Books, Web Development

This Expedition is Not a Lost Edition – plus interview with book author Mitch Krpata!

Hey Poptropicans!

For all you avid readers waiting, the second Poptropica graphic novel, The Lost Expedition, has finally been released to bookstores – and those who pre-ordered the book should be receiving it soon!

You can order the book on Amazon, among other places, if you want to check out what happens next in the adventures of Oliver, Jorge, and Mya following the events of the first book, Mystery of the Map, which was also made into an island. We’re not sure if The Lost Expedition will be made into an island, but Poptropica Creator Skinny Moon recently stated that it’s not one of the islands they’re currently working on. Also, unlike the first book, this one isn’t being distributed for free online!

PHB author Brave Tomato recently uncovered some pretty cool info about the third book as well, which you can check out here. In the meantime, here’s the description for book two!

Oliver, Mya, and Jorge continue their search for home, with a few hilarious stops along the way. As the friends set sail for new sights, they find the evil Octavian is still hot on their trail, and he’s determined to get his hands on their magical map. To make matters worse, a mysterious organization is keen on expelling the three friends from Poptropica. As the pals travel, they find that each island is filled with its own unique brand of peril, and the mystery surrounding the map and Poptropica itself begins to unfold. Will our trio be able to once again outfox Octavian and discover the identity of this secret society?

Over on the Creators’ Blog, there’s an interview with the author, Mitch Krpata (who, by the way, is the voice of Captain Crawfish)! Here’s an excerpt below, but you’re encouraged to check out the full exclusive interview on the Creators’ Blog!

So, Mitch. Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m married and have two young kids and a dog. I like to watch movies, read books, play board games, and sleep late. Anything that doesn’t require me to leave the house.

How long have you been working on Poptropica? What do you do exactly?

I have been working on Poptropica from the beginning. I was part of the team that met every week in a windowless conference room to brainstorm ideas, and also helped to lay out Early Poptropica. My main job has been to write the island scripts, but I also help with marketing and promotion, licensed products (like the books and Ubisoft games), making our YouTube walkthroughs… I’m also a real cut-up on Slack.(Editor’s note: He certainly is. His gifs are epic.)

Tell us something random about yourself that Poptropica fans would find funny or surprising.

I love professional wrestling. One day I will convince the powers that be to let me make a Lucha Libre Island.

Can you give us some hints about books 3 and 4?

Book 3 will finally start to answer some of the many, many questions that have come up in the first two books. It’s also action-packed! Can’t say much about book 4 just yet…

Oliver and Jorge battle it out in a game of Poptropica soup words. Who wins?

Oliver would win because he’s a total bookworm. Jorge would probably look for swear words, which aren’t allowed.

For the rest of the awesome interview, check out this post on the Creators’ Blog celebrating the launch of the book! Congratulations to everyone involved with the book production! 🎉

Creator Skinny Moon, who conducted the interview, ends the post with this snazzy animated gif that she says “may or may not be video straight from Poptropica HQ.” If it is – it sure looks like the Creators get up to some dizzyingly fun antics! And given her earlier comment about Mitch’s gif-making prowess, it may even have come from the man of the hour himself!

kbs

Anyway, we’ll let you know here on the PHB what interesting information we uncover from the second book once we have a chance to get to it. Stay tuned! 😀

Contests, Web Development

#PoptropicaArt Facebook finalists and PHB happenings!

Hey Poptropicans!

The #PoptropicaArt contest (details here!) continues on in full swing, and just recently on the Creators’ Blog, Skinny Moon posted the second round of finalists, this time pulling entries from Facebook. (The first round of finalists can be viewed here.)

Among the entries, we see works by Orange Monster, Mia G., Yuan V., Kayla V., three pieces by Maryann P., and three more by Tiger35767. Congratulations to the artists! Check out the art below!

Don’t worry if your art hasn’t been featured yet – Poptropica promises to feature lots more art over the upcoming weeks. For the next round of finalists, they’ll be looking to Instagram!

There’s still plenty of time left to create something for the contest, which ends September 5th. To enter, just post your art on either Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram with the hashtag #PoptropicaArt (or ask an adult or another Poptropican if you don’t have access to any). Full contest rules are here.

I’d also like to mention a quick site update – you may recall earlier when we implemented some fun updates to the PHB. Unfortunately, some of these have had to go – but perhaps not completely!

While the new features were generally well received, there were unfortunately a few technical difficulties regarding the change that have led to us recently switching back to WordPress.com, our original server. As a result, we’ve had to let go of a few features (such as the Art gallery and Forums) because they’re not supported on WP.com.

Although we’re sad to see them go, we hope you enjoyed them while they lasted. If you did, then we have a couple of recommendations for you: the We-Love-Poptropica DeviantArt group is where the art comes from, and it’s a community full of Poptropica fan artists, including many of the PHB staff!

Also, if you liked the forums, we hope you’ll check out and participate in our PoptropicaHelp subreddit, where you can submit all sorts of Poptropica things (art, theories, stories, the list goes on!) and share your thoughts on topics started by other Poptropicans. We even recently added flairs for you to show off your tribe allegiance! It’s quick and easy to get started with a Reddit account.

Speaking of art, here at the PHB we’re also doing a little art contest of our own as part of the Tribal Tournament we have going on this month! Check out this post for more information about the Artistic Athletes round. There’s still time to enter (until August 21), so compete while you have the chance!

poptribe art

Plus, keep an eye out next week for our final Tribal Tournament challenge. 😉

Stay popping, Poptropicans!

