How’s it going, Poptropicans? It’s Lucky Joker here and I hope you all had a Happy New Year!✨ In case you missed it, you can look back on the previous year with our 2018 Rewind: a Poptropica Screen Odyssey.
And now, onto the first news item of the year: the redesigned friends page (which we first got a sneak peek of two weeks ago) is finally here! For reasons unknown, Poptropica has yet to officially announce it. Anyway, here’s a look at my customized page:
To edit your own page, just click the pencil icon at the top right corner. Note: You’ll have to be a member to access these edit options.
From emotes to flowers and more, members can choose from a wide selection of stickers to put on their sticker wall. Here they are below:
In addition to the sticker wall, members can also customize their profile by choosing a wallpaper from the 10 options available. Non-members are left with a default blue background with intersecting lines, but members’ options include these backgrounds:
What non-members can customize is their daily mood, a little bubble located up by your Poptropican’s name that displays your emoji of choice.
Everyone is also able to use the message wall, where you can leave pre-scripted comments (similar to the ones in the Blast-Off Arcade) or drop off an emote. You can do this on your own page as well as write on friends’ pages.
While visiting friends’ pages, you can also give them a “like” up at the top, and visit their clubhouse by following the clubhouse link. You can scroll through a person’s list of friends and view more profiles, but unfortunately the lists only shows about ten friends, so if you’ve added more (as many of us probably have), they’re going to be tough to find.
There’s also a space on each profile called a photo board, but it’s empty, and there currently doesn’t seem to be a way to fill it up. The Photo Booth is currently absent from Home Island, and album photos from islands completed is a feature that hasn’t carried over to the redesigned profiles. And finally, there’s the costume closet, which works much the same as before.
So what do you think of the new friends page? I’m quite a fan of the design, but I do miss some of the features that got left behind with the old one—like the display of your battle ranking, being able to see which islands you’ve completed, pop quizzes, and pretty importantly, finding specific friends and being able to add new friends. What else needs to be part of the friends experience on Poptropica? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Thanks for reading as always. I’ll talk to you guys in the next one… pop on!
Hello once again everyone! Spotted Dragon here bringing you the December recap for Community Creations! December’s theme was celebrations and the featured work is not in any particular order. Be sure to check out all the featured artists!
This hilarious redraw brings some humor to the holiday season, no matter what Grinch is in your life. The scene is simple, but the amazing coloring and lineart brings great emotion to the piece! Little details make the air look appropriately chilly and despite what holiday you may celebrate, these OCs perfectly represent the chaos than family adds to any holiday. Brilliant redraw! Find her DeviantArt here.
Cozy Warm Night by ArtisticAsianBunny
Contrasting our first piece, this drawing really brings out the warmth in the holiday season. With minimal lineart, the colors and lighting act as the foundation of the scene, with the fireplace adding dramatic shadows. The composition perfectly reflects its title: cozy! And if the talent shown in this piece wasn’t enough, the easter eggs hidden around the room puts adds that final cherry on top. What’s your favorite reference? Can you find them all? Find her DeviantArt here.
Happy Holidays by ray-of-flight
Super cute!!! The minimal shading adds depth to an otherwise simple drawing, and the design is just perfect for the holiday season. I mean, who doesn’t love a grumpy Zeus-Santa? And Binary Bard surprisingly makes red and green… pop! The cartoon-ish emotion is charming and the coloring and lineart looks super soft! Find his DeviantArt here.
HAPPY NEW YEAR by CraftyPoptropican
Continuing our celebratory theme, this piece showcases the colorful nature of the holidays! The dynamic fireworks and fluid posing brings life to the scene and perfectly emphasizes the party! The colors are bright and unique, showing the intensity of a romantic New Years tradition. Stunning work!!! Find his DeviantArt here.
Happy 2019! by ckrocks12345
Another unique piece! I’ve always been fond of pixel art, so this drawing is a great one to kick off the new year. The scene is simple, but certainly cool and colorful. It focuses on messing around with art and having fun, exploring and growing your talent. Anyone have any art related resolutions for the new year? Find his DeviantArt here.
