🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️

Hey Poptropicans! The long-awaited announcement for the Design Your Dream Island Contest winner is here — but apparently, it’s only just the beginning. 🏝✨

Dropping in late Monday night (around 8 p.m. Eastern time), the Creators’ Blog finally posted a winner whose idea will turn from fable to reality in Poptropica: Fairy Tale Island by Perfect Crab! But wait, there’s more: blown away by the hundreds of entries they received in the past couple of months, the Poptropica Creators will be announcing multiple winners for this contest. Stay tuned as we await further news this week!

Meanwhile, Perfect Crab’s idea is sounding like the perfectly twisted fairy tale. Here’s what the Creators had to share about it:

The plot: On an island ruled by fairy tales, something has gone awry. The fairy tales are getting mixed up and no one is getting their happily ever after.
We loved this entry because it had a full storyline, a great set of characters, and intrigue! It also touches on a bunch of classic tales that are rich in storytelling.
Poptropica Creators’ Blog

Congrats to Perfect Crab for this crowning moment, which comes with a one-year membership prize! And, although it’ll probably be a while before the island gets made, we can’t wait to play Fairy Tale Island.

(If you’re reading this, Perfect Crab, we’d love to share more about your island idea here on the PHB. And for everyone else who isn’t Perfect Crab, we’d be happy to share yours too — just contact us!)

Whether you have stakes in the game as a contest participant or just want to hear about other people’s island ideas, you can join us over on our Discord server, the PHC, as we eagerly anticipate the rest of the results of the Dream Island contest. May the greatest islands win — and may we all win when Poptropica pulls up with new adventuresome islands, like Fairy Tale Island, in 2021!

In other news, December 28 was also a big day in Poptropica for one other reason: it was the official end of the Flash era of Poptropica, with all Flash accounts scheduled to smoothly transition over to the game’s Haxe build, which has steadily been updating since February of this year.

So if you’ve been playing on Flash, you may log in to see some changes — most notably, the fewer islands on the map — but rest assured, most of your stuff (from items to islands completed) has made it over to Haxe. Scrolling through my items, I found many classics from the Flash days that haven’t formally been introduced to Haxe until now, like the 8th birthday balloon and even the infamous Fart Gun.

Animated items ran noticeably slower and may have contributed to lag.

Some players have reported still being able to access the game on Flash via the unofficial Format Loader tool. But with the plug being pulled on Flash any day now, that’s probably not going to last for long — so be ready for the inevitable migration. We know, it’s sad to say goodbye, but at least the presence of Early Poptropica on the map (i.e. all the classic islands for members) might assure us that Poptropica is keeping their promise of making the old islands accessible after 2020.

There are some new store items in Haxe, too. Well, more like one item recolored a few times and being passed off as different—take a look at the jackets of the Boss Babe, Neon Rockstar, and Pretty Tough costumes. New hair, same styles. The other items in the store are similar to last week’s selection, though some costumes were switched out.

Catch you all soon in the next update — we’ll be waiting for the other winners of the Dream Island contest. 🤞 What a way to end the year!

So much has happened in the past 365 days… and we’ve got a lot of it on the record. Tune into the PHB on New Year’s Eve for a look back on 2020 in our upcoming annual Rewind! 🥳

Keep on poppin’ on,
~slanted fish 🐠

Pop Fan Artist Spotlights, Realms

Pop Fan Artist Spotlight: Realms from Hawkeye4077 🌎🔨

December 27, 2020December 26, 2020 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, welcome to a special edition of the Pop Fan Artist Spotlight series! This fan artist we’re featuring today isn’t your traditional kind of artist—instead, he creates his masterpieces on Poptropica Realms. Introducing: Hawkeye4077, aka Zany Ice!

Hawkeye’s work with Realms imitates large and noteworthy characters and landmarks from various sci-fi and adventure films and other media, from The Iron Giant to How to Train Your Dragon to Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Click on the images to see all the detail within!

