Guest Posts, Pop 5

Pop 5: Adventurous Islands

(Hello, Poptropicans! This is a guest post written by Poptropica community member, TechWizard. Keep in mind that this Pop 5 list represents only the author’s opinions, and also contains minor spoilers for some Poptropica islands. With that said, enjoy!)

pop5 adventurous islands

Hey Poptropicans! It’s everyone’s favorite Pop 5-er, TechWizard!

Poptropica Islands are really awesome, so I decided: Why not tell you all my pop 5 favorite adventurous islands? How does that sound to you? Great. Sit down and be prepared for an adventurous ride!

Please notice that this list contains spoilers, so read at your own risk! Anyway, let’s just get to the countdown!

#5: Spy Island

Being one of the very first islands I played, Spy Island whips you into a mission to track down three lost agents while dealing with the villainous B.A.D organization. Are they terrorists? Do they just want to make a fashion statement? Well, who knows? Spy Island is a classic and a great play for all ages! And it’s certainly NOT “mission impossible”!

#4: Arabian Nights Island, Ep. 2

an66

I’m a sucker for infiltration games, and Episode 2 of Arabian Nights is no exception. You sneak around the 40 thieves’ lair (which I assume was not approved by the Homeowner’s Association) to find a lamp. Your gear? A highly flammable disguise that doesn’t burn you to death, and a magic bomb. Yup, pretty cool.

#3: Red Dragon Island

Lucky Joker Ninja.png

I wish I could go there! This island is one of Pop’s sponsored islands, based on a story from the popular Magic Tree House series! If you don’t know what that is, it’s about two siblings who travel in a magic treehouse to various time periods and places from history and mythology.

This island whisks you to Old Japan, where Jack and Annie are taken away for being illegals. Now you have to help some people, learn some ninja skills, and ascend to the fortress to break them out. Unexpectedly, our “friend,” the Shogun, won’t let us off the hook without an excruciatingly difficult boss fight: the dragon clash. (Of course, it’s not as hard if you use easy mode.)

#2: Virus Hunter Island

vh5

This takes me back to the summer of 2013… on a day when it was hot, I had just returned home from a picnic, and I was near exhaustion. I checked Poptropica, and Virus Hunter had been released!

Here, you get entangled in a quest (against your will) by Dr. Lange, a scientist who threatens to throw you in federal jail. Your mission: Cure someone before they die. No skin off your nonexistent nose, right? In the body, however, viruses dismantle your ship and scatter the parts everywhere, making your mission a lot harder. Have fun!

Eventually, you get your weaponry back and cure Joe Schmoe. But then a dog gets sick and you have to cure him too. What, no paycheck?

And now, for the number one island! It’s…

#1: Super Villain Island

The death of Lucky Joker

The return of the Fearsome Four! You fly to a dangerous prison to infiltrate the dreams of four of Poptropica’s most infamous villains to retrieve the source of their unyielding evil. You encounter sleeping pirates, spinning platforms, ants, crazy spiders, a woman with a penchant for vandalizing, and the god of all villains….

Zeus! He’s back, and certainly not happy about his previous defeat. He’s hatched another plot to take over Poptropica, and it’s up to you to stop him! You’ve done it before; you can do it again, right?

That’s all for now, folks! Sayonara! Adios! Bye bye! Ciao! See ya!

–TechWizard

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by TechWizard!

The PHB welcomes guest posting from anyone in our community if you have something to share, whether it be sneak peeks, My Place in Poptropica stories, or any other ideas you might have. We also encourage sharing on the PHC.

If you have an idea for a guest post, send it in to [email protected]:)

Blast from the Past, Books

Blast from the Past: Some Poptropica Paraphernalia

Hello, everyone!

Lucky Joker here with some pretty fascinating things to share you all today. Credit goes to idk for sharing these findings with us!

At a Pearson event called IT Works in 2011, long before the Poptropica app was introduced, Poptropica was playable on a standing touch screen. It’s pretty neat, and I assume they did this to experiment with the different controls. See for yourself! (Click any of the images to make them larger! 😉 )

On the trend of looking in the past – Poptropica had designed a mini booklet in 2010, known as the Poptropica Fun Book. Its purpose was to help children have fun learning English by completing puzzles and games that were inside of it. There was even a Teacher’s Guide made too!

You can download the online version of both the fun book and the teacher’s guide if you’d like to check out the insides. (Just know that the teacher’s guide is in Spanish.)

Well, that’s all I have for today. Thanks for reading!

-Lucky Joker

My Place in Poptropica

My Place in Poptropica: Young Spinner

This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Young Spinner, a longtime on-and-off player whose favorite costume is the Lumberjerk. See below for how to send in your own MPIP!

ys mpip

Hi, guys! My name is Young Spinner, and this is My Place in Poptropica; the full story of my Poptropican life. Enjoy!

