Ask the Joker is a Q&A segment here on the PHB where you, dear readers, are invited to send in your Poptropica questions to have them answered, with wit, wisdom, and wisecracks, by one Incredible Joker.
Welcome to the first set of questions in this new PHB series, Ask the Joker! Many of you wrote in with your Poptropica questions, and now— *adjusts goggles* —I shall be offering my sage advice.
If you do not see yours in this post, do not worry — I am saving all submitted questions and they may be answered in the future. Now, onto your pressing questions, and my rambling amazing answers! 😂
Guessing by your name and appearance, are you related to Lucky Joker and/or Dr. Hare? ~Gentle Dolphin
I am not related to Lucky Joker as far as I am aware (unless… long lost relative? 😮). As for Dr. Hare, I guess that would be a hare-y situation to explain. So instead I will just play it by ear and hop onto the next question! 🙃👍
When do you think there will be a new island? ~EvilGirl31
They may release a few old islands first to keep people happy until the new ones are ready. They have the content of their old islands — it’s just a matter of getting them on the new Haxe system. Maybe we’ll get a few in early to mid 2021? Just speculating, though. And Fairy Tale Island, being a brand new island, is probably going to take more time to create — but still in 2021, if all goes as scheduled.
Either way, we should have something coming to help our impatience! 😂😛 Of course, even then, I will probably be procrastinating on completing it myself… 😅
What inspired the art and design for Poptropica? ~Shantelle W.
This one was not easy to find, and I’m still researching it a bit, but here’s some stuff you may find fascinating! Here’s a Q&A with Poptropica artist Abigail Grigg, which talks a bit about art styles and inspirations. Abigail’s advice? “Experiment and try new stuff!” You never know where you might dream up the next big idea.
And check out the PHB’s Poptropica Yearbook for 2007, which includes some fun pics of Poptropica’s early concept art before the game was even created. According to Poptropica’s founder, Jeff Kinney, Poptropica’s first concept was “an enormous map of single-scene rooms,” but it took a competitor making a game with a similar name as Poptropica’s working title, “Poptropolis,” for them to switch gears and start thinking about islands, the format we know and love today.
Art for Reality TV: Wild Safari Island
Primitive Poptropicans
That’s it for the very first Ask the Joker! Bring on your questions and I’ll see you in the next one. And quick thanks to Slanted Fish for letting me have the freedom to write 😂😜 and for her editing! 😅
How can you send in your questions to Ask the Joker?
That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:
📧 Send an email to justaskthejoker (at) gmail (dot) com. This way, you’ll get to keep your questions a surprise when they get answered on the blog.
💬 Comment on the latest Ask the Joker post. Your questions will be publicly visible before they appear in a Q&A post, but this allows others to interact with your question if they so choose. If you don’t have an email address, you can enter a fake one in the email field when you post your comment.
See you all next time, and remember: You can’t spell Poptropica without letters.
Greetings Poptropicans! This is Maryann bringing you a recent update from the Poptropica Creators’ Blog, an open call for guest writers!
The requirements are fairly simple: you must be 13 years old or older, and sign up through the usual submissions page with a “quick answer on why you think you’d be a great contributor to the blog.” You must also include your (or a parent’s) email.
Many fans (including myself) were thrilled about the news at first, and many members of our online community have submitted for the position! However, it wasn’t long before some questions arose, notably from the Dimension Bros’ video released soon after, discussing the Creators’ motives for how they approach their fans. (Disclaimer: Individual fan reactions do not necessarily represent the PHB’s views.) Fans have also questioned how writers would be credited, as this is not the first time Poptropica has asked for fan ideas to use and gain rights to, such as when they asked players to submit ideas for merch.
If you want to learn more and form your own opinions/ideas on this, and read through a bit of legalese, I suggest looking through the terms of use connected to the submissions page.
They state, among other things, that Poptropica may use your content anonymously (unless you give them permission to disclose your name otherwise), on third party sites (such as social media), and that you are not owed any compensation for what you submit. Rest assured, though, that Poptropica does not “claim any ownership rights to your content.” In the end, it’s up to an individual how they feel about their content being handled, but at the same time transparency is important, especially with a younger demographic.
In the end, hopefully this turns out in a positive way for both the fans reading the blog and those who are picked to be guest writers! Until next time!
