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.

Social Media, Web Development

Announcing… the Poptropica Help Subreddit!

HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

I’m pleased to announce the opening of the Poptropica Help subreddit – at reddit.com/r/poptropicahelp! It’s essentially a minimalistic forum (you might even call it PHF (Poptropica Help Forum) 2.0!) for all things Poptropica – check it out:

subreddit

If you casually browse the internet, you may have heard of Reddit, which is basically a user-generated hub of news links that shows the most popular stories based on user votes. Subreddits focus on specific niches, in this case Poptropica, and this subreddit is now another facet of our Poptropica Help Network.

On the Poptropica Help subreddit, we encourage you to post helpful tips, jokes, witty ideas, theories, costumes, and basically anything imaginable! Once you post your tidbit, it gets thrown into a big bucket of other posts. Users of the subreddit sort the cream from the crud (by “upvoting” or “downvoting”) until the best posts show up on the “hot” section of the forum.

You’ll need a Reddit account (it’s free) to vote, comment, and post on our subreddit – plus there are many other subreddits out there you may be interested in! In any case, while there is an /r/poptropica, it is mostly inactive – but with your help, we can make our Poptropica Help subreddit a hotbed of activity!

Pop on over and start posting some Poptropica content! 😀

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Wiki

Don’t H8 M8, R8 8/8 for Poptropica’s 8th birthd8

Ultimate iPad Expert

Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultim8 iPad Expert here with some news on Poptropica’s 8th birthday! The Creators took to their blog to explain a little about what’s happening for this year’s celebration. For those who don’t know, Poptropica’s birthday is in September – the whole month counts, because no one seems to know the specific date. 😛

Anyway, it seems we’ll be getting more giveaways, which could mean some really epic prizes. They also mentioned games, which I’m not sure about really. Does this mean some sort of birthday mini-game or something? Who knows? Looks like the fun starts next week on September 15th:

I’m excited to see what Poptropica does for this year’s birthday suit, if there’s to be one, and so are fellow PHB authors Slip and HP. Check out this fan idea from Slip, plus HP’s remade version:

So that’s all for the 8th birthday so far, but I wanted to give a little update from the Poptropica (Help) Wiki. If you’ve visited there recently, you may have noticed our new logo:

NewPoptropicaWikiLogoGamepedia

That’s not all – we’ve also been working on a spiffy redesign for the entire website! Just a reminder that we recently relocated from Wikia to host the wiki on Gamepedia – head over there to check out the new layout and help with editing pages!

PoptropicaWikiWebsiteDesign

The design is still under development, but figured I’d show it off to you guys since I think it’s pretty awesome. Big thanks to anddrewwiles (aka HPuterpop) and Ylimegirl for helping to make the new design a reality.

So, are you excited about Poptropica’s 8th birthday? What do you think of the new Poptropica Wiki design? Comment below.

• Ultimate iPad Expert •

Timmy Failure Island, Web Development

World Record Maintenance and Car Crashes

Ultimate iPad Expert

Heyyo Poptropicans! It’s Ultimate iPad Expert here to bring you the latest Poptropican news. Lotsa unrelated stuff has been happening recently, but I’m here to bring it to you in one post anyways. *thumbs up* *ding*

To start off, this past week’s Timmy Failure prize was the release of the island’s common room, called Maury’s Museum of World Records, which contains multiple wacky world records. And Timmy Failure creator, Stephan Pastis, is showing off some of his comedy in the room, in the seemingly missing “Most Delicious Donut”.

Don’t forget you can also redeem the code BURRITO for a Señor Burrito Follower!

Speaking of Timmy Failure wackiness, the Creators recently posted a little sneak peek of the upcoming island, featuring a car crashed into a house:

crash

In other news, Poptropica was recently temporarily down for maintenance starting Thursday afternoon, the Creators seemed to have everything up and running the following day (Friday morning). 😀 Hopefully whatever the problem was is all good now, or perhaps they were just working on adding some new stuff behind the scenes.

PopDown

Lastly, this may not be new news to everyone, but the Creators have finally acknowledged Home Island (or Hub Island or Tutorial, whatever you call it) on their blog, for the first time since releasing it two weeks ago. Black Widow talked a little about the New You shop on the island, and some of the cool features available in the New You shop.

