Escape From Pelican Rock Island Guide

Synopsis

Pelican Rock is the toughest prison ever built. And after you’re framed for a crime you didn’t commit, it’s your new home! Use your wits to devise an escape plan, and your nerve to pull it off. But getting out is just the beginning — because the real criminal is still out there!

For walkthroughs on Escape From Pelican Rock Island,
scroll down.

Resources on this page: Island Extras | Synopsis from Poptropica | Quippy’s Store Items | Video Walkthrough | Written Walkthrough | Album Photos | Trivia

Island Extras: PHB Island Review | Official Tour | Video Playlist | Pop Places IRL

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Quippy’s Store Items

Quippy sells the following items in Bert’s Basement Gym, the common room: Prisoner Costume, Pet Bird Follower, Escapee Dr. Hare*, and Handcuff Toss*.

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Video Walkthrough

For a written walkthrough with pictures, scroll down on this page!

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Written Walkthrough

Walkthrough written by Slanted Fish & Brave Tomato
Special thanks to: Slippery Raptor, Captain Crawfish, Happy Panda, & Nice Hawk

Welcome to Bay City, a lovely seaside town modeled after San Francisco. Walking left, you’ll admire how everything seems to be just fine and dandy until — “stop, thief!” — a masked bandit streaks past with a bag of loot!

Being the heroic Poptropican you are, there’s no time to waste, and you dash off right in the same direction. Run up to the top of the hill, where you’ll see the stack of money the bandit dropped.

Just then, the bandit reappears, covering you with the emptied sack and revealing their identity to be – your doppelgänger! Yes, this sneaky character looks exactly like you, but with shoes! He/She will then run off, leaving you to be caught by the police, who refuse to believe you’ve just been framed.

Welcome to Pelican Rock Prison

You’ll be taken to Pelican Rock, a high-security island prison much like Alcatraz, where the worst offenders are sent. Fun fact: most of the characters you’ll meet on this adventure are the same gender as your character!

It’s time for lockdown, which means a guard will be prowling about to make sure everyone’s in bed. When the guard walks off, pick up the Metal Cup on the table. You can also get a closer look at the grate in your cell, which you’ll need later. It’s your first night, so click on the bed and get some sleep.

In the morning, you’ll be taken to the prison yard for some recreation time. Here, you can talk to your fellow inmates. There’s Patches with the bird, Marion who’s reading a pamphlet, Van Nostrand the painter, Florian “Flashy” Fosbury the weightlifter, Big Tuna who hates you, and later on, you’ll meet a pair of twins.

After you mingle with everyone, Warden Sharp will appear, ordering all the inmates to line up so she can intimidate them with a speech. One of the prisoners, Big Tuna, will even try to fight you thinking you’re the real Booted Bandit – but gets taken away.

License Plate Duty

Next on the schedule is work. You’ll be put on license plate duty in the metal shop, with one other inmate whose comments over the days you’ll come to spend here will sometimes offer hints. For now, though, your fellow inmate tells you to ask for a drill bit to get to work. You can get the Drill Bit from the prison guard at the front desk.

Give the drill bit to your fellow inmate, who will tell you to start making license plates with the machine at the left. (Also: See that “PHB 1” plate on the wall? That’s a reference to the Poptropica Help Blog, the website where you’re reading this walkthrough!)

Making license plates is pretty simple: just click the letters and numbers to match the plate at the top. For today, you’ll only need to make 3. Each completed plate earns you a stick of gum.

When you’re done, talk to the guard to get your 3 sticks of Gum and return the drill bit.

A Second Helping

Next, you’ll be brought to the mess hall for meal time. You’ll be handed a Spoon which you’ll have to return when you’re done. The twins will hint that it’s possible to break through the walls, and Patches, the gray-haired one, will offer to help you steal “seconds” for three sticks of gum.

Hand over your gum, and (s)he’ll cause a disturbance that gets one of the guards away from the spoons. Talk to the other guard, who will give you a Spoon, not realizing you already had one. After the first guard realizes the distraction was faked, say you’re done eating and you’ll return one of your spoons (while still keeping another).

It’ll be time for lockdown again. When the guard walks away, click on the grate in your cell and test the edges (not the metal bars) with your spoon. You’ll find that it’s not strong enough, so you’ll need to sharpen it somehow. For now, it’s time to get some sleep.

Slow Bloom

Alright prisoner, time for Day 2 at Pelican Rock! You’ll find that routine comes naturally in this place, but with each day, you’ll get a little closer to formulating an escape. At the prison yard, talk to the bird feeder, and the pelican at the top-right corner will leave its nest, allowing you to grab its Egg.