Hello everyone, Fierce here with two updates: a clubhouse store update, and… the story of what really happened to Legendary Swords!
First, the clubhouse store was updated on Tuesday, featuring plenty of nice decor to add to your abode. There’s plenty of furniture this time around with 43 decorations, 13 of which are for members. Some highlights from this collection are the neon signs of a cactus and crescent moon, plus welcoming text signs, all sure to brighten up your clubhouse — figuratively and literally.
We’ve had quite the eventful month thus far, including a brand new Match 3 mini-game inspired by the classic Legendary Swords. Legendary Swords was a mini-quest released back in 2011, where your Poptropican was pitted against a race of robots led by the diabolical E. Vile. But, was this always the plan for this well-received adventure?
Veteran players may remember that, upon completing the mini-quest, a message would show up promising a Battle Arena coming soon. As time went on and this never materialized, the message eventually disappeared, even as the mini-quest stayed on.
The original promise.
The scrapped Battle Arena is even referenced in a trash bin on Mocktropica Island.
Legendary Swords gear displayed in the PoptropiCon atrium.
One of the LS robots in the PoptropiCon atrium.
Answers to this mystery recently came up in the Instagram comments on Poptropica’s post about Legendary Swords: Match 3. According to former Pop Creator James D. Lema (@jamesdlema, also known as Director D), Legendary Swords was originally supposed to be a 3-part series with aspects of being able to use swords from costumes purchased from the store. Sadly, after the Legendary Swords we all know and love was released, the team behind the project did not get the go-ahead to complete the entire series. Director D (Lema) wrote, “(It) broke my heart to not finish that story.” I don’t know about you all, but this too breaks my heart. Legendary Swords for me was such an adventurous and unique idea in the Poptropica world that completely worked, and having even more added to that would’ve been great.
That’s all as of now! Let us know in the comments what you think the other parts of Legendary Swords could’ve been like, had the team been greenlighted on the project. Also, don’t forget to mention which items you would personally include in your clubhouse.
Thanks for reading, and see you around, Poptropicans!
Hey Poptropicans, look inside your bags for a big surprise: the inventory has gotten a refresh, with items now being sorted by categories!
While the Island and Pets tabs have always been there, the old Store tab has expanded into more categories to match the store’s layout. Now we have: Island, Costumes, Followers, Powers, Pranks, Misc, Pets. Check it out by opening your backpack from the menu!
Your items are now sorted in categories corresponding to the store.
It’s great to see Poptropica finally tackle the mess that was the inventory, which used to be a never-ending scroll through a single row of slow-loading item cards. Now, unless you have too few items, you can scroll through two rows at a time, and the speed has improved too.
One feature that could make this even better would be the ability to search for items by typing, with a Google-like autofill as you type to help suggest what you’re looking for without you having to type the whole thing. After all, some of us have years’ worth of items!
And there’s more: if your eye was sharp, you may have noticed something different about one of the item cards shown above. Instead of showing the player’s Poptropican, the Rainbow Ride hoodie has its own model, complete with a pose! In fact, all the new Haxe-era items will have their own posing models. Take a look in the store:
All the new kids are rocking fresh poses.
While it was cool to have your Poptropican model your items before hitting Costumize (and as shown in the first pic, they still do show up for older Flash-era items) — it’s also interesting to see the variety in these new poses and models. Plus, it’s possible that these premade characters shave off loading time, and if that’s the case, it’s certainly welcome.
And look what else… pets know a thing or two about striking poses, too!
Aww, adorbs.
In other news, the Grapple-Pap Gift side-quest is gone, as you may have seen from the absence of Clareta’s brother in our pictures from Home Island earlier this week. And there’s one more farewell we need to note…
But all is not lost! You can still play several more (though not all) of the classic islands with the Poptropica mobile app, available on iOS and Android. The app includes all the islands currently on Haxe, as well as all episodes of Survival, Mission Atlantis, PoptropiCon, Arabian Nights, and even the original Mythology Island. Even Kira’s Island, the American Girl ad, is somehow on the app, along with Reality TV: Wild Safari, Mystery of the Map, Shrink Ray, and Galactic Hot Dogs.
The app includes classic islands no longer found on the computer version of Pop.
