🦄 Ponytropica 🦄

Hey, guys! This is Gentle Dolphin with not one, not two, but three bits of Poptropica news! Let’s get started with a wild set of items!

First, the September member gifts are here! Like last month’s gifts, these items are themed around the latest island, Reality TV: Wild Safari.

During the month of September, members will receive Reality TV Star Followers (featuring, from left to right: Mandy Screams, Torta Piccola, and Bopbop), a Cheetah Head Rider hat, and a baby hippo.

September_Member_BB

If you are an active member during the month of September, these items will be automatically added to your inventory upon logging into Poptropica. If you’re interested in receiving these gifts as well as having early access to Reality TV: Wild Safari, look into purchasing a membership.

Second, the common rooms have been given the SUI treatment! Not only do these rooms now have bigger screens and sound effects, but they also have the chat feature from the Blast-Off Arcade. Just click on the icons on the bottom-left corner of the screen to either speak with words or express yourself with emojis.

Another similarity to the Blast-Off Arcade is the inclusion of game stations. Each common room is supplied with a game station where players can battle each other in minigames. Have fun!

partytimetowerSUI

While checking out the common rooms, I came across a strange character in Timmy Failure Island‘s common room. Clicking on him causes three thought bubbles to appear over your Poptropican’s head, like whenever you talk to NPCs in the game.

commonroom_timmyfailure2

Slanted Fish says that the dialogue is used as a stand-in for testing things in the game, as seen in some behind-the-scenes images by some glitchers. We’re not sure why this character is in a common room, though. Anyway, feel free to stop by and strike up a conversation with him in between your adventures!

Finally, there’s a brand new screen for when players need to activate Flash before playing Poptropica. This particular screen stands out from the previous two because it includes a short video demonstrating how to allow Flash to run on the site. Pretty cool!

activate_flash_v5

What do you think of this month’s member gifts? Will you be visiting the updated common rooms sometime soon? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin🐬

Community Creations

Community Creations: August 2019

September 1, 2019September 1, 2019 Spotted Dragon

Hello once again everyone! Spotted Dragon here bringing you the August recap for Community Creations! August’s theme was movies & TV and the featured work is not in any particular order. Be sure to check out all the featured artists!

No clue what’s going on? Go see our intro post.

Top 5 Picks

Hollywood Diva by Miss Eligon

Oh, Kirk. You either love him or hate him. There is no in between… Anyway, what a simple and great piece! The humor is super fun and the color scheme works really well with the Back Lot background. I love the shine in Kirk’s eyes and the graphic shading style. It’s just so sassy and wonderful. Find her DeviantArt here.

Poptropica Endgame by Magniventris

Wow, stunning! Marvel’s Endgame was an exemplary inspiration for this month. The poster design is iconic and the character swaps are fantastic! I mean, Black Widow is just a perfect fit, right? I love the dramatic lighting, serious posing, and intense expressions. Amazing work! Find her DeviantArt here.

Poptropica Villains Portrayed by Spongebob by Gentle Dolphin

Alright, not only is this video hilarious, but it is also highly creative! Each scene is amazingly accurate, great for Poptropica and Spongebob fans alike. I find the “as portrayed by” trend of videos to be super funny, like c’mon, you had to have chuckled at this one at least once, right? The amount of effort put into collecting these clips is obviously great, and I’m impressed at the amount of villains that were included! A wonderfully unique submission to say the least. Find her DailyMotion here.

Beauty and the Ringmaster by Meganf123456

Another wonderful video entry! I love seeing the creativity here. Tying in the story of Beauty and the Beast to the tragedy of Ringmaster Raven was an excellent connection. Like our other video feature, the effort put into editing this piece is loud and clear, especially considering the amount of original artwork put into it! Fantastic job. Find her YouTube channel here.

Screenshot Runaway by ANNE14TCO

Oooh, exciting! As if you paused an action movie, this screenshot style of artwork is very creative. It demonstrates a lot of movement displayed in one shot, proper intensity and all. Seriously, the caption, deep lighting, and expression in this piece is appropriately dramatic. Makes me feel like I’m looking at a real movie scene! Stunning. Find her DeviantArt here.

Honorable Mentions

Wizard of Oz AU by ray-of-flight
Reality TV Island by WitchyArtistGal
Doctor Hare Elements Forms by thehypercutter

Wow guys, I was totally blown away by your submissions this month! An absolutely amazing job done by all participants. Keep it up, because I’m excited for next month!

September: How Do I Participate?

Community Creations is a cool series for anyone in the Poptropica community to join in on. To sum up what it’s about, it’s basically a chance to show off your artwork, creepy fan-fics, Pop clubhouses, costumes, and anything else that pops into your mind.