Go back to where the pelican is pecking on the ground and pick up the leftover Seeds. Then walk a bit left to the mound of dirt, and use your seeds to plant them there.

Hop over to the puddle on the steps below the leaking pipe, and use your metal cup to get a Cup of Water. Then, go back over to the dirt and use that to water the seeds you planted.

If you talk to the painter, Van Nostrand, you’ll learn that she/he wants some sort of living thing to paint, like a flower. Marion, the pamphlet reader, will want 3 sticks of gum in exchange for files about the prisoners. Flashy, the weightlifter, will talk about wanting to keep up the perfect physique.

That’s all you can do in the yard for now, so talk to the guard and say you’re ready for work.

Sharpening the Spoon

In the metal shop, you’ll see a metal grinder, but you can’t use it with the guard there. So instead of making the recommended five license plates at work today, go overboard and make more – when it gets to 7, the machine will break down.

The guard will come over to see what’s up, and while he/she is blinded by the fog, quickly run over to the grinder and use your spoon. You’ll now have a Sharpened Spoon, and when you leave, you’ll also get 7 sticks of gum!

Meal time follows, and there’s not much to do or say, except the cook (at the kitchen on the left) will tell you that he/she will let you work in the kitchen if you bring three free eggs. You can get these from the yard, one day at a time, and if you’ve been following along in the guide, you’d already have one so far.

Back to lockdown, and once again you have a limited amount of time to explore your cell before the guard returns. Click on the grate, and this time, with your sharpened spoon, you can begin chiseling away at the edges. Note that as you chip away, the bar at the top indicating where the guard is will disappear, so you may want to stop every so often to make sure you’ve still got time. If you do get caught, the penalty is about 5 sticks of gum.

Eggs & Prisoner Files

Rise and shine! Time for another day of routine at Pelican Rock. At the prison yard, fill your cup with water again and continue to water the plant growing in the dirt mound. Then, talk to the bird feeder and another pelican will leave its nest. This time, the nest is somewhere on the left – to get there, hop on the bust of the warden, then onto the windowsill, then onto the pipe with the nest to grab the second Egg.

Also, if you hand over 3 sticks of gum to Marion, the pamphlet reader in the yard, you’ll get some Prisoner Files in exchange. This gives you some info about the prisoners, including yourself, that you can read about.

There’s not much else you can do for the rest of the day, so if you want to skip through faster, you can tell the guard at the shop that you’re done even without working (although you may want to earn some more gum if you’re running low). At the mess hall, you can tell the guard you’re done eating, and then it’ll be time for nightly lockdown again.

Continue chiseling away around the grate, and if you’re fast enough, you might just get the whole thing done! Otherwise, you can finish another night. Even if you get in, you can’t leave without the guards noticing.

Wake up, it’s the same thing: water the plant (see instructions above) and talk to the bird feeder to get the pelican away from its nest. This time, the nest will be at the top left, so go the way you did to get to the second nest, then hop up one more pipe and windowsill to get to the final nest and grab the third Egg.

You can skip work again if you like (although it is recommended you collect gum since there are more payments to be made), and now that you’ve got all three eggs, you can bring them to the cook at the mess hall!

Sunflower Studies

Go to the mess hall and talk with Flambe, the cook, again. Since you have the eggs, he/she will hire you as sous chef (second-in-command)! After tasking you with mixing mashed potatoes, go to the bowl of pasta and grab an Uncooked Pasta from it. There’s not much else you can do right now besides show off your mashed potato stirring ability, so head over to lockdown and call it another night.

Good morning, sunshine! Time for another beautiful day in Pelican Rock! Upon entering the yard for recreation, water the plant one last time (as mentioned before in previous days) and you can grab yourself a Sunflower!

Go back to Van Nostrand and give the flower to him/her. As thanks, Van Nostrand will give you a Painting of the tower, and promises to fulfill any painting favors. If you have 7 sticks of gum to pay, use the uncooked pasta (which looks like a drill bit) and ask to have it painted silver. Upon payment, Van Nostrand says that it’ll be ready and painted by tomorrow.

Work if you want, but you don’t have to, and you can skip meal time, too. However, things get juicy when it comes to lockdown. When the guard goes away, quickly click on the grate to go into the vent. Use the metal cup next to the pile of plaster to get yourself a nice Cup of Plaster. Before the guard comes back, exit the vent, and then go to sleep.

Yeah, yeah, good morning. You get the idea by now. In the prison yard at recreation time, all you have to do is go up to Van Nostrand to collect what is now a Painted Pasta. It looks more like a drill bit now, but you still need to trick the guard into thinking otherwise. Exit the recreation yard, and skip work if you’d like.