Web Development

Poppin’ changes for our Poppin’ blog

phbupdates

Hey Poptropicans!

As you may have noticed, the PHB has had a few interesting new changes around here. We’ve also had a bit of downtime recently – apologies for that, and thanks for your patience – but not to worry, we are back up and running – hopefully for good! This was due to a recent change in which we moved our blog from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress(.org), which gives us more control over our site.

Some of these changes (marked by *) would not have been possible without the move, so we hope you especially enjoy them! Here’s a recap of everything that’s new:

  1. *Art page – view fan art submitted to our DeviantArt page in a cool looking grid! (This in no way attempts to replace the dA group, but rather encourages more people to join.) “Magazines” (The POPCORN) is now included under this button on the nav bar.
  2. *Forums – right here on the PHB, so it’s easy to pop into the conversation! Create new topics to discuss things both on and off the topic of Poptropica, reply to other threads, share your fan art and fan fictions, and more! Unlike the PHC, your messages are likely to be seen longer, as a forum moves less quickly than a chat by design.
  3. *User accounts – You can now register for your own Poptropica Help Blog account for posting on the forums and other parts of the site. You’ll even get a snazzy profile page with a cover photo of your choice! Register today!
  4. *Heading font to Luckiest Guy – We’re now using one of the main fonts Poptropica uses regularly on their website, Luckiest Guy, in our headings.
  5. *Author blurbs can be seen at the bottom of each post.
  6. *About page has a cleaner design, with author blurbs spread out and less text to go over.
  7. Glitching section – dedicated to various aspects of Pop glitching, including clothing and item IDs! It’s the new, improved “Cheats, Codes, & Glitches” page, and includes a ton more stuff too!
  8. “Cool Stuff” page renamed “Pop Plus” (as in Poptropica Plus, meaning extra stuff to help you take full advantage of your Poptropica experience)!
  9. Poptropica Lexicon page under Pop Plus – get to know the slang of those who Pop!
  10. Island trivia pages are now combined with their respective written walkthrough pages and the whole combination is known as an Island Guide!
  11. “Party” subheading includes some former Cool Stuff pages, plus the Game Guides and Tribes pages, because they all involve partying with other Poptropicans!
  12. “Wiki” button on the navigation bar leads to our Poptropica Wiki on Gamepedia! Help us edit!

Although these changes may not seem too major, we’re excited for you to check them out.

Since the PHB is always a work in progress, we do look out for feedback from you guys! If any of the new features are not too popular among the community, we will reconsider how it is used, and similarly, we’d love to know what you find is an improvement as well. And if you have any suggestions for new features, we’ll consider those, too.

Whether we continue with self-hosted WordPress in the future will depend on how well this goes, but we’re hoping it works out well for everyone. Stats and subscribers have been transferred as well. If you are experiencing any technical difficulties, please wait for about half a minute and then do a quick refresh of the page. For other issues, let us know and we will help!

Stay popping, Poptropicans! 🙂

Contests, PHB Parties, Poppies, Web Development

Recap and a wrap: Poppies 2016 Party!

Hey Poppie-troppie-cans!

As you’ve no doubt noticed on the PHB, over the past couple of weeks we’ve been hosting The Poppies, which is our Poptropica community awards event! We’re thankful for everyone who participated in nominating, voting, dressing up, partying, and of course, appreciating.

The main event, the Poppies party and winners livestream, took place on July 26, 2016 – the PHB’s 8th anniversary. Check out the well-dressed Poptropicans in the party collage below!

poppies2016 recap

Between the Poppies winners being announced via livestream (check out the winners here!), jokes and chatter filling up the PHC, and rounds of game battles, cake throws, and 8th birthday pigs in Multiverse rooms, it was a lot of fun and frenzy for everyone involved, including the PHB staff of course!

Here at the PHB, we’re amazed and grateful for all of your support, and how it has carried us for eight whole years. This year, in 2016, we began publishing Poptropica stories from the community, known as My Place in Poptropica. It has been quite interesting to hear your stories, and we’re honored to be part of it. We look forward to even more poppin’ times in the future.

Also, you may have noticed some new changes here on the PHB. They will be discussed further in another post, but we hope you enjoy them now and onwards. In the meantime, if you are experiencing any downtime, please just wait about half a minute and then do a quick refresh on the page.

One of the biggest new changes to highlight is the onsite forums – discussion boards right here on the PHB, for connecting our community in matters both on and off Poptropica. Unlike the fast-paced nature of the PHC, forum messages can stay for a while, and is its own medium worth exploring, so we hope you’ll check it out! We’d love to hear feedback as well.

Thanks again to all of you for being part of the Poptropica community, and we hope you enjoyed the awards for 2016. Congratulations to all the winners, and see you next time on the red carpet!

🌟 Stay popping, Poptropicans! 🌟

– the PHB team –

Web Development

Reintroduction: Koi

Hi, I’m Koi.

koi spencerYou may remember me as Cobalt Spinner (or just Cobalt, or Spencer), a former PHB author. I’m back.

Listen – I’ve rewritten this post more times than anyone should consider normal. I can’t really find the right words to put out there for y’alls.

Please just ask anything in the comments, and I’ll address it. If I answered the same question already, I’ll still reply to it.

Better things coming.

-Koi (◑‿◐)