As the islands there don’t seem to be built with either Flash or Haxe, it seems they can hang out there for a while. Who knows, maybe Poptropica will create a connection for accounts between Haxe and the app like they did with Flash, so we can one day sync across on multiple devices again. It doesn’t seem to be a priority now, but we’ll see.
Another solution for accessing the classic islands you can try is idk’s curation of them on Flashpoint, the Flash game preservation project. You can find instructions on the Old Island Directory, which is linked on the PHB’s Glitching page. At this stage, the setup is a little complicated and only available for Windows. But according to the directory, “availability for Mac and Linux is coming soon, along with less complicated instructions” — so stay tuned!
Anyway, that’s all for this post! What do you think of the inventory update? Will you make use of the methods available for playing the classic islands? As always, keep on popping on!
Howdy, Poptropicans! It’s Lucky Joker here with another sporadic installment of our Pop Fan Artist Spotlights series. The artist featured this time is… well, me! I promise I’m not self-centered. 😅
A few months ago, you may have seen a drawing challenge called Poptober — a list of 31 prompts (one for each day of October) created by MaryannTheConqueror to inspire a month of Poptropica fan art. Well, I decided to take the challenge head-on. Let’s take a look and see how I did. (Click the images to enlarge them!)
For day 1 of Poptober, I wanted to kick off the spooky month by depicting a spooky island. After some thought, I ended up going with the amazing Ghost Story Island by drawing the story’s most prime trio.
For day 2’s carnival theme, I knew I wanted to draw something from Monster Carnival (because duh! lol). I could’ve drawn the fabulous Ringmaster Raven, but instead, I shared the love and picked a couple of more underrepresented characters for my piece.
Due to the ambiguity of the prompt “Game,” I spent a lot of time thinking of what I was going to draw on day 3. Ultimately, I went with drawing Poptropica’s most popular common room game, Sky Dive. Once again, I portrayed two often glossed-over characters: Amelia and Crusoe.
When I read “water” for day 4, somehow the beach from my favorite island, Mythology (Flash edition), immediately came to mind. I think I captured the theme well in this one, and I don’t compliment myself often! Poseidon (the god of the sea) and mermaidsat the beach — how much more water can it get? I suppose if they were underwater, hehe.
On day 5, I couldn’t help being inspired from my favorite island a second time. I drew Medusa in a lair full of her collection of stone victims, including Hercules, to bring more of that special scariness that October entails.
To my surprise, there were plenty of considerations for day 6’s “doctor” prompt. Dr. Hare, Dr. Salerno, Dr. Jupiter, and the ever-so-newly-popular Dr. Beev were all pondered upon. However, I ended up drawing Dr. Lange and a colleague in a lab trialing vaccines (kind of appropriate in these times…).
“Blimp” — I feel like there are an infinite amount of options for this one. Here, you can see Mystery of the Map’s Mya, Oliver, and Jorge discovering the lands of Poptropica in the iconic aircraft (along with a cameo from a certain someone with his own balloon!).
For day 8, I drew some of the crew from one of our largest adventures, Skullduggery Island, standing proudly on deck. Pretty adventure-y if you ask me!
On day 9, there was nothing else I could bring myself to draw for “forest” other than the Elf Queen and the woodland creatures surrounding the magic orb inside their shady habitation. This one was very fun to draw, as was the next one.
Day 10’s prompt was “berry.” I think everyone who participated in this challenge drew something Zomberry-related and I’m no exception. I wanted to depict a feeling that was both equally spooky and amusing, so I drew DJ Saturday Nite partying it up with a number of blueberry zombies in the karaoke bar.
It took me a little while to come to a decision for what I was going to do for day 11. The theme was “bubble” and I eventually came up with Violet Beauregarde blowing a bubble with the chewing gum Mr. Wonka warned her not to taste. Tsk tsk…
When I saw that day 12 was “sneak,” I immediately thought a scene from the classic Spy Island would be perfect. Here you see a secret agent escaping the B.A.D. guys’ captivity at the docks.
For day 13’s “night” prompt, I had originally wanted to do a piece featuring a scene from Night Watch, but instead went with two of the forty thieves burglarizing the bazaar from Arabian Nights, and I’m not mad about it.
