🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️

Hey all, Sporty Boa here! As you may know, Poptropica’s Design Your Dream Island Contest has come to a close with the creators announcing the highly-anticipated third and final winning submission a couple days ago. Secret of the Jade Scarab Island took this special spot alongside Fairy Tale & Goofball Island as the winning ideas, but the these were no easy choices. The Poptropica Creators stated that they reviewed all the submissions not once, not twice, but TWELVE TIMES to determine the final winner of the Dream Island Contest!

If it hasn’t already been made apparent, this community is truly brimming with creative ideas and concepts for islands they wish to see in Poptropica. We here at the PHB would love to grant the opportunity for you to share those ideas with our new series: My Dream Island!

Similar to our long running series, My Place in Poptropica, My Dream Island allows for you, the community, to share you own island ideas here on the Poptropica Help Blog. If you are interested in this opportunity, let us know by writing for the PHB!

My Dream Island: Sporty Boa

I’ll go first to kick of things off! Like several PHB authors, I entered Poptropica’s Dream Island contest. Although ours weren’t selected as winners, our island ideas remain dear to us. I for one would love to share my Cretaceous creation: Prehistoric Peril Island!

Story

Millions of years ago, all of Poptropica’s dinosaurs went extinct. Or did they? Adventurer-seeking millionaire Harold Mews has found evidence that begs to differ: A super-secret remote island where dinosaurs continue to roam free! He recruits your Poptropican for the mission of a lifetime: To travel to this mysterious island and obtain sufficient evidence of living dinosaurs! Thankfully you won’t be on your own, a team of Poptropica’s biggest and brightest minds join you on this epic escapade, with high tech gadgets at your disposal. However, no amount of tech or expertise can prepare you and your team for the challenges that lie ahead. On Prehistoric Peril Island, surprises await around every corner as you encounter creatures lost to time, and if you’re not careful, you may become one of them!

Setting

The bulk of the story takes place on the enigmatic Dino Island, where vegetation shrouds this wild world and vibrant life surrounds you. Dino Island hosts various terrains home to various dinosaurs, you must be able to traverse them all in an effort to survive.

Notable Locations

Cretaceous Coast – Helicopter landing site

Paleozoic Plains – Location of Research Site A and the locus for your team’s Biological and Historical field studies

Dino Desert – Location of Research Site B and the locus for your team’s Paleontology and Geological studies

Jurassic Jungle – Dense and dangerous rain forest area, home to a mysterious and somewhat familiar face

Archaic Caves – These caves reveal secrets of the past… well, present. Time is weird on Dino Island!

Characters

Prehistoric Peril Island marks the return of a handful of classic and beloved characters (marked with *) along with some new faces to add to the ever-expanding world of Poptropica!

Herald Mews* – Owner of the Mews Foundation; A kind, adventurous explorer keen on pushing the boundaries of science. Loves cryptids and never-before seen creatures.

Dr. Alima – Poptropica’s top paleontologist and paleobotanist, leader of the expedition team

Professor Hammerhead* – 100 year old explorer, expert in ancient civilizations and island survival

Shark Guy* – Professor Hammerhead’s protégé and caretaker

Professor Pendulum* – Inventor of Poptropica’s first (and only) time machine, expert in all things time-related.

Dr. Lange* – Head scientist of the Poptropica Disease Center; Medical professional and expert

Medicine Man – Native of the mysterious Dino Island, Concoctor of special potions

Antagonists

Cave Collector – A long-time castaway and unstable thief/inventor, this cave man is desperate to escape Dino Island by any means necessary.

Megalodon Man – Shark Guy wants to make a bigger impact on the team so he drinks a potion from the medicine man, transforming him into the monstrous megalodon man!

INSPIRATION

I approached the creation of Prehistoric Peril Island with a relatively blank slate, wishing to create a fun and unique experience for old and new players alike. While much of the story came off the dome, I combined aspects of my personal favorite islands, Cryptids & Shark Tooth, especially when it came to characters. New characters, like Dr. Alima and the Caveman, were also inspired by things close to home, like my verdant villain costume I made for the PHB’s Halloween contest. In a nutshell, Poptropica inspired me, along with my love for prehistoric life and the natural world.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my Dream Island, Prehistoric Peril! If you’re interested in learning more about my island, I plan on posting the full story/walkthrough on the Sporty Boa Blog and my YouTube channel. Its planning and creation has been something I’ve enjoyed and put a lot of thought into, and even though I didn’t win the contest, I am still incredibly pleased with my work.

If you too are inspired to share your island idea, don’t hesitate to whip up a post like this one, highlighting story, settings, characters, and inspiration, and we’ll share them here on the PHB’s My Dream Island series! I hope you all stay safe and stay awesome, this Boa’s gotta bounce!

~SB 🐍

PHB Special: Pop the Difference, Round 3 – Answers & Winners!

