Survival Island

Nate Greenwall isn’t the only one posting his Poptropica illustrations – I recently stumbled upon the site of Chris Goodwin, an illustrator/designer working for Poptropica, whose online portfolio can be found here. This post comes in three parts. As always, click to enlarge the pics!

Perhaps the most interesting section is character design: designs for E. Vile’s robots from Legendary Swords (as well as some props seen in P-Con: Ep. 2), a huge collection of characters (including several unreleased ones – some possibly for Ep. 3 of PoptropiCon!), unused flying ace designs (the corner suggests they were for the Virus Hunter minigame, Nano-Combat Training), ideas for Max McGullicutty’s look in Survival: Ep. 5, and finally, rough drafts of robots for Game Show Island.

The next section is concept art – ideas for various parts of the game. Here we see color plans for areas inside Joe’s body on Virus Hunter Island, shape ideas for “air creatures” in his lungs, a look at an extravagant (though unused) virus bug, several sketches of dark scenes, racer cars we’ve seen before as a scrapped idea, a Legendary Swords doodle, the Monster Carnival common room, and a sketch from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory Island.

Lastly, there’s a section devoted to scene illustrations – most of these are already in the game, though the one of the cabin is not (but it seems to belong to the unnamed geological park island).

The rest are: the tutorial island in the Poptropica app, Ephraim University (both exterior and interior) from Mocktropica, Soundstage #1 on Back Lot, the Hemlock Herald newspaper room on Ghost Story, a hallway door and post office common room on Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, and the bonus quest on Twisted Thicket. Seeing them each as one big scene makes it all the more awesome. ❤

Poptropica sure is beautiful, and Chris has made some really creative contributions to the game we know and love. Enjoy the Chris Goodwin collection, and stay popping, Poptropicans! 😀

Hey guys! 2014 is coming to an end, and of course, what better way to wrap up than with a recap of Poptropica over the past year? Here we go!

Part One: Islands

Let’s start off with Poptropica’s islands! This year, 5 islands were released. Poptropica also celebrated the rise of a new episodic island system — instead of full islands, islands were divided into parts called episodes. Also, a couple of classic islands were transformed into SUIs (sound-updated islands): Mythology and Shrink Ray. Now, let’s get into the recap of islands released in 2014!

Monster Carnival Island

After 6 long years, Poptropica’s most awaited island finally showed up in February 2014. SInce Monster Carnival was known as a myth in Poptropica for years, this island has always been the talk of the town for years. Monster Carnival Island was one of the easiest islands this year, and the visuals, music, story and characters were all awesome! I just wish it was a little harder, and that Ringmaster Raven was made a bit more despicable. Anyway, it was a great start to the year!

The second Poptropica island this year came as a surprise for the whole Poptropica community: for the first time ever, an Island would be divided into episodes! The best thing about episodic islands is that it leaves the players wondering what will happen next. Survival Island introduced a brand new Poptropica villain, Myron Van Buren, and the ending was brilliant. The island had awesome visuals, a great story, and excellent music to accompany the story. Last but not the least, the island was really unexpected with MVB and the man hunt because we know it’s Survival — man vs nature! Great job, Creators! What I didn’t like was that our blimp was destroyed. How sad. 😦

Mission Atlantis Island

We’re halfway there! So, what about this island? Well, as players become curious about the lost city of Atlantis, we concluded that this was connected to the aliens from Lunar Colony. Although we had no villain to fight in this island, we discovered the ancient underwater city of Atlantis saw some aquatic animals. At first, I thought this island would be a flop, but it wasn’t so bad towards the end. This underwater adventure was really “out of this world”! Even though this island just had three episodes, the adventure was once-in-a-lifetime.

