Hey Poptropicans! Here’s a guest post by Gentle Fang on how the Colorizer helped her express herself on Poptropica Original and why such a feature ought to be more accessible to all on Poptropica Worlds. Check it out, and enjoy. ~ 🐠
Hey guys! It’s Gentle Fang! If you have never heard of me, I did my own MPIP back in 2017 about a year ago, and also wrote a guest post about several islands in 2016. I have been playing Poptropica for about 6 years now (not all that consistently), and I really enjoy exploring islands and getting involved in the community.
As I have been playing for quite some time, I found that I had completed almost all the islands and had little left to do. As such, when Poptropica Worlds was first announced, I was overjoyed. I was so happy they were finally going to make new islands, add new material, and improve upon the characters.
When I got around to playing the new Poptropica Worlds once it came out, however, I found that I was underwhelmed. First off, talk about bad first impressions—the game took FOREVER to load. I had always been able to switch from scene to scene in a second on Poptropica Original, but I found that on Worlds it took quite some time.
When I was finally able to get into my closet to change my character, I was quite upset to find that the Colorizer — one of my favorite parts of Poptropica Original — was for members only. (Well, non-members get a few pre-selected colors for free. But that’s nothing compared to Poptropica Original.)
My style is what sets me apart from the crowd. For years, I’ve had an outfit that was a mixture of all my favorite costumes, a little pet cat I called Buttons, and most importantly my bright turquoise hair. That hair color was the only thing about me that never changed. Hairstyles change (in real life, I recently cut off over 6 inches of hair). My outfit is almost constantly being modified (for some reason I went through a phase where I dressed like a police officer). My character also sometimes has glasses, and recently got freckles. The entire look was my way of expressing myself.
Most of my character’s traits represented something about my personality: her diva outfit showed my dramatic personality, her occasional glasses represented that although I need glasses I hardly ever wear them, and the new freckles reflected the ones that appeared on my actual face. But the hair didn’t represent my physical state — it represented my boldness.
Although I am not currently allowed to dye my hair, I know brightly colored hair would turn heads. That’s what I like to do — I am not someone who enjoys blending in or staying in the crowd. I wasn’t allowed to get a membership on any gaming sites because my parents didn’t trust technology that much, so I couldn’t buy anything that only members received. This meant I only had a minuscule amount of clothes and accessories to choose from. Since the Colorizer was free for everyone on Poptropica Original, and came with a wide array of colors, I was sucked in.
Six years of turquoise hair later, I was more than disappointed when my favorite color was taken away too, becoming a privilege only given to members. Of course, I attempted to get my mother to agree to buy me a membership, to no avail. I know that there are other kids or teenagers like me who cannot purchase a membership for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to express themselves.
I understand that memberships make the company money to keep Poptropica free. But I also think that things that were not under lock and key in Poptropica Original should remain that way in Worlds.
So, in closing, I would like to propose that the Poptropica Worlds Colorizer to ought to be accessible in its entirety to everyone.
This nifty tool is something that I quite enjoyed for more than half my life, and I would be very upset if it was removed from the game permanently for players without membership. I would very much like for this amazing tool to be made free for all.
Thanks so much for listening.
—Gentle Fang
Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Gentle Fang! If you did, be sure to check out another guest post of hers: Tips & Tricks for Escape From Pelican Rock & Reality TV Island.
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