You may recognize Hawkeye’s Poptropican name, Zany Ice, which was recently featured for a Video of the Week by the Pop Creators. But he’s been working on more than just the Wolfwalkers ad video! Here’s one that compiles all his MOCs (My Own Creation) — including more than the ones shown above — into an impressive photo slideshow:

In another video, Zany Ice gives us a look at the process of making one of his Realms creations, the Grimlock from Transformers:

It’s been a hot minute since the Flash-based Realms (Poptropica’s sandbox creative world) has gotten much attention from Poptropica, and with Flash in its final days, who knows if it’ll return after it’s gone. But Realms did disappear before due to bugs with the old Flash technology, and after much player demand, was resurrected by the Creators a year later. Maybe the same thing can happen again?

In any case, we hope you enjoyed this look into some of the many possibilities that Realms offers. Perhaps it even inspired you to give this fun sandbox game one last spin before its candle goes out with (a) Flash? 🕯 You might find our Realms Guide helpful!

Thanks, Hawkeye4077, for sharing your Realms of wonder with us! 🌎 You can find him on our Discord server, the PHC, sharing other kinds of creations too, like peeks into his comic, Iron Volt. Join the fun on the PHC!

~🐠

Comics

Catch up with Poptropica’s comic strip 📰💥

December 25, 2020December 13, 2020 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans—did you know that Poptropica has its own comic strip? It’s true, and now, you can catch up with most of the series here!

In these comics, two young heroes, Oliver and Jorge, get thrown into the foreign world of Poptropica and have to survive as they hop from island to island full of silly and unpredictable challenges. You might recognize these boys from the Poptropica graphic novel series, which actually came out after the comic strips did. Both were illustrated by Kory Merritt, and the comics were written by Paul Gilligan.

Poptropica’s comic strips ran daily for a period of time from 2014–2016 and were available on various online platforms. These days, though, they’re harder to find. Fortunately, one super-fan recently put together all the comics so the rest of us can enjoy them without much digging.

Thanks to weeks of searching and piecing by Invisible Ring, the Poptropica comics are now available on Google Slides, with Part 1/2 starting from the beginning (as the above strips show) and Part 2/2 picking up from where the first part left off. There are over 300 strips in total, so settle in for a nice leisurely read! ☕️📰

The adventures entail monkey people, vegetable Frankenstein monsters, a Wizard of Oz world, and more—funnily enough, none of the places they visit are actually from the game, but as these are official comics, they can still be considered canon!

Believe it or not, Invisible Ring mentions there have been more strips published, though they have yet to be found. These missing strips explore islands featuring themes of black and white, Atlantis (though not in the style of Mission Atlantis Island), and even a library.

Anyway, enjoy the comics from the links above, or find them again anytime on our Comics page under Pop Plus from our site menu. Merry Christmas and happy holidays from the PHB! 🎄

Just in time for the holidays! (picture credit: Poptropica, 2014)

Home Island

Since we’ve no place to go, let it snow ☃️

December 24, 2020December 24, 2020 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, have you seen that Home Island is covered in snow? ❄️ It’s different from last year’s winter makeover — you won’t find any falling snow, random birds, or snowballs to grab.

Instead, you’ll find colored lights, lamps, and garlands on buildings, plus a wicked bearded snowman beside the New You building. Jolly good! ☃

And if you haven’t already played it yet, don’t miss out on the new Grapple-Pap Gift side-quest by talking to the old man! 🎁 It’s only here for a limited time, so enjoy it while it lasts and spread some holiday cheer before Grapple-Pap comes for you!

After you’ve played the side-quest, you might enjoy this fan video from jaekelopterus3 (Perfect Fish) containing an analysis of the visual storytelling with the design of Clareta and her rundown home. (Beware: Spoilers ahead.)

