Shark Boy Mystery, Social Media

Poptropica… cartoons?

Hey guys, BT here to share with you something interesting the Creators have been working on. Based on their blog post, it’s going to be a feature for the app with original videos, called Poptropica TV! According to a tweet by Poptropica, it’s coming out next week to the app.

Earlier today on their YouTube channel, the Creators released two new videos! One is a cartoon animation narrated by Shark Guy (glad to see ya back, buddy!) about what sharks are actually like:

At the end of the shark video, the seal man at the end says “Tuna in next week!” There’s no official word yet, but it sounds like these short silly cartoons may be a weekly thing!

The second video is a Draw My Life of everyone’s favorite Mega Fighting Bots geek and Poptropica intern, Gamer Guy! Check it out:

Poptropica has been dropping hints about cartoon animations for a while now via Twitter, and it looks like they were about webtoons with voice acting such as these. What do you think of this first dose? I’m looking forward to what else this’ll bring!

BT out!

Contests, Livestreams, PHB Parties, Poppies

The Poppies: Livestream & Party Details!

The parties have ended! Click here for the livestream & here for the chat.
Click here for our recap post with pics and here for the list of winners.

Hi Gs,

I’m bear-y excited about these details that I’ll be reveal– what, we’re not doing that anymore? Oh. Ok. Well, we’re nearing the end of the Poppies, our very own Poptropica awards event, and you guys have spoken! (Haven’t voted yet? Now’s your chance!) We’re going to celebrate the winners with a couple of fun parties, the details of which are below:

poppies parties

The climax of the event will happen on the Saturday of this week – the 25th of July at 8:00 pm EST (that’s 7pm CST / 6pm MST / 5pm PST) – starting with a livestream hosted by yours truly, where I’ll be announcing the winners of the awards. At the same time, you can mill about on the PHC chatting and joining Multiverse rooms with other awards show attendees! For this, we encourage you to formally dress up in your Poptropican best: ties, tuxes, dresses, and all!

We’ll also be having an after-party on the PHC on Sunday, July 26th at 10:00 am EST, so people have a better chance at making it to at least one of the two party times. Plus, Sunday is the date of the PHB’s 7th anniversary, so come in your 7th birthday balloons and join our Multiverse rooms!

To join the chat hangout, just visit xat.com/thePHC or click on the “Chat” tab in the navigation bar on the PHB. The Poptropica Help Chat, or PHC, is the official PHB chatroom, but besides hosting parties, you’re welcome year-round to come chat anytime with other Poptropicans online there (sometimes even PHB authors!).

Get ready for jokes! Awards! And maybe me drawing some people hmm… Click here for the livestream link! When it’s time (8pm EST on Saturday), I’ll be announcing the winners there, and you can watch the show live (or see the archived video later, if you’re not able to make it).

If you haven’t already, you have until Saturday to cast your votes in the Poppies Awards!

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Advertisements, Popspiracy Theories, Social Media, The Missing Link

The Missing Link: Poptropica’s Glitchy Cash Cow

(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

Arabian Nights Island, Graphic Novels, Sneak Peeks, Social Media

Release dates, mysterious islands, and BTS images

Hey guys! Lots of stuff on Twitter, as usual. I asked the Creators about release dates for islands, and they weren’t too specific, but we now have a general idea of when new islands are coming out! Knowing the Poptropica Creators though, the dates below could change.

At least it’s something, right? 😛 Just to recap: Mystery of the Map Island is planned for May for members, and June for everyone. Arabian Nights Ep. 3 comes out around July.

Now, the islands in the tweets above aren’t the only ones in our future. The Creators want your opinion on some mysterious new designs for a mysterious new island. Remember, nothing is official yet, so the island might not even come out!

Seems like their idea somehow relates to jail, judging by the police officers, inmates, and canines (“K9”, heh) above. Hopefully we will have more info on the island soon!

Moving on to different islands, we also have two other behind the scenes images from Twitter.

The first image shows a, uh, man-baby of sorts… *cough* and the other shows on old fort on a tropical island. These pictures are most likely for Arabian Nights Island and Mystery of the Map Island respectively. Post any ideas you have about how the man-baby relates to the island below! 🙂

Last, but not least, we have PopStorms 24 & 25! #24 is basically the creativity of a Poptropica Creator, and #25 was posted with the caption: “This character has Poptropica eyes and loves ding dongs.” 😛

That’s all for now!

~SD

Arabian Nights Island, Galactic Hot Dogs Island, Sneak Peeks, Social Media

Office supplies: books, concept art, & toys – check!

Okay, let’s go over my check list… behind the scenes books? Check! Concept art? Check! An office filled with toys? Triple check!

Now, at this point, you may be super confused, but that’s perfectly fine because it will all soon be clear!

*cough* Aaaaannnyway… you may have noticed how the Creators have taken a bit of a break from posting behind the scenes awesomeness on Twitter. But just recently, the Creators have returned with some more great concept art! The first piece of behind the scenes awesomeness is some early concept art for Galactic Hot Dogs Island.

ghd concept art

The second image we have shows a bookshelf, most likely for Arabian Nights Island.

arabian nights concept art

A lot of these books seem like they would come in handy! These BTS pictures are also found on Poptropica as Daily Pops.

Last, but not least, we get a glimpse at life in a Poptropica Creator’s office.

So. Many. Collectibles. Creators, if you’re reading this, I wouldn’t mind taking a few toys off your hands. 😉 Looking around, we can see t-shirts of Poptropica’s greatest super villains, a cylindrical object beside it (a Poptropica pencil case? Hard to tell!) and a Mystery of the Map poster drawn in the style of the Poptropica book covers.

Well, that’s it for now guys! Anything on the checklist that I missed? Don’t worry, check back into the PHB soon for more updates! 🙂

~SD