Entering the Vent System

When meal time comes, you can do more things! Go over to the cook’s area and use the cup of plaster in the mashed potato pot. Stir the part and the potatoes will turn into potato marble.

Distraught at the ruined mashed potatoes, Flambe will take out the potato plaster block. If you click on it, you can use the sharpened spoon to chisel yourself an unpainted Dummy Head. When you’re done with that, go back to your cell and call it a night.

The next morning, return to Van Nostrand, and in exchange for 5 sticks of gum, he/she will paint the dummy head in your likeness. As before with the pasta, Van Nostrand needs one day to paint it. There’s nothing else you can do today, so you can just not work, skip meal time, and go right to sleep.

Today’s going to be a more interesting day for you in Pelican Rock! When you go out to the yard for recreation, talk with Van Nostrand again and she’ll give you the Painted Dummy Head, which is painted to look like you while sleeping. Not long after the exchange, Warden Sharp will come over and take away Van Nostrand’s painting privilege for having an untucked shirt. Yikes.

There’s not much you can do for the rest of the day, so you can go right to lockdown. Use the dummy head and you’ll place it in your bed before you enter the vent. Now, you have all the time in the world in the vents.

If you go up and to the right, you’ll be in the vents of the mess hall. What you want to do here is configure it so the path of the air goes to the farthest vent, right above Flashy’s favorite spot during meals. (You may have picked up on the hint from the metal shop inmate about getting Flambe to cause a scene at meal time.) Here’s a diagram, courtesy of Nice Hawk from Poptrickia:

Then, go back left and up to the vent system of the metal shop. Re-direct the path of the air so that it goes from the license plate machine at the far end over to the spot right above the guard’s desk. As with the mess hall vents, your character should say something to confirm when you’ve done it right. Once you’re done, head back to your cell to get some sleep.

Tools for Escape

Good morning! With all that you’ve set up, today’s going to be an interesting day, except for recreation, which you can skip. At work, you’ll want to break down the machine again by making 7 license plates. This time, when the guard tries to turn on the fan, the fan will blow down at the desk spot, continuing to leave his/her glasses fogged up.

Give the guard your Painted Pasta, and that will be able to fool the guard so that you can keep the Drill Bit.

At meal time, run over to Flambe’s kitchen and press the green button to turn on the fan. Click on the pot of mashed potatoes, and as you’re mixing, some of it will fly up into the vent and, because of the vent configuration you did, will land right on Flashy’s head. Upset about his/her ruined hairdo, Flashy will cause a scene, and pretty soon a food fight breaks out!

Flambe tries to stop them, but comes back defeated, asking you to rescue the precious mixer. Get out there into the potato battlefield and pick up Flambe’s Mixer under one of the tables. (Since you’ve got your drill bit, it’ll automatically be attached to form a Mixer With Drill Bit.) Flambe will appreciate your dedication so much that you’ll get to keep it.

With the guards highly annoyed, everyone is then sent straight to lockdown. When the guard walks away from your cell, put the Painted Dummy Head back on your bed, and climb into the vents. Go up and right to the mess hall vents, then run over to the far right and use the Mixer With Drill Bit to pry open the pipe at the end. The twins will come rushing over, saying you’ll need some help in escaping and that they’ve got rafts that will be ready tomorrow night.

For now, you can sleep easy knowing that escape is close at hand.

Escape!

The next day at recreation, talk to Patches the bird feeder, saying you might not be around for long and will miss the bird. Patches will say he/she might be able to get the bird to fly with you. Just then, Flashy and Big Tuna show up, ready to beat you up. You quickly ask Patches for some bird seed and fling it onto them, causing them to be pecked by pelicans.

Run to the exit, and it’ll skip right ahead to lockdown. You know the drill: wait for the guard to go off, place the painted dummy head on your bed, and enter the grate into the mess hall vents. When you get to the end pipe, the twins will arrive, but just as they go ahead to set up the rafts, the pipe bursts, and you’ll have to go up instead of down with them.

Now you’ll have to avoid being detected by the spotlight and guards at windows. Hide behind objects, stay away from whichever window is lit as the guard on duty goes around, and keep making your way right. If you get caught, you’ll just restart at the last checkpoint. At one point, you’ll have to push a box and jump on top of it to continue forward.

Soon enough, you’ll find yourself trapped right before you get to a large spotlight shining from a watchtower. Behind you, a couple of guards are approaching with Warden Sharp, saying they could hear footsteps. It looks as if you’re doomed – but then Patches’s pet bird appears, taking the blame for the noise of your footsteps.

As the spotlight shines on the bird, you’ll be able to jump off the roof, and a cutscene will show you heading back to Bay City by raft with your fellow escapees.

