*majestically brandishes unicorn horn wand in the air*
Welcome, ladies and gentlepoptropicans, to the second year of the Poptropica Community Awards, affectionately known around here as The Poppies! I’m your host, Slanted Fish, and I’m here to explain this whole shebang. Don’t mind my flowing fishy kimono, it’s all part of the show! As you can see by the site header, the PHB team dresses well for the occasion – and we sure hope you’ll join us!
If you were around for the first Poppies last year, you might remember how this works. The Poppies begins with a round of nominations for potential winners of certain award categories, this begins today and will end next Friday, July 15. This round will be followed by a round of voting once nominations are narrowed down, this will take place between July 16 and July 22. And finally, we’ll be announcing the winners as we celebrate the PHB’s upcoming 8th birthday on July 26th, 2016.
First up is the nomination round. How this works is we’ll announce each award category, followed by a brief description (see below). In order to keep nominations a surprise, we’ll be doing it a bit different this year: you put your nominations in a survey, and the Poppies team will take a look at the most popular nominations, as well as give their own input on deserving options, to create the voting options for the next round. Start filling in the survey now!
You can nominate for as many or as little awards as you like. Plus if you want to, let everyone know in the comments section who or what you feel is worth an award! To strengthen your nomination, you can also include a quick reason why you think they (or it) deserve(s) the award.
Without further ado, the awards up for grabs are:
- Best Poptropica Character: Whether it’s a jolly fellow on Main Street wishing you well or the biggest, baddest villain of the island, which NPC (non-player character) would you vote as the ultimate best created character? From character costume to execution, this category may be broad, but it’s your chance to pick your favorites for “Poptropican of the Year”! (Note: Don’t nominate fellow players.)
- Best Popular Island: Poptropica defines the most popular islands on their homepage as the following: Wimpy Boardwalk, Poptropolis Games, Mystery Train, Shrink Ray Island, Wimpy Wonderland, Cryptids Island, Skullduggery Island, Mythology Island, Astro-Knights Island, Spy Island, Super Power Island, 24 Carrot Island, Time Tangled Island, and Shark Tooth Island. Nominate your favs!
- Best New Island: Poptropica defines the newest islands on their homepage as the 17 most recent islands, which includes the following: Monkey Wrench, Escape From Pelican Rock, Timmy Failure, Mystery of the Map, Galactic Hot Dogs, Arabian Nights, PoptropiCon, Mission Atlantis, Survival, Monster Carnival, Mocktropica, Virus Hunter, Back Lot, Night Watch, Zomberry, Super Villain, and Lunar Colony. Nominate the best from the list!
- Best Classic Island: Poptropica defined the rest of the islands as “Classic,” so many among this list are memorable islands. These include: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Twisted Thicket, Vampires Curse, S.O.S., Ghost Story, Game Show, Red Dragon, Wild West, Great Pumpkin, Steamworks, Reality TV, Counterfeit, Big Nate, and Nabooti. Which ones were the greatest?
- Best Sponsored Island: Some of Poptropica’s islands are “sponsored”, meaning they are created with another franchise in mind (i.e. not Poptropica originals). These include: Nabooti, Big Nate, Great Pumpkin, Wimpy Wonderland, Red Dragon, Wimpy Boardwalk, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Galactic Hot Dogs, and Timmy Failure. Which one is most worthy of being played?
- Best Poptropican Name: What Poptropican name combination sounds the best? For a list of possible Poptropica names, click here. (Last year’s winner was Golden Dragon.)
- Best Soundtrack from a New Island: Which of Poptropica composer Jeff Heim’s soundtracks deserve the title of ‘best’ with regards to islands that were released with music? (These SUIs, or sound-updated islands, would be Virus Hunter and any island that came out after it.)
- Best Soundtrack from a Remade Island: A few of the Poptropica favorites have been remade from non-SUI to SUI over time, giving each some impressive music that followed your adventures. These are: Time Tangled, 24 Carrot, Mythology, Poptropolis Games, and Shrink Ray. Pick a soundtrack from these islands that you think stands out!
In addition to Poptropica-specific awards, there are also categories for those in the Poptropica community/fandom that you know and love!
- Best Current PHB Author (besides Slanted Fish): We’ve got a host of staff members here who regularly deliver news and other improvements to the PHB, but everyone’s different in their own way. The current staff are Brave Tomato, HPuterpop, Mighty Gamer, Spotted Dragon, Slanted Fish, Slippery Raptor, Ultimate iPad Expert, and Ylimegirl – and all of us (except me, as I won last year) are automatically nominated!
- Best Former PHB Author: Outside of the current PHB staff, which PHB author of the past do you think served this community the best? You can find a list of all of them, with their names linked to their posts, under the “Past PHB Authors” section of our About page. Shout out the ones who you want to win!
- Best ASG: We’ve got a plethora of ASGs (Avatar Studio Glitch-able accounts) over on our Avatar Studio Gift page, a haven for glitchers. Of the hundreds of ASGs available, which deserves the title of ‘best’?
- Best Active Fan Blog (outside of the PHN): The Poptropica Help Network includes this blog, the PHC (chat), our Twitter, videos, and wiki, but outside of our network lies a realm of other Poptropica fan sites as well. Nominate your favorites – just to be clear, this is for blogs that aren’t included in the list mentioned in the previous sentence. This category looks for sites that are currently active.
- Best Fan Art of 2016: Poptropican artists the world over have created many pieces of fan art, but which pieces have you seen that might deserve the title of ‘best’? The PHB magazines and our DeviantArt group are good places to start scouting for fan art! This category looks for works that were created/published in the year 2016, to give more current Pop artists a chance at the award.