Day 14 was a lot of fun! What I did was combine the two Poptropica space-related islands, Lunar Colony and Astro Knights (which is one of my favorites). I drew Dr. Salerno accomplishing her long devoted mission of discovering alien life on the moon by depicting her greeting a couple of the Pewter Moon aliens.
On day 15, I couldn’t not draw this trio of some of Poptropica’s most popular villains. I mean, come on. The only villain possibly more iconic than these three is Dr. Hare.
At first, I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to draw for “beach” on day 16, but I decided to show poor unfortunate Greg Heffley standing with his empty ice cream cone at the (wimpy) boardwalk. Just his luck!
My immediate thought for day 17‘s theme “machine” was to depict something from Steamworks Island. I wanted to be a little more outside the box and stretch the theme just a little bit, though. What I came up with was Shrink Ray’s CJ meeting her future self and being rewarded the medallion for Time Tangled Island. I mean, hey, she had to use a time machine to get there, right? And check out her little robot concierge in the background!
There were so many possibilities for “pet” that I was unsure what to choose. After brainstorming through many ideas, I wound up choosing quite possibly Poptropica’s most adorable little derpy companion… the Narf! And a whole bunch of them too! RIP medallion kid.
“Ship” was the prompt for day 19 and there were so many considerations! (This happens a lot, huh? Lol) Yet again, I went with a pair of characters you don’t see get very much attention in the community, and that was Beatrice and Hazel from Crisis Caverns. I can see these two ladies being a cute couple.
For day 20, I rendered up a piece of the Chthonian scaring away the mole people. I was actually quite puzzled on what I wanted to draw for this one, but I’m proud of what I chose.
I definitely knew that I wanted to take inspiration from the amazing Escape From Pelican Rock when I saw that the prompt for day 21 was “prison.” Here you see Big Tuna being provoked by Flashy Fosbury as he’s being dragged away by one of Pelican Rock’s security guards.
What better island represents the theme “wild” than Wild West? Little Miss Annie Oakley is definitely unleashing her wild side as she shows off her skills in a shooting contest. The others are quite impressed.
Day 23 was one of my favorite days of the Poptober challenge. I drew Annie and Jack in their clubhouse reading a book about old Japan for the theme “story.”
I had a lot of fun with day 24 as well! I wanted to create something super fun and exciting for the theme “music,” so I decided to draw up a couple characters from Reality TV Island rocking out on stage.
The prompt for day 25 was “past,” and I’m sure you could imagine how many different scenarios from Poptropica would work perfectly for this theme. I wanted to focus on an island (or a mini game, rather) I hadn’t highlighted before. Here you have a greeting scene from D.C. Diner, ca. 1893!
Day 26 was the total opposite of past. The theme was “future,” and below, in a dystopian time coming, Poptropicans are servants to the superior reigning robots.
“Storm” was the theme given for day 27 and my mind went straight to Super Villain Island. I drew Crusher — one of the inmates being held at Erewhon Prison — looking disturbed by the thunder and lightning outside his cell window.
Day 28‘s theme was “costume,” which was perfect considering it was so close to Halloween. Take a look at this spooktacular costume party scene taken from the classic Haunted House special! I really like how this one turned out.
For the “hero” prompt on day 29, I drew a cutscene that used to annoy me so much when I was a kid — Ned Noodlehead taking credit for “saving the day” after our Poptropicans did all the work. That darn Ned!
As Poptober began wrapping up on day 30, I was pretty worn out but determined to finish! The theme was computer, so I illustrated a tired employee, in front of his screen, working for Poptropica Worldwide Headquarters who looks pretty much like I felt at this point. Haha!
And finally, day 31 — ghost. Another perfect theme for Poptober and I’m actually very fond of how this one turned out. I finished off the month with a gloomy picture of Count Bram mourning the loss of his dearly beloved Annabelle as her ghost sits beside him.
Wowie, that was a lot! Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed doing this challenge. There were times I would lose motivation and fall behind, and I would get pretty bummed about it. In hindsight, I probably wouldn’t be so hard on myself, though, since it’s all in good fun. I’m just glad I have a ton of Poptropica art in my portfolio now. You can view more of my Poptropica-related work (and more) on my DeviantArt page.
Thank you all for reading. I’ll talk to you guys in the next one. Take care, stay safe, and pop on!
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