2007-2010 | The Beginning

I remember pretty clearly the day I first discovered Poptropica. It was just before the Christmas holidays when I was in second grade. During a technology class, our teacher wrote up some games on a whiteboard that he thought were appropriate for our age, and as you might have guessed, Poptropica was among the list (even though I now know better – Pop is for all ages!). I can’t remember any of the other games from that little list now, but in any case, I was intrigued when I saw the name ‘Poptropica’ – it sounded quite interesting to my seven-year-old self.

So, I visited it, created my first-ever Pop account (whose name was Shaggy Goose) and played Early Poptropica. Upon completing my first island, I fell in love with Poptropica. And that was back when there was only one island and almost none of the features Poptropica has today – so imagine how much more I love the game now!

I continued playing Poptropica up till sometime in 2010, and then I stopped. How and why, I cannot remember, but I definitely have zero memories of playing Pop in 2011.

2012 | The Lumberjerk

When I was over at a friend’s house for the first time with her, I re-discovered the joy of Poptropica! This was on the very day that Twisted Thicket was released to members, and my friend told me about Poptropica, not knowing that I had played it for four years straight previously! I had forgotten about the game, and so I watched my friend play Twisted Thicket on her computer using her Poptropican, who was named White Bee. As a member, she was probably one of the first people to play Twisted Thicket (though evidently not in the top 10).

This was also when I realised Poptropica had memberships that would enable you to get a great deal of cool paraphernalia within the game. I don’t know how I didn’t know about it before, since memberships began when I was still playing Pop in 2009, but I digress. I saw the limited edition Lumberjerk costume in the Store, and with one look at it, I decided I wanted it so much, with that rumbling chainsaw and helmet with a changing light – but it was only for members! It was so close, and yet so far.

Naturally, I begged my parents for a membership, but they refused. After that disappointing incident, I returned to checking into Pop everyday – not just to play islands that I had missed out on during my hiatus from the game, but to gaze longingly at the Lumberjerk card in the store (which probably didn’t help my despondency) until it simply disappeared from the Store as soon as I (and other non-members) could play Twisted Thicket.

Poptropolis Games arrived a little while after, and I knew this was certainly not a normal island as soon as I had to select my Poptropican’s tribe (forever Nanobots!) at the start. The events in the island weren’t too hard for me, except for Triple Jump. My friend White Bee suggested Poptropica Secrets’ Poptropolis walkthrough, created by a Poptropican called Fierce Moon, which did indeed help me complete the island. Even though I was just about on the brink of discovering the rest of the Pop community then, I did not go any further than going to Poptropica Secrets that day.

The other thing that resulted from Poptropolis Games was that my mum watched me play part of the island and evidently thought that Poptropica was a good game, because she bought me a six-month membership! Although it, of course, never got me the Lumberjerk costume I’d always dreamed about having, it did get me a limited edition, members-only Zaggy Moondust costume from Lunar Colony, whose hair I absolutely loved, and I still wear it to this day on my Poptropican.

2013 | The Blogs

One day when I was pretty bored in the summer of 2013, I started searching up more Poptropica blogs. I ran across about ten different Poptropica fan blogs, but finally landed upon the PHB, since most of the other blogs I had gone through had mentioned it several times as a sort of superior site when it came to Poptropica blogs.

From what I gathered from the other blogs, only the best Poptropica bloggers made it onto the PHB team. But even with that knowledge, weirdly enough, I didn’t even look through the PHB’s posts – all I did was somehow find the Xat PHC, and afterwards I forgot about checking out the PHB again. I went on the Xat chat a few times weekly, under the name BunkerPums (or something like that), although I didn’t chat a lot on there. But still, it was a relief for me to know that I wasn’t the only 13-year-old out there to play and love Poptropica!

However, I only lasted for a month or so on the PHC and with playing Poptropica because of the new and ever-infuriating sound-updated islands (SUIs). Most of the time I couldn’t even visit those islands because of the never-ending lag. All in all, they pushed me away from playing Poptropica for a good while.

2017 | The Fashionable Return

On a chilly February day this year, I decided to go back to Poptropica after a four-year hiatus from the game. But when I tried to log into Shaggy Goose again, I realized that I had forgot her username, and therefore could not log in. I was quite anguished for two minutes, until I decided to make a brand-new account: Young Spinner!

Between my long hiatus, there were so many islands I had missed out on (20+ new medallions to get!), and there was something new I had just missed seeing in 2013: episodic islands! At once I began the steady process of playing all of these new quests.

