Category: Web Development

Whether it’s the PHB or Poptropica.com, these websites get updated from time to time, and these posts are here to document those developments.

Contests, PHB Parties, Poppies, Web Development

Recap and a wrap: Poppies 2016 Party!

Slanted Fish

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

Spencer

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 (◑‿◐)

Web Development

An End to a Mighty Short Journey

Mighty Gamer

Hey there, Poptropicans.

PMFM21-mightygamer126This is Mighty Gamer – coming at you with bad news, instead of the usual good news (that being a news post or a sneak peeks post). I have decided to quit blogging, and not only that, I am also leaving the community entirely. And no, this is not a prank. I really am leaving.

I’d like to thank the authors who supported my blogging. Not only the authors from this here blog, but the authors from Explore, Collect, Compete, a blog I made on the 6th of November, 2015, as well. Even to the authors – well, former authors now – of The MEGA Poptropica Blog!, which is now inactive.

Also, a huge thanks to the commenters and likers, as well. Without you guys, I wouldn’t even be here to begin with. You were the biggest supporters of all.

Oh, right. And the reason I’m leaving. Well, I have many reasons, many of which I can’t name. For the reasons I can name, however…

To explain in the most simple way I can, I lost interest in Poptropica. Period. That alone is enough for me to quit. But there’s also school, and there are real life responsibilities I must attend to.

And family. That’s where my explanation gets cut short.

I apologize for not being here very long, but I did have a ton of fun while it lasted. Thank you for inviting me, Slanted Fish. I was warmly welcomed from the beginning and everyone’s been so nice to me, but I have to go now.

For the last time, ever,

– Mighty Gamer.

Guest Posts, StoryArc Media

“Adventure Pig” App Review with Poptropicans!

Slanted Fish

(This is a guest post co-written by Poptropicans Tall Cactus and Marshmallow about the new game Adventure Pig, released by Poptropica’s parent company, StoryArc Media. Enjoy!)

adventurepig

Hey, PHB readers! Tall Cactus here (I’m the one on the left above, and Marshmallow is on the right). If you have gone on Pop recently, you may have noticed the Adventure Pig ads. You know, the app being made by StoryArc Media, Poptropica’s new-ish parent company. Adventure Pig released to the Netherlands and Ireland less than two months ago, but now – good news, it has released worldwide!

And, don’t forget about me! Marshy’s here too, with more information on the new app! After downloading, and seeing the StoryArc Media logo, you might recognize the background music from somewhere familiar: it’s the starting music to the Poptropica app, with some trumpet mixed in there too.

Yeah, and the clicking noise is the exact same as the Poptropica app’s. Oh well, the music that actually plays during the game levels sounds original, at least.

You also get to choose your age at the beginning of the game, possibly to set the difficulty throughout the game. You can choose ages 1 through 99, so I’m pretty sure this is available for the whole family, as the description of the game says. There are 150 levels in all, and they seem pretty basic. Your goal is to get the Adventure Pig to land safely on the landing without touching the mud. You click on items underneath the pig to have him fall all the way to the landing at the bottom. There’s also a chicken next to Adventure Pig… you might get an extra star for having the chicken land safely, but we’re pretty sure if the chicken lands in the mud, it won’t affect your score.

It’s actually a bit harder than it looks, at least for me! (Marshmallow seems to be much better at it.)

You can download Adventure Pig from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store for Androids. There is a free version of the app, and an ad-free that costs US$1.99. For the purpose of this guest post, I went ahead and downloaded the free version, but free to buy the full version if you really love the game. There are currently 4 chapters, with 40 levels total.

Even though I’m still stuck on Level 4 (don’t judge), you can see that up ahead there are some different settings for your pig to land in, such as Swine Dining in a restaurant and Pig Apple (Big Apple) in a city like New York. Sounds cool!

You can even find a list of StoryArc Media people – some of them Poptropica Creators as well (Nate Greenwall, Mitch Krpata, Jen MacLean, Jennifer Wood…) – in the credits! Others on the list may or may not be as well, but we’re not so sure.

adventurepig4

Another thing is, the graphics of the game are actually really nice looking, except for the pig and chicken’s creepy eyes, of course! That, Marshy had to keep pointing out. While it looks similar to Poptropica, it seems a little different. Is this what the New Poptropica’s graphics will be like?