If we really like the piece you submit, we will feature it here on the PHB! As long as it relates to that month’s theme. So what is September’s theme? September’s theme is…

Seasons & Weather!

With summer coming to an end and school starting up again for many of us, I think that focusing on seasons this month would be pretty apropos. While some may already be missing the summer sun, I’m sure some of us are already looking forward to the spooky season of autumn! Every year, the weather just seems to get crazier and crazier, huh? Might as well turn that crazy into creativity!

So, what are the limits on your creations? Well, that may just be up to you! You could design stylish outfits inspired by the four seasons, or maybe submit some action-filled fan-art of Dr. Cumulo Nimbus! Perhaps write some fan-fic about facing the harsh winter on Survival Island, or even draw what it’s like to fly your Potpropica blimp in a storm! Your options for creativity are endless.

Comment below with a link to whatever you’ve created OR share it with me (SydVC aka Spotted Dragon) on DeviantArt, Twitter, or Discord.
Results: I will feature 5 of the submissions as well as 3 honorable mentions.
Limitations: Nothing NSFW, and make sure you relate to the theme.
Due Date: I will take any entries before the end of this month. Submit as many things as you’d like!

I will always be sure to let you know I have seen your creation. Bonus points if you make a compelling description for your piece! While quality counts, I’m mainly looking for something to simply catch my eye, so don’t be afraid to join in!

So what are you waiting for? Go make something awesome!

~SD

Carpet diem on this magical ride ✨

August 31, 2019 Slanted Fish

Make way for Prince Ali! 🤴🏽

While the faux royal didn’t bring his entourage of seventy-five golden camels and fifty-three purple peacocks, this spectacular entrance of an ad for the live-action Aladdin (now on Movies Anywhere, and coming to Blu-Ray on Sept 10) does come with a pretty sweet prize: watch the video on 24 Carrot Island to claim your very own A Whole New World magic carpet. Yes, it flies!

If you’ve played Arabian Nights Island, you’ll recognize the similar mechanics of the flying carpet, but you can take this one with you to other islands, too. Better yet, the Creators’ Blog says, members get to keep this prize forever!

*Chasing Samhal the genie on a magic carpet in Arabian Nights Island.*

Besides the change of color from red to purple, there’s another neat gimmick about this new magic carpet ride: it leaves a trail of golden glittery dust as you go. So come on down, stop on by, hop a carpet and fly—to another Arabian night! (What, too many Aladdin lyrics in one post? I won’t be silenced… all I know is I won’t go speechless.)

Carpe(t) diem, Poptropicans! Your shining, shimmering, splendid new ride awaits, with new horizons to pursue! ✨

~/🐠

Blast from the Past

2013 Rewind: Sounds Like Island Improvement

August 29, 2019February 13, 2024 Slanted Fish

This post is part of our Poptropica Yearbook series. If you missed the intro, check it out on the 2007 Rewind and browse the collection here.

Oh, 2013 was quite the scene. We left off the previous year with a sinking Poptropolis Games Island, and sure enough, in late January, the island succumbed to the sea.

But we had other islands to distract us, too: Night Watch, Back Lot, Virus Hunter, and Mocktropica all released in 2013. On top of that, Poptropolis Games eventually returned this year with two new games!

We even caught the names of a couple of upcoming islands due to some Creators’ mistakes: the revealing of Back Lot Island was accidentally mentioned early on the PCB, and Virus Hunter Island was mentioned on a Poptropica artist’s blog, again before Poptropica had officially announced it.

Virus Hunter’s release was especially special, given that it was the first official sound-updated island (SUI). (That is, unless you count 24 Carrot BETA Carrotene, where the common room cursor was used as the main cursor until Creators listened to the negative outcry and changed it.)

24-Hour Bug – Sometimes, all you can do is ride it out.

With the ambient music, sound effects, and a bigger screen, islands from then on were never quite the small and quiet adventures they once were. And speaking of music, we discovered the composer behind many of our new favorite tunes: Jeff Heim, who shared lots of Poptropica tracks on Soundcloud.

Here on the PHB, we took on a couple of big projects: adding island trivia and album photos to every island guide page. Trivia offers interesting factoids about the islands — for example, did you know that the Chinese theater on Back Lot Island is showing the sequel to a film that was playing in Vampire’s Curse Island’s theater?

And it’s a good thing we documented those album pics, too, because with the friends profile update in 2019, those photos are no longer viewable in-game, witty captions and all. (Did you know that each photo had a couple of variants on the caption?)

Poptropica was busy campaigning for a big project, too: the LEGO CUUSOO Dr. Hare’s Lair set. Ten thousand votes were needed for LEGO to consider making the set a reality, and with every major milestone, players received some fun Dr. Hare goodies in-game or as digital downloads. The LEGO set didn’t end up happening, but it sure would’ve been cool!