PoptropiCon Island

This brought a new island theme to Poptropica: fantasy & conventions. The first episode of PoptropiCon was really crazy. Just for a ticket, we had to disguise ourselves, and then find a new way to enter the convention center. The second episode was really awesome (I’d give it a 9/10) – and the ending was quite a twist! The final episode isn’t out yet, but we do know Omegon will attack the convention and it’s up to us (and perhaps the Mighty Action Force) to save the day! The battle will start sometime in 2015, so be ready to hero up! Plus, it was pretty cool that the San Diego Comic Con was happening around the same time as this island’s planning stages.

Arabian Nights Island

The winning idea for the Create Your Dream Island Contest is finally on Poptropica! This island is based on 1001 Nights (also known as Arabian Nights), a famous Arabian literary work of the ancient times. Since the announcement of the winner, players were very excited to see this island. I thought it really reflected the culture and life of Arabs back in the old times – I loved the part where the thief couldn’t get the camel to move, so he fed it a banana! The second episode was even better: the characters, puzzles, music and story were all just amazing. It just makes me wonder, where did the prisoner and Vizier go? Were they really killed? Anyway, I’m very excited to meet the genie in 2015!

That’s it for 2014’s islands! Thanks to the Creators for an awesome year of awesome islands. 🙂

Part Two: Timeline of Big Events

Alright, now for the second half of this 2014 recap – looking back onto the biggest Poptropica (and PHB) events of the year! Without further ado, let’s get right into it.

Poptropica Magazines: Revival

At the end of 2013, we announced that we’d be reviving our popular Poptropica fan magazines, then known as The Poptropican’s 911 (for all your Poptropica emergencies), which ran for a year in 2009-2010. And we delivered on that promise this year, with four issues in the first half of the year and six in the second due to changes in the publication schedule and giving the series a delicious new name: The POPCORN. It’s had a good run, but it’s come to an end – at least for now. You can read the issues any time on the PHB’s Magazines page!

Poptropica Labs

a5704-poplabs In January, Poptropica announced a brand new feature allowing Poptropicans to create islands of their own: Poptropica Labs! This awesome feature was released exclusively to members, but many have agreed that it was awesome. Some players have even called it “Poptropica’s Minecraft with a twist”! You can read HPuterpop’s review of the original Labs here.

New PopTopics Books

scaryMonsters Shortly after the excitement of Labs, Poptropica announced two new PopTopics books! This Poptropica book series explores the real-life facts behind the islands. There were two new PopTopics books — Scary Monsters and Wild West. Scary Monsters (pictured) tackles the myths and legends about the world’s cryptids and creepy creatures like vampires and zombies, while Wild West takes you back to the American frontier with cowboys, horses and bandits!

PHB’s Valentine’s Day Party

valentines2014 The PHB threw a whopping 6 parties this year, and the first of them was on Valentine’s Day! Several PHB authors and many more Poptropicans showed up to spread the love on Valentine’s, and everyone said that it was a lot of fun. Check out the recap here. ❤

Poptropica App on iOS & Android

popapp Finally! Poptropica has gone mobile! In March, Poptropica announced and released the official Poptropica app for the iPad, then for iPhone two months later, in May. There was also a lot of excitement over an elusive iPad/iPhone handheld item. Last but not the least, six long months later, Poptropica was finally made available to Android in November. Everyone can play Poptropica anywhere!

PHB’s 11 Million Hits Party

11m party recap Also in March, the PHB hit the milestone of 11 million views! Of course, being the PHB, we had to have a Poptropica party. Between Multiverse hopping, Doodle Race games, and chatting it up on the PHC, it was a lot of fun – check out the recap! Plus, we also raffled off 11 monstrous prizes – rare costumes from Monster Carnival!

Mysterious Disappearance of Shark Boy

In mid-April, Poptropicans began to notice Shark Boy slowly being alienated from the Poptropica world, and it began with the changing of his name into “Shark Guy”. Reporting our findings here on the PHB led to even more eradication of Shark Boy’s existence. You can read all about it in the PHB article titled Mystery of Shark Boy. You’ll be missed, Sharky. 😦

Poptropica Comics

pop comics In May, Poptropica released a brand new feature — original Poptropica comics starring two mismatched boys named Jorge and Oliver who end up exploring peculiar islands in the world of Poptropica. Poptropica comics are updated daily, but are currently on a hiatus, promising to return again in 2015. Plus, there’s now a Poptropica Comics app!