“Poptropica’s visual storytelling: An analysis of Clareta from the Grapple-Pap side-quest” by jaekelopterus3 (Perfect Fish)

In other news, the Poptropica Creators recently shared a couple more fan art features on their Instagram story. Check out these cool OCs (Original Characters) and their snazzy outfits!

Plenty more is going on around Poptropica, so be sure to catch up on the post below to see what else is new! And check back on the PHB tomorrow for a special post — we’ve prepared the perfect Poptropica entertainment to snuggle up to this Christmas. 📰🥰

Have a merry Christmas Eve — or just a quiet, socially distant day, considering the times — and happy Grapple-Pap! 🎄

Fan Art Features, Haxe Javascript, Pets, Social Media, Store, Video of the Week

What’s in store for Poptropica’s future?

December 23, 2020June 6, 2021 Gentle Dolphin

As 2020 draws to a close, we are dreadfully awaiting the end of an era on the internet: the Flash shutdown.

This event will drastically change the internet at large with countless Flash games being rendered unplayable. Not wanting Poptropica to become lost to time, the Creators have been hard at work moving the game to a new platform and preserving it for (hopefully) more years to come. Now to answer the burning question: “What’s in store for Poptropica’s future?”

Players may have seen a new pop-up appear when they boot up the Flash version of the game. This pop-up, along with a more detailed Creators’ Blog post, lets players know what’s going to happen to the game in the coming days.

On December 28, Poptropica will officially make the switch to Haxe as its sole platform. Players don’t need to worry about their years-old accounts being lost to time. The Creators assured players that existing Flash accounts will make a smooth transition to Haxe. You still get to keep your username, inventory, medallions, friends, and more!

What about the islands that have yet to be converted? While the Creators are still converting all of the islands, they are also working to make the old Flash version of Poptropica accessible to players! Sounds crazy, right? Here’s what they said regarding the matter:

For those of you who are members and are playing the Early Poptropica islands – this will stay on the map and can be accessed in the newest version of the game. We’ll keep this access up for as long as possible and recommend not updating your browsers! Newer versions of browsers are starting to block Flash which will keep you from being able to access these.

To summarize, members will still be able to play the classic islands as long as they don’t update their browsers. While we understand why the Creators say not to update browsers as it’s the only readily available way to access the classic islands, there are some notable flaws with this approach.

First, not updating your browser can leave your computer vulnerable to performance issues and security flaws, which is one of the big reasons why Flash is being retired. Second, some browsers automatically update without the users’ knowledge. Some browsers like Chrome have been warning users that Flash is going away after 2020, so it’s unlikely that such browsers will be supporting the classic islands after this year.

Although it’s uncertain if these classic islands will be accessible for long, their memories will live on in the hearts and minds of players. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can watch playthroughs on Youtube or read our island help walkthroughs right here on the PHB.

Man, that was a lot to take in. There shouldn’t be too much left to cover, right? Right?

Anyway, a new item rotation has graced the Poptropica store. Players can buy classic and contemporary items to customize their avatars. A few holiday-themed items such as Tangled In Lights and Snowman also arrived just in time for Christmas. 🎄

The Creators didn’t want pets to be left out of the fashion fun, so the pet store also saw a new rotation of items. There a lot of accessories that we have seen before, though the Blue Sunglasses may be new.

Now let’s take a moment to highlight some awesome stuff from fans. Our most recent fan art features come from Instagram artists quria.kressly, birdswithshoes, and grandmother_duck. We also got a Poptropica merch feature from an unknown fan who bought a Binary Bard phone case.

Our “Video of the Week” comes to us from Zany Ice, who created a walkthrough video for the new Wolfwalkers ad game. I recommend playing the game if you haven’t already; it’s one of my favorite Pop ads from this year.

Aaand now I’ve covered everything! Phew!

How do you guys feel about the upcoming move to Haxe? Nervous? Excited? Nervouscited? Feel free to discuss with others in the comment section below. Though Poptropica’s future is uncertain, we can come together as a community and face the new changes ahead.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin 🐬