The top stop for all things Pop
Welcome to the Favorite Poptropica Island Tournament! 🏝️🏆
In the preliminary round, 55 islands fought for your votes, and now the top 32 islands have entered the ring! Which island will take the crown as the most beloved Poptropica adventure?
You have until Wednesday, January 31 @ 11:59 p.m. EST to cast your votes for Round 1. May the odds be in their favor!
Thank you for reading, and have a good day!
—Gentle Dolphin 🐬
Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!
Wazzup? I’m back with episode seventeen of my fanfiction, Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! If you missed the last episode catch it here, or if you’re new here, you can start from the beginning!
I hope you guys have been having a great time reading this, because I sure am having a great time writing this! After the last ending, I thought I’d type this next one up so you can find out what happens next. So, here you go. Have fun!
ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!
A Zomberry Series
Episode Seventeen: A Friend?
Clumsy Bird, Icy Stone, and Jazzy Hawk were terrified.
It wasn’t the kind of terror they had felt previously — when the play got crashed by an apocalypse, when they got stuck on Time Tangled, and when they had been taken from their balloon and thrown in prison — it was nothing, NOTHING compared to the horror that they had just witnessed.
After days and days of restless and dangerous searching, they had found Toothpick. Except it wasn’t Toothpick. He was working for the bad guys, he wasn’t fidgeting at all, there was no emotion in his eyes, and he was wearing a suit, for crying out loud! (This was particularly odd, because the three friends were used to see him in a casual hoodie.)
But nevertheless, there was no mistaking that IT WAS TOOTHPICK. He stared at them coldly.
Toothpick
No. I don’t know you! Behave yourselves.
Birdy
Pick, but— but—
Continue reading “Fanfic: Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! 🧟 Ep. 17: A Friend?”Ask Poptropica Siri 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 all the wisdom you can expect from a Smart Icicle.
Hey fellow Poptropicans! Welcome back to Ask Poptropica Siri. I’m so excited to be back and return from yet another hiatus. Let’s jump into it!
If all the islands existed in real life, which one would you not want to go to? ~Magic Kid
I would love to go to most any of the islands IRL, but I would not want to go to the Monster Carnival Island. No offense, I like carnivals, but when it becomes nighttime with all the monsters, I’m not really a fan. Another would be Vampire’s Curse because meeting a vampire hunter would scare me. (It would be cool flying around as a bat, though! 🦇)
Who do you think is the most well-written hero? ~Serious Heart
This was hard, but I would have to say Basho from Red Dragon Island. I really like how he teaches us how to become a ninja. It was fun to learn, but stealth is not my specialty.
What is your reaction to what’s currently happening in Poptropica?
So this is the most brought-up question I see in the fandom. My initial reaction on the Poptropica shutdown rumors was that I was devastated. I have been playing Poptropica for a really long time now and it’s sad to see a popular game run into problems and almost come to its end. To me it was like seeing the disappearance of Club Penguin again — any OGs here will remember Club Penguin.
Poptropica is one of my favorite childhood games that I still play to this day. I’m glad it’s not shutting down yet, because if it was, then I don’t know what game I will play. It is the only thing left of my childhood that I remember playing.
That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:
Thank you so much for being a part of this journey. I’ve been busy IRL especially with writing for my school newspaper and taking time for my mental health. Now that the stress has lifted, I’m so happy to be back in the Pop community. See you all soon! ~🌸📚❄️🌸
Big news, Poptropicans: Poptropica is officially moving to Coolmath Games, a sister site owned by the same parent company, Sandbox & Co. (**Jan 19 & Feb 1 UPDATES added below with new insights from CMG.)
On Poptropica’s homepage, you’ll now be greeted with a pop-up message explaining the move. You can close the message and continue perusing the site as usual, including being able to log in and play.
As the pop-up states, Poptropica won’t be shutting down (despite the rumors), will still be playable on Steam and mobile, and will stay membership-free. They also promise refunds this month for those who had purchased membership before it was made obsolete.