For more info and a walkthrough on this island, check out the PHB’s Hub Island Guide!

NewYouBlackWidow

Well, that’s all from me. Be on the lookout in the next few weeks for a new series of posts we’ll be releasing. 😉 What do you think of the new Timmy Failure common room? Comment below.

• Ultimate iPad Expert •

Membership, Nabooti Island, Web Development

Raise to 150 credits & membership to play Nabooti

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! There’s good news and bad news –

First, the good news: Poptropicans are getting a raise! Instead of the measly 50 credits we usually get for completing an island, the reward is now being bumped up to a whopping 150 credits.

150credits

In earlier years, Poptropica used to give out 100 credits for an island finish, but this is even better! Like before, the reward only applies for the first time you complete each island. Also, the amount of credits you had before this update remains the same, so if you’ve finished every island already, you’ll have to wait for the next one to come along to enjoy the bonus.

Why are the Creators doing this? Perhaps they’ve realized how hard it is to earn enough to save up for the many items available in the Store, and implemented this change out of the goodness of their hearts. Or are there going to be changes made that will make us wish we had more credits to spend?

There’s cause for suspicion, and here comes the bad news: remember how Nabooti Island recently became just a demo version to non-members, with a prompt to get membership to play the full island?

Well, the plan isn’t to make this the next SUI. It’s another ploy to make buying a membership more enticing, because here’s the thing: Nabooti Island, which has been free to play for years, now requires membership – and more changes to membership are to come, according to these tweets:

Will more islands follow the same fate as Nabooti? (Is that why we have the chance to earn more credits – before more islands are locked on us?)

Of course, this isn’t an issue to members, but this could be potentially damaging to the current balance in the offerings between membership and free-to-play: it could mean more members, or it could mean more quitters if there is too much emphasis on membership. Possibly both.

We’ll have to see what’s in store (literally? 😛 ) – but tread carefully, Poptropica.

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Popstorms, Realms, Web Development

Sandbox acquisition, animation confirmation, & more

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! As you may recall from recent news, Poptropica is no longer owned by Pearson, but for those of you with an even keener eye, you may notice the copyright adorning the bottom of the homepage now being accredited to Sandbox Networks.

sandbox poptropica

You can read more about the Sandbox acquisition in this article. Family Education Network, formerly a division of Pearson, was recently sold to this London, UK-based company, and along with it went Poptropica. Both the leaders of Sandbox and Poptropica seem positive about this change, so here’s hoping this’ll make Poptropica bigger and better in due time! 🙂

In fact, the article mentions a quote from Jeff Kinney revealing that “…we’ll be seeing the stories and characters from FEN brought to life on the big screen.” And this tweet from Poptropica confirms that they are indeed working on an animated show – the question now is “when?”

On a different note, here are a couple of Popstorm illustrations that have recently popped up:

Popstorm #28: Fish!
Popstorm #29: Parading Pigs

Also, Captain Crawfish has posted a new Remarkable Realms video on the official blog, which you can check out below. This one showcases a waterpark made by Fast Lizard – and better yet, a comment made by the Creators on the video assures us that we’ll soon get to share our Realms with each other: “by end of June, we hope to have function that allows users to share on their own”.

And, just in case you haven’t been keeping up with our Twitter timeline (either on the sidebar of the PHB or by following us), here are some tweeted tidbits that may be of interest:

  • Between the site and app, Poptropica gets about 4.5 million different users a month, playing from 100+ different countries. (see tweet)
  • Even Jeff Kinney hasn’t completed every Poptropica island. (see tweet)
  • Arabian Nights Ep. 3 is currently scheduled for late June. (see tweet)
  • The unnamed underground cave island (hinted at in past sneak peeks) has been an idea from the Creators for years, but the storyline is still uncertain. (see tweet)
  • There are plans to offer Poptropica in Spanish in late 2015 or early 2016. (see tweet)
  • There are 31 Creators at Poptropica offices. (see tweet)
  • Among the Poptropica Creators, there are two Jeffs, two Jennifers, and two Jons. (see tweet)

That’s all for this post, but be sure to catch up below for news on the Poptropica Hall of Fame, new Poptropica-comics-based games on the mobile app, and more. Stay popping, Poptropicans! 😉