Final Thoughts

Tall Cactus: While this game has great graphics and can be a challenging puzzle game, I’m kinda bored by it. There isn’t really a story for it or anything. Then again, this is a game that’s meant to be played for short periods of time, and it’s probably meant for younger kids (it says ages 9-11 in the App Store description). So if you’re bored somewhere, you want a challenge and you like pig puns, this game is for you. But if you’re home for a long period of time on your desktop computer, you should just play more Poptropica.

Marshmallow: It actually seems like a pretty fun spin of a simple game mechanic, because there are games pretty similar this on the App Store. So, I would say, nice job, StoryArc Media! But, please, make level 7 a little easier. I’m already stuck this early in the game! 😛

–

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Tall Cactus and Marshmallow! 

The PHB welcomes guest posting from anyone in our community if you have something to share, whether it be sneak peeks, My Place in Poptropica stories, or any other ideas you might have. We also encourage sharing on our subreddit and the PHC.

If you have an idea for a guest post, send it in to [email protected]! 🙂

Mythology Island, PoptropiCon Island, Skullduggery Island, Web Development, Zomberry Island

Poptropica: The Mighty Action Trailer Video!

Ylimegirl

Hey guys! It’s Ylimegirl, back by popular demand!

Today I’m here to talk about a video just posted by Poptropica’s YouTube channel, entitled “Poptropica: A fun and safe virtual world for kids!” It can also be viewed on the front page of the Poptropica website.

The video is less than a minute long and shows many of the different worlds in Poptropica.

And now, time for an over-analysis/summary of it!

The video starts off in the clouds and flies down through some islands before arriving at Mythology Island’s Mount Olympus, where we see a particularly angry Zeus send out a bolt of lightning.

Then a crowd of various Poptropica characters are shown at PoptropiCon as various streaks fly around, which are revealed to be the Mighty Action Force heroes Fashion Ninja, Goldface, Elf Archer, Teen Arachnid, and World Guy. (Nice of them to justify Elf Archer’s flying skills with some sort of… propeller-arrow thing, but how can World Guy and Fashion Ninja do it? I mean, even Teen Arachnid is a stretch with his web-slinging based on how they’re zooming around. Is it because of the magic auras? If that’s the case why did Elf Archer need the propeller-arrow? …I’m thinking too hard about this, aren’t I.)

Next a mystical space portal opens, showing us some… red glowing eyes? Dunno what that is. Maybe it’ll be relevant in the future.

Then it’s time for Zomberry Island, featuring Joe Puddy clinging to a giant blueberry rolling across a bridge. And then we get to see the Phoenix Warbird and whatever-Crawfish’s-ship-is-called fire cannons at each other. (And somehow they don’t destroy each other even though they’re approximately 10 feet apart.)

And for our closing shot, the Poptropica blimp (you can see the back view) travels over the various islands and up into the sky, revealing the title!

So, trailer! Has nice animation, but no rats. (Creators, why must you forsake us like this? You know all we truly want is rats!) They did feature Fashion Ninja and Teen Arachnid more prominently in PoptropiCon, meaning there might be more in store for that island and those characters. It also seems to hint at what’s to come with those red eyes in space. Seriously what was up with that. Well, it was a Daily Pop, but I still don’t really know what it means.

Speaking of Daily Pops, I found three others for this video: one of Mount Olympus, a rough of the blimp flying, and a 3D model of PoptropiCon. Looks like they’ve been working on this for at least six months. Well, kudos creators, all that time paid off. Looks really good!

That 3D model could possibly be a glimpse at how they’re using Unity to make a 2D game on a 3D platform. And there appears to be a more fluid animation style for Zeus and a slightly different look for the PoptropiCon heroes in the video, which might end up being related to New Pop. Or it’s just easier to animate that way, I dunno. At this point I think I’m just rambling.

So, there you have it! Proof that neither I nor Poptropica are dead.

-Ylimegirl