(Tip: You can get a Dr. Hare LEGO knockoff mini-figure for under a dollar online at Ali Express. However, it’s not official merch.)

Poptropica released several new books this year as well: Cryptids and Lunar Colony as novels based on the islands, a Poptropica Friends handbook, and the Island Creator Kit, which spawned Poptropica’s most popular contest ever: the Create Your Dream Island contest, in which the winner would get their island idea turned into in-game reality (spoiler: it was Arabian Nights).

That wasn’t all: the Poptropica Shop (not to be confused with the game’s store) was also released, offering the ability to put your Poptropican on a shirt or hoodie. Adult sizes were available for the kids at heart, too.

Meanwhile, the PHB celebrated a milestone of 10 million views with a Mystery Snapshots Competition, which gave way to our later Stolen Snapshots puzzle series created by former author Slippery Raptor.

All in all, with 4 new islands (more if you count BETA Carrotene and Poptropolis Games 2013) and several huge projects both online and offline, Poptropica sure had plenty going on this year. What a time to be alive.

You’ve reached the end of the 2013 page of the Poptropica Yearbook! That’s it for our backtracking recaps, as the rest of the pages have been filled in already. To view the entire collection, check out the Poptropica Yearbook in our Pop Plus collection. Stay tuned for this year’s recap on New Year’s Eve!

While you’re here, sign the yearbook by commenting? ✏️

Guest Posts

What makes a Poptropica island?

August 27, 2019August 25, 2019 Slanted Fish

This is a guest post by Bony Bones, who’s examining just what exactly makes a Poptropica adventure count as an “island.” The following is his opinion only. Enjoy!

Hello Poptropicans, this is Bony Bones. I’ve frequented this blog, reading, commenting, and occasionally guest posting, so you might’ve seen me around.

Today I’m popping in to discuss exactly what makes an island, an island. There has been some debate over whether certain quests should be granted full-island status or just be labeled as mini-quests.

The islands/quests that I believe are up for debate are: Legendary Swords, Snagglemast, Realms, Monkey Wrench, Haunted House, Home, the Blimp Adventure, and each individual episode of the episodic adventures. Here are my reasons for why I believe an island is, or is not, an island:

1) It’s on the map

One of the most recognizable traits that a quest is an island is that it is accessible from the Poptropica island map. Being able to travel somewhere with your blimp, and not via store card, menu button, etc., certainly classifies an island as a full adventure. All of the aforementioned islands have been on the map at one point, besides Blimp Adventure.

2) You earn a medallion

As reminded by Jim Probably of Reality TV: Wild Safari, earning a medallion is “a Poptropica thing.” It’s the cherry on top of the island cake. This knocks off Snagglemast, Haunted House, and the Home Island as full islands, and it would have knocked off Legendary Swords if a medallion hadn’t been added recently.

3) It has a complete and recognizable story

Though every good story leaves loose-ends untied for good reason, it still must be a complete adventure to be considered a full island. I mainly included this attribute to recognize that, while you may get a medallion after each episode in an episodic adventure, each episode is a part of a greater whole.

4) The Creators recognize it as an island

For quite some time, until recently, there was a list of Poptropica islands on the Poptropica.com home page. This was a good place to determine what was an island, which included everything from Early Poptropica to Monkey Wrench.

5) It’s less game, more plot

Even if an island does have a recognizable story, as I mentioned earlier, it must be more story-oriented than game-oriented. In the case of Legendary Swords, because the quest originated as an “action-quest” (basically a fancy way to say it was a little bit more than just a mini-quest), and therefore it does not have an island-style story.

The “game” aspects, with the health bar, the choice of weapons, and the waves of bad guys to fight, stand out more than the plot.

6) It must be located on the planet of Poptropica

Though there are some islands, such as Astro Knights and Lunar Colony, that take place on other planets (or moons) — and others, such as Super Villain and Time Tangled, that take place within Poptropica, but within dreams or another time period, the beginning of every island’s story must begin on Poptropica itself. As we saw from islands like Lunar Colony, Poptropica is a planet made up of various islands.

Therefore, with these attributes in mind, there are 47 fully-fledged islands, from Early Poptropica to Reality TV: Wild Safari, including Monkey Wrench but not including any of the others mentioned at the beginning of this post.

I hope this helped clear up any confusion about what really counts as an island. Feel free to comment any attributes that you think should be added to this list or any quests that you feel are up for debate.

Thanks for letting me pop in (I really need to learn some new pop puns). See you guys around!

—Bony Bones

Hope you enjoyed this Pop Petition guest post by Bony Bones! If you did, be sure to check out his other PHB guest post, “Pop It, Lock It”!

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. You can find some tips and guidelines on our page on how to Write for the PHB, and share blog posts on the PHC.

📰 If you have an idea for a PHB post, send it in! ✨