PHB’s 12 Million Hits Party

phb12mILLION Three months after the last party, the PHB reached 12 million hits. Yay! Of course, the celebration called for another PHC/Poptropica party, and this time, it was joined by the Season 1 Finale Livestream of HPuterpop’s Poptropican Portraits series – a successful drawing series with over 100 Poptropican portraits done this year!

Poptropica Sticker Album

sticker cover Though its cover was created years ago, the Poptropica Sticker Album was only made available in July. This book contains over a thousand stickers, each with their own cool little fact! Awesome, right? You can get it for $11.69 on Amazon or your nearest bookstore (if they stock it) to enjoy the stickers!

PHB’s Sixth Birthday Party

PHB6 recap Another successful year has come to pass for the best, the greatest and the coolest blog ever — the PHB! We celebrated our sixth year with a party (of course) and as always, that involved hanging out on the PHC, jumping around Poptropica’s Multiverse rooms, and sharing music on plug.dj. Here’s to more years to come – long live the PHB!

PHB’s 13 Million Hits Special: Daily Pop Archive

Thirteen million?! Seriously? 13 million alright. Well, we laid off on the partying this time, but we celebrated with some other special things: 1) the PHB finally built up its very own Daily Pop Sneak Peek Archive, with each and every DP sneak peek and caption ever to exist; 2) we surveyed our readers to get to know everyone better; and 3) we gave a shoutout to 13 lucky Poptropica fansites!

Poptropica Land

PopLand_TempImage In August, Poptropica Labs got a major upgrade in the form of Poptropica Land! With an ancient hammer, we had the power to create and destroy our lands at will, and by mining Poptanium, we could unlock more things! It was exclusively released to members at first, but in October, the Creators released Poptropica Land to all with several theme challenges and posted their favorites (including Slanted Fish’s dream home!). In 2015, everyone will get to play the next reincarnation: Poptropica Realms!

Poptropica’s First Music Album

volume1 In September, Poptropica released their first-ever music album! The first volume of this album contains music from different sound-updated islands, but with a unique sound not heard in-game. These MP3s are all instrumental tracks. You can buy the album from Amazon or from the iTunes Store. Rumor has it that Poptropica will have more volumes soon!

Poptropica’s 7th Birthday + PHB Party

Also in September, Poptropica finally turned seven! Yay! Continuing their birthday tradition, Poptropica released a color-changing balloon with the number “7” on it and had their annual balloon scavenger hunt for the seventh year birthday costume – which had no cakes this year. The PHB threw another party to celebrate Poptropica’s seventh year and the 15th birthday of PHB author Samwow5! We inflated our seventh year balloons as we grooved to the songs playing at Sam’s plug.dj station, and it was a blast.

Forgotten Islands for 3DS

forgotten islands 3ds In October, Poptropica’s Forgotten Islands video game was finally made available to the Nintendo 3DS, boasting stereoscopic 3D Poptropica graphics for the first time ever! Forgotten Islands is also available on iOS devices. If you need help or just want to see what the game’s like, check out the PHB’s written walkthough – it’s loaded with pictures!

PHB’s Christmas Party 2014

popchristmas edit Less than two weeks ago, the PHB threw its last party of the year: a fun-filled Poptropica Christmas party! Everyone had a great time hopping between Multiverses, chatting on the PHC, and jiving along to Christmas carols on plug.dj. Check out our recap post – this one even contains a video to encapsulate the goings-on of the PHC, a place where many PHB readers regularly hang out, so go check it out: you might just have fun.

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That’s it for a wonderful year on Poptropica and the PHB! Next year’s going to be full of surprises and great updates, I’m sure. Are you excited as we are for 2015?