the items are: Jack Frost, Ice Princess, Instant Ice, Snow Cone Toss, Carrot Nose, and Flying Sleigh. Thanks to Osmium for sharing pics of the items and animated gifs of the powers in action!

If you have an active membership at anytime this month, these items will be added to your inventory. Act fast before the festive gifts freeze over!


Mythology_Concepts

Over on the Creators’ Blog, Blue Tooth wrote a post detailing how Poptropica’s art is made. The post begins with a series of sketches for a Mythology Island-themed home screen. Artists create these small sketches, called thumbnails, to help them figure out what they want the picture to look like before they start adding details.

After the team agrees on a concept, they begin the sketch phase. And after approving the clean sketches, they put them in a vector format. What’s that, you ask? Blue Tooth describes the process in this paragraph:

What’s a vector? It’s a special, unique way you can make images on a computer. Instead of needing to save every single pixel in a picture, vectors draw and color pictures with math! (Bet you didn’t see THAT coming.) Vectors are what make Poptropica possible. The whole game uses them to run! That’s right, guys. We wouldn’t have Poptropica without math.


Pop_social_home

Poptropica’s team of artists work hard to deliver quality content to make the game more lively. For example, some players may have spotted a new home screen on Poptropica’s homepage. This screen features a cast of Poptropicans enjoying a nice day at a park while showcasing some in-game fashion.ย It hasn’t shown up on all browsers yet, but perhaps it soon might!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

โ€”Gentle Dolphin๐Ÿฌ

Advertisements, Fan Art Features, Member Gifts, Social Media

Spirit, spies, and sketches, oh my!

Good day, everyone! The holiday season is still going strong, and Poptropica has been giving nonstop to its players. We at the PHB have been covering the 12 Days of Member Gifts, but let’s take a break to discuss a special gift that gives all year round: ADVERTISING!!! (yay!๐Ÿ™ƒ)

Sarcasm aside, Poptropica recently gave us three unique ads, each with their own cool prizes to offer! Let’s get started with an ad fitting for the holiday season.

Our first ad is a simple one promoting Netflix’s new Christmas special “Spirit Riding Free: Spirit of Christmas”. Watch the short video to earn the Free Spirit power. To activate this power, equip the apple and press the spacebar to see Spirit leap across the screen!

Our second ad also comes from Netflix, this one promoting their upcoming series “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers”. Walk inside and talk to Tony to enter the big race. This minigame is similar to the game Crash-N-Bash from the Blast-Off Arcade: choose your car and race to the finish line without running into obstacles (running into other cars is fine, though).

If you manage to win the race without totaling your car, you will receive the Cool Car Follower as well as Tony’s Car. The latter prize is especially awesome since you can take it on a sweet ride.

The last new ad of the bunch moves from Netflix to the big screen with “Spies in Disguise”. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to watch the trailer and play a racing game. After choosing your driver, you need to blast enemy robots by pressing the spacebar and jump over hazards by clicking your mouse (or tapping the screen if you’re on a mobile device).

Successfully completing your mission will reward you with the Pigeon Transformer and the Laser Scan Tuxedo. With these devices, you now have the choice to turn into either a suave pigeon or a savvy spy. Good luck out there, agents!


Over on social media, the most recent “Fan Art Feature” puts the spotlight on Instagram user @goldsberrie, who drew her Pop OC in a Disney-esque art style. It’s definitely a unique entry in this series, and you have to admit that this guy’s hair is amazing! If you would like the chance to have your art featured by Poptropica, post your art to Twitter or Instagram and tag it #poptropica or #poptropicafanart so they can see it.

That’s all for now. Out of these three new ads, which is your favorite? What’s your favorite new ad prize? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and tune in for more Poptropica news.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

โ€”Gentle Dolphin๐Ÿฌ

Advertisements, Fan Art Features, Social Media

Artsy compacts and spooky costumes!

What’s up, Poptropicans? It’s Lucky Joker here coming at you with some good ole popping news.

First up, we got an artist spotlight over on Poptropica’s social media. The artwork to grace the screen this time is once again by iLee-Font โ€” one of my favorite artists. Well deserved and a perfect piece for the season! ๐ŸŽƒ๐Ÿ‚ I really appreciate Blue Tooth’s efforts in promoting fanart lately.