Honorable Mentions
No honorable mentions this month, but that’s alright! Submissions were spectacular as always, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for January!
January: 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 January’s theme? January’s theme is…
Magic!
New Years is a magical time for a lot of people, as well as a chance to start fresh and work towards new goals. Meanwhile, fictional worlds like Poptropica bring similar magic to a wide variety of players! From the simple wonders of fortune cookies to the grand impressions of Disney World, magic is something that everyone loves to behold. So… it’s an appropriate theme to kick off the new year!
Well, what can you submit exactly then? With this broad theme, the only limit is your imagination! Draw a scene from one of the most magical islands! Create costumes for beautiful fairies or other magical creatures! Write a mystical Pop fan-fiction filled with spellbinding twists and turns! The magic is up to you…
Submitting: 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!
What’s up, Poptropicans? The year is wrapping up, and that could only mean one thing—it’s time for our 2018 rewind!
Every year, we reflect back on the events regarding Poptropica and the community surrounding it. So, what happened this year?
Part 1: Poptropica (Worlds & Original)
2018 started out with what would probably be the biggest event of the year—the member release of Poptropica Worlds’ third full island quest, Greek Sea Odyssey, in February. (It released to all in mid-March.) Check out our Island Review!
Things unfortunately took a turn for the worse as the end of the month approached… Several employees (all with senior positions) were sadly laid off. Because of this, we made some speculations regarding Poptropica’s financial status.
In March, the misfortune continued when @Poptropica unexpectedly unfollowed hundreds of accounts (including me… not salty at all, ahem) on Twitter, with no follow-up explanation. (Though the PHB’s official Twitter, @Poptropica_Help, is one of a few still followed by Poptropica.) It caught many people off guard, to say the least. Even former Poptropica social media manager Skinny Moon had something to say about it.
On the flip side, March Prizes went on throughout the month, where special items were hidden on a different island each week. If you found it, you got to keep it!
April brought us a few new series on the Poptropica Creators’ Blog which included Outfits of the Week, Island Highlight, and Guess the Island—all of which have since discontinued. The writing wasn’t exactly high caliber, either.
Not much happened in August, but September was a great month for Poptropica. First and foremost, Poptropica celebrated their 11th birthday by releasing a funny-looking Birthday Candle costume—free for everyone!
Poptropica also held a small-scale #SpookyPop Photo Booth contest, featuring just a couple pics on their Instagram. In larger news was the Home Island overhaul, which brought unopened buildings like the Blast-Off Arcade, Pet Barn, and more.
December started out with the 12 Days of Member Gifts, an extension of the monthly Member Gifts benefit with, for the first time since it began, new original items. Snow arrived on Home Island, text chat arrived at the Blast-Off Arcade, and towards the very end came the biggest feature of all: clubhouses!
The PHB posted three times as much as the Poptropica Creators’ Blog this year—about 180 posts to their almost 60.
In fact, at 59 posts in 2018, it’s the Creators’ Blog’s lowest yearly post count yet—even lower than the 64 from when the blog began in mid-2008. While they did maintain a social media presence, the lack of a personable social media manager left a disconnect between players and Creators worsened by infrequent updates.
To make up for the missing communications on the part of the Pop Creators, we at the PHB have been hard at work bringing you the latest and greatest in all things Poptropica. Here’s what we’ve been up to this year as a community:
In August, we held our first ever PHB Header Contest, and the winning design (by Gentle Dolphin) was displayed as our blog banner for the month of September!