Back to Bay City

But it’s not over yet! The twins will run off, but the police are back on the prowl and waiting for the Booted Bandit to return to collect the treasure at the tower. You’ll start off at the bottom of the hill, and need to work your way to the top without getting detected.

Enter Kurt’s Fish Warehouse, and climb up to the top windowsill. Next, walk across the telephone wire all the way to the left. Hop up to the top, onto the red bench, then onto the tree branches, and keep going right. When you get to the Colt Tower, push the trash can over to the statue of the guy with the coonskin cap, then hop up to it, jump right to stand on the tower ledge, and go up.

Continue climbing up the ledges until you reach the top. Your character will wonder what’s different about how the tower was supposed to look, and pull out the painting by Van Nostrand from earlier. Notice that the arch window in the middle doesn’t go all the way down like the others. Click on that spot on the tower, and you’ll realize it’s been filled with plaster.

Use your sharpened spoon there, and you’ll find a safe! Just then, the real Booted Bandit appears, and so do the police. You need to prove that you’re not the Booted Bandit (um, can’t they see you’re the one not wearing boots??).

Anyway, the safe might just save you, but no one knows the combination except Flashy Fosbury. However, you might remember something Flashy was always saying (and by the way, it’s also in the prisoner files): the number is 26-34-30.

Crank the dial, and the safe will open, revealing… glamorous head shots of Florian “Flashy” Fosbury?

No one is more upset than the Booted Bandit, who inadvertently makes a confession and gets arrested on the spot. As for making it up to you for all the trouble, Marshal Tex Brannigan promises to put in a good word for all your new prisoner friends, and offers you the Island Medallion.

Congratulations, you’ve completed Escape From Pelican Rock Island!

Looking for more walkthroughs? Check out our Island Help page! 🏝

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Album Photos

Poptropica used to save album photos of iconic moments from your island adventures, but this feature does not exist anymore.

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Trivia

• Escape From Pelican Rock Island is Poptropica’s 45th island, and was released to members on December 10, 2015. It was released to all on December 30, 2015. The login page featured the prisoners running across the screen, with a police officer chasing them and Escapee Dr. Hare trailing behind.
• The island was re-released for Steam on May 25, 2022.
• The location is based on San Francisco’s Alcatraz island prison. “Bay City” is a nickname for San Francisco.
• The “Colt Tower” you chase the Booted Bandit up to is based on San Francisco’s Coit Tower.
• On the hill, there is a sign for Krpata Motor Oil, a reference to Poptropica Creator Mitch Krpata.
• The gender of many of the characters you meet depends on the gender of your character (it will be the same gender).
• The metal shop contains a reference to this very fansite you’re on, the Poptropica Help Blog (PHB)! On the wall, there is a license plate which reads “PHB 1”.
• The other license plates are “2STUFF”, “7 ATE 9” (as in 7, 8, 9), and “LANGE” (a reference to Dr. Lange, a Poptropica Creator whose persona is a character on Virus Hunter Island).
• The painting given to you by Van Nostrand is signed “Patches” – the name of another prisoner. This may not be a mistake: if you check the prisoner files, Van Nostrand was incarcerated for copyright infringement, so Patches probably did paint that picture. But because Van Nostrand claims the work of others as his/her own, s/he will tell you it is “an old one of mine.”
• The name Patches could be referring to his/her patchy hair, as well as his/her practice of “unlicensed phrenology” (according to the case files). Phrenology is a pseudoscience that divides the brain up into sections or “patches” that have to do with different feelings and thoughts.
• Warden Sharp, in addition to being the name of the Pelican Rock warden, is also the name of the asylum warden in the Batman universe.
• The word flambé, as in Chef Flambé, refers to a cooking method in which you cover food with liquor and set it alight briefly.
• On Chef Flambé’s file, it says some of his/her associates are Boba Fleigh and Bario Matelli, which are references to famous chefs Bobby Flay and Mario Batali. Also on Flambé’s case file, it says his/her real name is Dean Paulus, which is a reference to the famous chef Paula Dean.
• Besides the Booted Bandit, there is one other character on this island with footwear – the kid wearing skates on Main Street!
• Depending on how long you take to finish the island, you’ll see some of your prisoner friends free on Main Street at the end! The more days it takes you to escape, the less of them will be freed.
• The music in the trailer is the theme from Mystery of the Map Island.
• Before Poptropica’s conversion to Haxe, you could see some of your prisoner friends free on Main Street after your escape, depending on how long you took to finish the island! The more in-game days it took you to escape, the fewer of them would be freed in the end.

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don’t do the crime,
if you can’t do the time.