- Best PMFM Round: Here on the PHB, Ultimate iPad Expert works hard to deliver yet another round of Poptropican Meme Face Mondays every week. Of the 30+ rounds that have premiered on this blog, which is the best? (Look back on every PMFM here!)
- Community Appreciation Award: Outside of the PHB staff past and present, many amazing Poptropicans make up our community, whether they’re frequent commenters, fan artists, PHC regulars, fan bloggers, or just someone well known in the online Poptropica community. Tell us who you appreciate most!
Now for some funny awards!
- Okay-est Island: Not the best, not the worst… just okay. Which island in the vast seas of Poptropica makes you go “eh, that was ok, I guess” – neither impressing nor disappointing you, and that you wouldn’t really miss if it were (gasp) taken out of the game?
- Funniest Poptropican Name: You have to admit, Poptropica names can get pretty ridiculous sometimes. But which combination of words that form Poptropica names is the silliest of them all? (Last year’s winner for “Worst” Name: Big Belly.)
- Weirdest Poptropica Moment: So you’ve seen a lot of things in your adventures on Poptropica. What takes the cake for the strangest of them all? Was it when you crossed a wide chasm on a horde of Narfs in Mocktropica? Or maybe Katya and Christopher’s kiss at the end of Vampire’s Curse? You decide!
Nominations will take place starting now, so sound off in the survey who or what you think deserves the awards! Please limit your nominations to a maximum of three per award.
If no nominations for a certain award are made, the Poppies team will use their own judgment to come up with some options. Next week’s poll options will be based on the most popular nominations, so check back then for the next round and cast your votes then! Plus, stay tuned on the PHB for details on our next birthday party and winner announcements. But for now…
Keep popping in for the Poppies going on throughout this month!
🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️ 
This is the My Place in Poptropica story of Clean Shark, who began playing Poptropica since it first began and enjoys being part of the community. See below for details on sending in your own MPIP!
2007-2008 | Poptropica’s Early Days
Back in 2007, I frequently visited the Funbrain website. I found an advertisement for this thing called Poptropica. My older sister told me that she played this game at school a lot, and she introduced it to me. I decided to try it out, immediately got hooked, and played it frequently, even though the only island was Early Poptropica at the time. I remember there not being a blimp at all.
I wondered if the game would ever update with something new, and I think I saw a “Coming Soon: Shark Tooth Island” on the home page. That got me excited, and soon enough Shark Tooth came out. It was fantastic, even though I didn’t know how to beat it for a while. However, I figured it out and I replayed that and Early Poptropica frequently.
Now that there was a blimp and a map, I could see the upcoming islands, Time Tangled and Monster Carnival. I knew that I would enjoy this game for a long time. Island after Island came out, and the game just got bigger and better. I figured out how to save my account, and I got costumes from the new Poptropica Store. It felt amazing.
2009-2011 | That Unimportant Middle Part
Honestly, nothing truly interesting happened during these years. Sure, the map was enormous and I completed every island using the Official Poptropica Guidebook, but other than that I don’t really remember anything too interesting going on.
I think the coolest thing that happened at this time was when Wimpy Wonderland came out, because I was a huge Diary of a Wimpy Kid fan at the time, and seeing my favorite book and favorite game come together was amazing.
2012-2013 | Discovering the Community
Twisted Thicket Island, I swear. I wanted to beat it so badly since it had just come out, but I had no clue how to complete it. Just when I was about to give up, I realized something: What if I just looked up a guide on the internet?
It was then that I found the Poptropica Help Blog. I looked around and found the guide to Twisted Thicket, and I soon joined the community as “clean shark”. Not the most interesting name, heh. I used guides on tons of islands I didn’t know how to complete, and I knocked out every single one. It felt amazing.
Through the PHB, I found out all sorts of stuff about Poptropica. I learned about the Mystery of Monster Carnival Island, the island that had disappeared years before. I found out all sorts of information about Poptropica. I was completely invested.
2014-2015 | Losing Interest
Before this time, I thought I’d never stop playing Poptropica. Boy, was I wrong! About a couple of years later, I just completely lost interest in the game. I started thinking the game was becoming terrible, with episodic islands and such. I could care less about it, but I occasionally logged on to keep my account active, since I had some valuable stuff in it.
However, the Poptropica Help Blog introduced me to communities on the Internet, and I eventually made friends online on sites like Google+. I didn’t know if I’d ever come back to Poptropica, but I thought I might since I knew people regain interest in stuff they liked when they were younger. And speaking of regaining interest…
2016 | Returning to Poptropica
Near the end of the school year, I found Poptropica on the App Store. Since I easily got bored at school, I downloaded the app and played some of the older, classic Islands on there, 24 Carrot and Time Tangled respectively (now converted to SUIs – sound updated islands).
I saw a new Island called “Escape from Pelican Rock”, and it was about breaking out of prison. I thought it sounded rather interesting, and so I played it. I fell in love with it, and I thought that perhaps I was wrong about Poptropica going downhill. I played the other Islands like PoptropiCon, which I loved as well.
After that, I decided to return to the Poptropica Help Blog to get out of spots where I got stuck, and I eventually came back into the community. I have a bad habit of typing overly-long comments, though, haha. I’m a pretty big fan of Poptropica again and I’m eager to see how Poptropica 2.0 turns out.
To conclude, I’m a longtime fan of Poptropica, and being in the Poptropica community led me to become an internet star! (not really… just kinda well known on Google+…) Anyway, my name is Clean Shark, and this was My Place in Poptropica!
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Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! Feel free 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). Look out for more community MPIPs in the future!
~the PHB