Then I remembered the Lumberjerk card, and along with that the ‘glitchers’ I had encountered back on the Xat PHC, who knew about how to perform glitches in order to obtain ‘rare’ costume parts. I surfed the internet again until I found the PHB’s Avatar Studio Gift, which had the very ASG with the costume I’d dreamed of having for five years straight: ASGbyEvra#2!

After about a week enjoying my fabulous new Lumberjerk dress-up, I took notice of the costumes of Slanted Fish and Happy Lobster, who both had amazing, signature, original looks, not just an outfit that was mostly from one common costume (sorry, Lucky Joker 😛). So, I returned to the PHB’s ASG page and rifled through the multitudes of ASGs until I assembled an original costume that I really liked. You can find the costume of yours truly on this post’s main graphic!

Moving away from my fashion dilemmas, I decided to check out what else was on the PHB beyond their ASG page, and came upon the homepage with all their blog posts! As soon as I read a few of them, I realized why it was that only the best Poptropica bloggers got to work there. The PHB was one of the most superb sites I’d laid my eyes on – and this was made by people who were, on average, quite close to my age!

On that note, I plan to open my own Poptropica blog in the very near future for all to enjoy – so keep your eyes peeled!

See you around!

~👶🌪

Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story!

If you haven’t already, we invite you to send in your own (please include a minimum of 550 words, type with good spelling and grammar, divide it into labeled sections, and include your username). If you send in your story, we will continue to post new community MPIPs!

~the Poptropica Help Blog

Poptropica Worlds, Sneak Peeks

A Smashing Poptropica Worlds Mystery Item Leak!

Hello, everyone!

Lucky Joker here sharing another Poptropica Worlds mystery item leak. Skinny Moon posted this image today of an item we’ll be seeing in Poptropica Worlds:

Poptropica Worlds leaked item 2

Again, it’s just a silhouette, but it’s clearly a lot rounder than the first item leak we saw last week.

To me, it looks like some sort of boulder or some type of egg. Perhaps it’s a furniture item? Or maybe it’s an island item we’ll be seeing down in the rocky mines of Crisis Caverns Island, which we caught a glimpse of from the biggest sneak peek of Poptropica Worlds that the Creators had given us earlier.

Also, Skinny Moon has confirmed via this tweet below that, while the Creators will continue to blog for Worlds, they’ll be moving from away Blogger (the blog-publishing service they’ve been using all these years) to another service that’ll give more options for the blog’s design:

It isn’t the biggest news, but it’s definitely something else to look forward to!

Anyway, what do you think the mystery object is? Let us know down in the comments section!

–Lucky Joker

Polls, Social Media

Out-of-this-World Skinny Moon and Vehicle Designs!

Hello, everyone!

Lucky Joker here with some out-of-this-World snaps, polls, and other social media paraphernalia. Let’s get into it, shall we?

Earlier this week, Skinny Moon posted this Poptropica–to–Poptropica Worlds comparison of her avatar on the Creators’ Blog. The new look sure does pop!

skinny2bmoon2b-2bpoptropica2bvs-2bpoptropica2bworlds

In her post, she credits Poptropica artist Lance (presumably Lance Fry) for her new avatar. Well done, Lance!

Skinny Moon also posted these pictures on various Poptropica social media channels before blogging about it. Be sure to follow their social media (more on that below) to see what’s new, even before the Creators (or anyone in the fandom) blogs about it!

Anyway, which Skinny Moon do you like better? (I really love both of them!) Share your thoughts in the comments.

Also on the Creators’ Blog, a “Pick your favorite Poptropica vehicle designs” poll is currently being conducted. The cut-off date is unknown, so go ahead and vote for your favorite as soon as possible, before it closes!

For the poll, they’ve asked us to pick TWO of our favorite designs, and hinted that the most popular ones may someday come to life within Poptropica Worlds!

vehicle designs

The options at hand are: Big Wheel, Future Bike 01, Future Bike 02, Greenfire Truck, Wild Bug, and Uni-Moto.

They’ve actually shown these designs before, a few years back. These were concepts for an abandoned project called Racer Island (or as they mentioned, The Great Race).

For some unknown reason, they’ve omitted one of the vehicles from the poll – this blue “Future Bike 01” was replaced with one of the other Future Bikes from the original.

futurebike01concept

Strange. Maybe they figured they had enough Future Bikes in the mix. In any case, be sure to vote for your two favorites!

Lastly, there’s a new display of Poptropica’s social media visible at the bottom of today’s post on the Creators’ Blog. (These buttons have also been on their sidebar for some time now.) Perhaps they could go for a more modern look, though?

PoptropicaSocialMedia.png

Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

–Lucky Joker