UPDATE – Jan 19: Coolmath Games (CMG) also made a blog post about the move, sharing how they’ve already made a couple of improvements to the CMG version: making it playable on mobile and tablet devices straight from your web browser (no app download needed), and expanding the big-screen mode (lower-right corner) so the game can now be played full screen after watching a sponsored ad video.
In their decision to step up, CMG shares that “the original Poptropica decided to wind down,” which Pop had notably never mentioned before, and which also shows that there was some merit to the shutdown rumor after all. Seeing this, CMG “offered to cover the ongoing costs and hosting of the game” so it could live on. Your current Pop account will still work on CMG, separate from CMG accounts.
CMG also explains that the Poptropica site will fully redirect to CMG at some point, and plans to preserve “all content users find valuable… including… blogs.” Perhaps we may see the Pop Creators’ Blog (which mysteriously disappeared earlier this month) make a return on CMG?
UPDATE – Feb 1: CMG again modified their blog post to address the question of whether old islands from Poptropica’s early days would be returning. Unfortunately, the answer at this time is a disappointing no.
UPDATE – Mar 5: The section mentioning the old islands has been removed, offering a slight hope that old islands might return, although there is no other indication that any such plans are in the works.
Over on social media, Poptropica and CMG further elaborated on the move with posts on Instagram and Twitter (X). The migration is happening “in the coming months,” exact date to be announced.
The message refers to Poptropica’s official website, Twitter, and IG as places to find info about the game, while Pop also calls on its followers to follow CMG for info about Pop’s status. A tweet from CMG also links to Pop’s contact form as a place to ask questions.
CMG also has a much more active social media presence on both Twitter and Instagram than Poptropica lately, which seems to be a good sign that they will be more responsive in addressing fans’ concerns.
A promising CMG tweet from last year shares how they’ve been working with AwayFL, an Adobe Flash emulator, to bring back classic Flash games to their platform — bringing hope that this may someday include more of Pop’s old islands. However, CMG hasn’t promised this yet.
Poptropica has actually been on CMG since 2019 with the release of Reality TV: Wild Safari Island, though this island is no longer in the game. Poptropica’s presence on CMG continues to mirror what is on the official website, as it has throughout their “years-long partnership.”
Could the shutdown hoax have been the catalyst to CMG deciding to take action, as their social media posts seem to suggest? What do you think of the move? Share with us in the comments and on the PHC!
~🐠
Hey Poptropicans! Though we haven’t heard a peep from the Pop Creators since the whole shutdown scare a month ago, there’s still a bit of buzz going on in the fandom. Read till the end for a symbolic surprise!
First up, membership has been made free for a while now, but now every player is officially gilded with the ‘Member’ status bar on their character screens. Plus, if you go into your account settings, you’ll find that this new status doesn’t expire until Dec 31, 9999! ✨
Meanwhile, the membership page no longer lists this obsolete feature for $2,000, but now simply states, “We are no longer offering memberships.” This matches the wording used when the free membership first appeared last month, but once again calls into question whether this spells a looming end for the game… 😬
Onto more slightly sus news, upon logging in you may now discover a new banner stating that Poptropica is using cookies on their site. Not the delicious kind 🍪 unfortunately, but the kind that tracks your internet browsing. It’s pretty standard on many websites, but this notice is new for Pop. Still, you can rest assured that Pop won’t share your personal data with third parties, according to their privacy policy.
Besides the gameplay, fans have been digging into Poptropica’s books as well. 📚 Sleepy Biker recently asked former Pop Creator Mitch Krpata, author of the last three books in the Poptropica graphic novel series, about the ages of the books’ main characters. Mitch replied that Mya is 12, the boys (Oliver and Jorge) are 10, Octavian about 30, and Jonas is college-aged, around 18–20. Now we know!
Last and perhaps the most lasting of all, invisible_b0nes shared on our Discord server, the PHC, their new and colored Poptropica tattoo, featuring Dr. Hare riding the iconic yellow blimp. Super cool! 🐇 (Speaking of Pop tats, you can find a couple more here.)
Keep on poppin’ on!
~🐠
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