Also on the Poptropica Creators’ Blog and Instagram, Blue Tooth shared a kooky collection of costumes to inspire anyone still searching for their ideal look for Halloween.

Most of them are exact copies from old costume cards, but they’re still pretty cool. My personal favorite is Wild Runner’s costume, which is more original than most of the others. It kind of looks like something you’d see in one of The Purge movies, haha.


Lastly, there’s an advertisement for Polly Pocket accessible via the island map. To play the game and win some prizes, head on in and talk to Polly standing in the front.

Get ready for a major Shrink Ray Island flashback because things are about to get big. It’s time to shrink! The object is simple: find all ten of the compacts in the allotted time of three minutes.

Once you do, you’ll be rewarded with three stylish Polly Pocket outfits (Polly, Lila, and Shani!) and an awesome Polly Shrink Power! It’s like the Minimizer and Shrink Ray Gun in one, but even better because it’s free! (Definitely consider picking this up if you’re missing out on one of these cool powers.)

Well, that’s it for news for now… but the fun doesn’t end there. Don’t forget to participate in our festive events here on the PHB โ€” like our 11th annual Halloween Costume Contest and/or this month’s Community Creations!

Thank you all for reading and I’ll talk to you guys soon. Pop on!

โ€“ Lucky Joker ๐Ÿ€

Advertisements, Fan Art Features, Social Media

Escape with the abominable snowman

What’s up, Poptropicans? Lucky Joker here filling you in with the latest Poptropica news. Let’s get into it!

Firstly, over on Instagram, Poptropica featured an adorable drawing of the prisoners from Escape From Pelican Rock in a new series, called “Fanart Friday“! The artwork featured is by iLee-Font โ€” an artist we’ve also showcased here on the PHB!


Also, there’s a new ad game on Home Island for the upcoming DreamWorks film, Abominable โ€” which will hit theaters September 27.

The mission is an easy one as usual. All you have to do to get the prizes is jump over the obstacles by clicking until you reach the end.

Once you make it to the end without losing all of your lives (visible at the top right corner), you’ll be rewarded with an Everest Follower and Blueberry Splat. Pretty cool… and remember, members get to keep these forever.

So, what do you think of the creators featuring fans’ art on social media? I love when games acknowledge their fanbase. Will you be seeing Abominable in theaters? Feel free to comment down below.

Thanks for reading as always and I’ll talk to you in the next one. Pop on!

โ€“ Lucky Joker ๐Ÿ€

Reality TV: Wild Safari Island, Sneak Peeks, Social Media

A sneak peek into the safari

What’s up, Poptropicans? It’s Lucky Joker here with some incredible news!

Another sneak peek for the upcoming island has been released in the movie theater on Home Island for our enjoyment. You heard that right โ€” Poptropica just dropped a thirteen-second video clip of the highly-anticipated zoological adventure, and it’s pretty great! Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

In the snippet, we can see a giraffe (from the previous sneak peek), a jumpy camera crew member, and most notably, a large tree with various markings on it. I wonder if those will have any significance in the island at all. I’m guessing not, but hey, you never know. ๐Ÿ˜›

(Oh yeah, HUGE detail: if you hover over the video with your cursor, you can see in the upper left hand corner that the video is titled “Reality TV Sneak Peek” โ€” so that pretty much confirms all the speculation about this being a sequel to the Reality TV of nearly a decade ago!)

And over on Instagram, Blue Tooth has been teasing us about how you might just find the upcoming island in alien territory…

Another thing worth mentioning is this silly little clip of a Zomberry dancing in the Game Show Island lounge, also new in the theater. Check it out:

Looks like this guy has had a few too many blueberry smoothies from the Berry Delicious Smoothie Shop, am I right?

So what do you think about all of this? I’m a little shocked (and majorly happy!) at the fact that the creators are giving out sneak peeks again; it just feels a lot like old times.

That’s it for now, folks. Don’t forget to vote in this year’s Poppies Awards before the 24th and make sure to stay tuned for our continuing yearbook series popping in each and every week.

Thank you all for reading and I’ll talk to you guys in the next one. Pop on!

โ€“ Lucky Joker โ˜˜๏ธ