November and December were quieter months here on the PHB, but they were surprisingly active ones for Poptropica (see above). To conclude 2018…
Tributes
There is one final section to go in this Rewind post, and that’s the tributes for the 4 PHB staff authors who left this year. (Poptropica isn’t the only place with departures, but at least these were willingly so.) Thank you, again, to these delightful Poptropicans:
Before joining the PHB team, Happy Lobster blogged on several Poptropica fan sites, including his own, the now-defunct A Quota of Poptropica. Having worked with the PHB for about a year and a half, HL has contributed some fun posts including a Pop-over of Inside Out characters, a Pop 5 for beautiful scenes, and more. Wherever he goes, we hope he stays happy!
Ah, Brave Tomato, a PHB legend. The longest-staying PHB staffer thus far (other than Slanted Fish, the creator of the PHB, who’s still around), BT has been with the blog since 2012. In her six years here, and more within the greater Poptropica community, BT has done a lot: she’s revisited most of the islands on her YouTube channel, created tons of Poptropica fan art and fan fiction, and more. Named the 2018 recipient of “Best PHB Author” at the Poppies, BT is known for her love of mythology, accuracy in Pop theories, and hunger for lore, among many other great qualities. We give her 10/10 fresh, brave tomatoes.
That’s 2018! We the Poptropica Help Blog have been around for 10+ years now, and we look forward to even more poppin’ times with all of you. Thanks for being a part of our journey, and we’ll see you in the new year. Keep on popping, Poptropicans!
What’s up, Poptropicans? It’s Lucky Joker here with big news—clubhouses are here!
Once you log in to Poptropica and land on Home Island, you’ll notice the “coming soon” sign has been removed off of the front door of the clubhouse and you can now enter. Welcome to your clubhouse!
picture credit: Poptropica Girl
If you pull the “switch room” lever next to the door, you’ll find that there are three different interior models: a treehouse, castle, and diner. However, only the treehouse style is available to non-members.
You’re started off with a handful of furnishing which includes your very own mini Poptropica blimp, as well as a rope, vanity dressing table, couple of plants, mole (how interesting…), and wallpaper (the stone and brick wall ones are for members only). Start decorating by clicking the paintbrush icon in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Also, you can shop for more items if you click the credit (green coin) icon next to the paintbrush. Prices vary, and some items are for members only (marked by the yellow bar and icon). Here are the wall decor options:
Just like the housing store on Poptropica Worlds, you can click on the other tabs for other categories of decoration. Here are the items available for furniture:
And these are the offerings for lighting and smaller objects, which include a range of food items, sporting equipment, potted plants, wild animals, and more:
Finally, there’s a category for wallpaper:
In general, these items are pretty different from the ones on Pop Worlds, so the Creators must have spent a fair amount of time designing these. It would be cool to have the Worlds decorations too, though Worlds itself hasn’t been updated for quite some time! It seems Pop Original might be replacing Worlds, its original replacement, after all…
One PHB reader, Poptropica Girl, even noticed another player avatar in her clubhouse. It’s not clear how they got there, since the upcoming friends profile redesign, which includes a link to one’s clubhouse according to the sneak peek, has yet to be released.
In any case, you’ll find that the chat and emoji options from the Blast-Off Arcade have also made it here, so you’ll get to interact with people once that feature does get released.
picture credit: Poptropica Girl
What are your thoughts on the new clubhouses? Discuss in the comments! And stay tuned to the PHB for a rewind look back on the past year, coming out New Year’s Eve…
Hello, Poptropicans! It’s Lucky Joker here with a practically perfect Photo Booth update for the movie everybody’s talking about—”Mary Poppins Returns.”
It’s just one new backdrop and three new props (including two human characters 🤷♂️). Fly a kite with Mary and Jack in front of a neat backdrop in this latest update. Check out my snapshot below featuring a festive Lucky Joker:
In addition to the Photo Booth update, an advertisement for the sequel film can be accessed via the island map. Simply watch the video, and you’ll receive a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Balloon Power which makes everyone around you float.
So, have seen the movie yet? What did you think of it? Let us know down in the comments (but no spoilers!).
Thank you for reading as always, I’ll talk you all in the next one. And to those who celebrate… have a Mary Christmas from the PHB, and from the Creators! Pop on!
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 