February 21, 2021September 15, 2021 LJ

Howdy Poptropicans! A couple of weeks ago I posted 5 pairs of Poptropica images to see who could find all of the differences within them — where the quickest two would receive a drawing of their Poptropican by me. Let’s pop right into all of the answer reveals!

1) Inspection of the Imperial Garden

Green trees/red trees
No bush/bush
Flower on bush/missing flower
Clear sky/cloud in the sky
Yellow flowers/blue flowers

2) Casting about the Carnival

Blue pennant/purple pennant
Sock & Buskin/lack there of
Missing fried dough/fried dough present
Green balloon/yellow balloon
Blank area in the sky/star in the sky

3) Nanoscopic Pantoscopic

Conveyor/missing conveyor
Blue speaker dust cap/green speaker dust cap
“CLAP” on screen/blank screen
Bolt/absent bolt
Plain background/silhouette of crab

4) Eatery Exploration

Green soda/blue soda
Fish burritos on the menu/just burritos
Small pendant light/large pendant light
Note hanging on the bulletin board/missing note
Buttons/missing buttons

5) Scanning the Swarm

Skull on Sickly’s top/no skull
Poptropica blimp in background/blank space
Dr. Harold Langely/Octavian
Black dog/brown dog
Green balloon/purple ballooon

There were several people who participated in the game, but there were only a couple of participants who managed to catch all of the dissimilarities. Now it’s time to see who won!

The two speedy seekers who took the prize this time were none other than PHC regular, HfEvra, and frequent PHB commenter, Dangerous Dragon! Here are your Poptropican portraits as promised. I hope you like them! 😉

P.S. I’m sorry for the delay in the publishing of this post. There were some technical difficulties, but that’s life I guess. Anyway, thank you for reading and a special shoutout to all of you who tried. There’s always next time. Pop on!

– LJ 🍀

Contests, Jade Scarab Island

Secret’s out: Jade Scarab is the final Dream Island contest winner! 🐞

February 20, 2021February 21, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, more news on the Design Your Dream Island Contest is finally here — two months after the contest ended.

The third and final winning idea, which will be made into the game at some point, is Secret of the Jade Scarab Island created by Girl Power!

Not much has been revealed about this upcoming island, but the name suggests a storyworld similar to Nabooti Island, where we go around Africa to find missing jewels.

If you were starting to feel jaded (heh) about when Poptropica would get around to this long-awaited announcement, well, we don’t blame you! It turns out that the Creators reviewed all the submissions 12 times to determine the final winner, and that really took a hot minute.

So what’s this adventure about? We don’t know much yet beyond the name, as this is all the Creators have said about it so far:

We were looking for a great story, for intrigue, and for a great mystery to solve. We wanted something challenging, exhilarating, and that had a touch of real-world history to it.
Poptropica Creators’ Blog

And it’s certainly got one of the longest island names in Poptropica history, second only to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island.”

UPDATE: Girl Power has commented on this PHB post to share a little more about her island idea! Here’s what she wrote:

The concept work I did for Secret of the Jade Scarab included lots of archeological references, curses, and Egyptian culture. The main plot featured the player investigating a string of accidents to determine whether or not a pharaoh’s curse was threatening an archeological dig site and visiting a nearby market to learn about hieroglyphics.
Girl Power, island designer (see her PHB comment below!)

While we wait for more details to be revealed, we can draw some speculations from the name. Secret suggests a mystery to be solved, centered on this jade scarab: jade being an ornamental mineral and scarabs being a kind of popular artifact in ancient Egypt, often used in amulets or impression seals. There’s that touch of “real-world history”!

Two sides of a scarab inscribed with the name of Senwosret II (source: Wikipedia)

Scarabs were “typically carved or moulded in the form of a scarab beetle” and were often green or blue, though jade stone would not have been commonly used in ancient Egypt—instead, jade has roots in East, South, and Southeast Asian art. So the Jade Scarab may be a unique Poptropica invention, perhaps one that takes us across cultures.

Meanwhile, the Creators’ Blog goes on to share that the first Dream Island winner, which would be Fairy Tale Island, is already in the works, and it’s going to be different from the traditional island experience:

We have so many great things in the works for you this year and can’t wait to share them all! The first dream island is already in development and it looks SO GOOD! It’s a whole new take on an island experience and we think you’re going to love it!
Poptropica Creators’ Blog

Now that all the winners of the Dream Island contest have been announced — Fairy Tale Island, Goofball Island, and Secret of the Jade Scarab Island — we can look forward to these upcoming, promising adventures. 🧚‍♂️😜🐞 Fairy Tale is promised to release this year in 2021, but then again, if choosing the contest winners took two months, who’s to say when an entire new island will be ready?

Anyway, what are your theories on Secret of the Jade Scarab Island? Which of the winning islands are you looking forward to the most? Share your thoughts in the comments and on our Discord server, the PHC. 😄

Keep on popping on, Poptropicans!

~🐠

Guest Posts, Popspiracy Theories

Popspiracy: Theories on how Poptropica villains turned evil 🦹‍♂️

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Dangerous Dragon. Enjoy!

Hey Poptropicans, hello from DD! As we know, a good Poptropica story often contains a villain. Take Goofball Island, which is coming out later. Though we haven’t really met him yet, Dr. Blandston sounds like quite the epic villain. From there to Hare… you name it. Poptropica is full of villains, and today, I’m going to make some theories on how they got to be that way! So what are these villains’ backstories? Keep reading!

Dr. Hare (24 Carrot Island): A bad day for the carrots

What’s with this bad bunny? Dr. Hare was a good scientist! But what happened? Let’s say he used to work in the carrot factory making new flavours and facts. One day as he was working on an invention, that’s when things turned really bad… a routine radiation test took a turn when a rabbit hopped into the machine. Something happened… the man, the rabbit, and the radiator merged, and the radiation also made his mind… well, pea-brained!

Myron Van Buren (Survival Island): The scariest hunt

Oh well look who we have here: Myron Van Buren! Remember when your Poptropican was being hunted by this mean, scary old man?

Perhaps old MVB was tortured his whole life. So when he grew up, he decided he’d train harder than ever, so that no one could pick on him anymore. But his determination got the best of him. He started out hunting animals, but when that wasn’t enough, he turned to hunting people. He wanted to lash out at innocent Poptropicans too, and that’s how we find ourselves as his quarry!

Black Widow (Counterfeit Island): The power of art

Oh no! It’s Black Widow! For her I am thinking “Jealous.”

I think that when she was little she was teased because she couldn’t create art. From the classroom to the playground, she was laughed at. This made her hate the beauty of art. Later, she would dress up to blend in with the posh art folks, and of course, that was all part of her plan to backstab the art community with her high profile thefts. Her disguise certainly worked on us at the Counterfeit museum! Oh how she used us.

Next up… Ringmaster Raven? Oh come on, we know his story, don’t we?

Onto the next one…

Director D (Spy Island): Bad hair day

Beware for your hair, here comes Director D! Like him, D’s parents were bald. On the island where he lived, bald people were looked down on. D and his family all had to wear toupees just to get their due respect! So when he was older, D joined the spy agency in hopes of training his skills so he could one day get his revenge. Too bad for him, his plans to turn the world bald were foiled by us!

That is it for this post, but before I go, I also want to give a thank you to Maggie — if you are reading this, thank you for mentioning me in your podcast, the Poptropicast! 😄

Let me know in the comments: who’s your favorite Poptropica villain and what’s their backstory? Step in their shoes for a second and imagine how they became the person they are!

Thank you and this is DD popping out! Keep popping, Poptropicans!

~DD

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Dangerous Dragon. If you did, you might also enjoy their guest post on “Why Ringmaster Raven is a real hero.”

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you! 📰✨

Creators' Blog Guest Posts, Paradise Island, Pets, Store, Video of the Week

What Airways is really, and Billie ✈👩‍🎤

February 17, 2021February 17, 2021 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! In this post: the secrets of Poptropica Airways (aka Paradise Island), Billie Eilish, and a store update. Let’s pop right in.

Fans have been wondering about a sneak peek of Poptropica Airways posted by the Creators back in August. Although we’ve covered what became of it here on the PHB, the Creators themselves never mentioned it again — until now. In an interview with Poptropica guest blogger Invisible Ring, they finally put some questions to rest!

The main question, of course, is “What is Poptropica Airways?” To that, they answered that it was basically an experiment to help decide what features to develop on Poptropica.

Poptropica Airways, also known as Paradise Island, was a beta experience we created to understand what features players today would like to see in Poptropica. It allowed us to test a new experience for entering the game, news messages, plus daily tasks and rewards. These tests allow us to quickly see what new players are interested in so we know if new features would be a good fit in Poptropica. The news system from Poptropica Airways has already made it into the main game and more features are on their way!
Poptropica Creators’ Blog

Hmm, wonder what other features from Airways/Paradise Island they’ll try to implement into the game? Early perceptions of Paradise were not too favorable, with some players considering it to be an inferior copy of Animal Crossing. Paradise doesn’t seem to be available anymore, but you can read all about it on the PHB!

They go on to say that it’s separate from Poptropica Worlds, is not a new story-focused island, but rather “a new type of Home Island,” is not a station for accessing special islands, and will definitely not be replacing the iconic yellow blimp. You can read the full interview on the Creators’ Blog, and catch up with Invisible Ring on our Discord server, the PHC!

Also on the Creators’ Blog is a fresh Video of the Week! This time, it’s a quick clip from TikTok user @tony_torres38 drawing singer Billie Eilish as a Poptropica character. Looks just like her with the iconic neon green, doesn’t it? View the vid on the official blog!

Last but not least, the store’s been rearranged! Not much is new from before, but the Swan Ballerina and Little Demon costumes were added to the mix. Plus, check out all the fun items in the pet store as well. 🐶