What’s popping, Poptropicans? Blake here, with a Force-filled piece of Poptropican news!
For a limited time, if you go to the Main Street of any Poptropica Island, you will find a Star Wars: The Force Awakens ad!After watching the video, and having this NPC that looks nothing like Rey ogle you for a minute and a half, you’ll receive your very own BB-8 Follower!
Woo, it’s slightly less harder-to-find than the Sphero BB-8! Anyway, whenever you equip the item card, you have this little guy following you around. And to my nerd-pleasure, HE ACTUALLY ROLLS. Yes, all you Star Wars fans out there. He is not a stationary follower. He actually rolls. Gosh, is this the droid you’re looking for, or what?
In other news, check out the new track from Escape From Pelican Rock Island posted on Jeff Heim’s Soundcloud – “Prisoner”! Sounds ominous.
It’s here, Poptropicans! The PHB Christmas special we promised will be posted in parts over the next 12 days leading up to Christmas. Here’s part one – enjoy!
EXT. PHB OFFICES
(The staff is gathered around a huge table. Clearly edited in SOUNDS OF LAUGHTER can be heard. BLAKE begins talking to his FELLOW AUTHORS.)
Blake: Well, it appears Christmas time has rolled around again. Are any of you going home for the holidays?
Fishy: Yes. I am returning to my native country of Iceland to be with my salmon family in this hard time of winter.
Blake: Alright then! I was gonna go help out that orphanage downtown, but if you guys don’t wanna go, then fine..
Paul: Alright, Blake. Normally you’re the definition of selfish and rude. What’s got you so cheery?
Blake: The blood of infants.
(A STUDIO LAUGH TRACK plays.)
Paul: No, but seriously.
Blake: Fine. Timmy put me up to this. Remember that bet we made, where I dressed up as a princess and walked around the offices for a week?
Paul: Yeah! I think Sam actually has that up on Youtube.
YOUTUBE SCREEN
(A YOUTUBE UPLOAD is shown processing. It cuts to black, then you hear the sounds of clicking. The video flashes on screen, titled USE_TO_BLACKMAIL_BLAKE.AVI. In the video, BLAKE parades around the offices, ruling over it like a kingdom. SAM snickers in the background.)
INT. PHB OFFICES
(THE AUTHORS stand around the table, idly. COMPLETE SILENCE is heard.)
BT: Um, Paul? You’ve just been staring at the wall for 5 minutes. There’s nothing there.
Blake: Well, there is HP hanging Slip from the TV again.
(OFFSCREEN, the sound of HP hanging SLIPPERY RAPTOR to the TV can be heard, followed by a loud thud. SLIPPERY shouts in pain, and the action cuts back to the AUTHORS.)
BT: Yeah, that is pretty interesting. Anyway, I’m going back to Early Poptropica for the holidays. I have family there, and I haven’t written home in a few years…
Blake: So I can count you and Fishy out for helping me at the orphanage? Whatever…
EXT. ST. MARY’S ORPHANAGE
(THE AUTHORS, sans FISHY and BT, stand outside the orphanage. HP looks toward BLAKE.)
HP: Dude, why’d you drag us along?
Blake: Because we have two characters that we wrote off in the beginning of the special, and we’re pressed for time! Plus, Sister Mary needs our help with the kids anyway.
Sam rolls on the floor in a circle while laughing hysterically.
Slip: Wow, an orphanage actually named after a living person. Weird…
(SAM rolls in on a skateboard, and does an ollie over SAM, still laughing hysterically. He takes off his multicolored, 80s style sunglasses and smiles, revealing his single gold tooth. A close up shot of the tooth is shown. A single sparkle shines across the golden beauty.)
Sam: Yo yo yo! What up, it’s ya boy Sammy Fresh comin at ya live from the PHB Christmas Special!
HP: We don’t care.
Blake: The Gravity Falls references make this special twice as sad, but Sammy Fresh makes it twice as rad! Alright, let’s head inside.
Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultimate iPad Expert here. Welcome back to another completely and utterly normal episode of PMFM!
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Or is it? This round five Lenny Week on PMFM (Poptropican Meme Face Mondays), of course!
First, a short backstory for this week. As you may know, PMFM runs on a first come-first serve basis, so once everyone that requested before you gets their face, you get yours. Well, it just so happened that 3 people in a row chose the Lenny Face ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). So, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for a “Lenny Week”.
The lucky Lenny-ed Poptropicans this week are Brave Sky, Skinny Ice, and Brave Thunder. And here are the memes:
Brave Sky
Skinny Ice
Brave Thunder
Feel free to click on the images to view them in their full glory. 😛
Include the meme face you would like on your Poptropican in your comment (a link to an image of the meme is very preferred).
Post your comment and wait! (PMFM is operated on a first come-first serve basis, so your meme face will come after all of the ones before are released).
Just a note: You do not need to re-comment on newer posts if you haven’t gotten yours yet. Once I reply to your comment mentioning “You being added to the list,” than I have seen your comment and added it to my literal list, so yours will be made after each one before is made.
This completes round five (Lenny Week) of meme faces. Tune in next Monday for the next Poptropican Meme Face Mondays!
What do you think about this week’s meme faces? Do you want one? Comment below.
What’s popping, Poptropicans? Blake here, with my induction into MPIP (My Place in Poptropica!) Now, for the uninitiated, MPIP is a lot like the Youtube phenom, “Draw My Life.” Preceding mine were the stories of my fellow authors, HP, UiPE, and Slip. Without further ado, let’s begin!
2008 | Blake’s Beginnings
I began playing Poptropica in late September of 2008. Keep in mind, this was back when the buzz was for Big Nate, and I couldn’t complete Spy Island for the life of me. Anyway, for those of you who know me, I started playing Poptropica in around the 1st or 2nd grade.
I was in the ‘gifted’ program at our school, which is basically a thing where smarter-than-the-average-bear kids go to receive help with whatever academic and/or social problems they may have. My friend Chase introduced me to the game. Well, not exactly introduced, more like “I eavesdropped on what he was doing.” I typed in the link (mistakenly spelling it Poptown the first few times due to my lack of memory skills), and off I went!
This opened up a world of opportunities for me. Eventually, I had to create a new account, since my oldest one fell victim to a glitch where the Poptropican got stuck in the future on Time Tangled.
2009 | The Naming
Around 2009, I began to frequent the PHC. Along the way, I was impersonated. Of course, for 9-year-old me, the only logical solution was to go undercover and see who was doing this. So, my friend Ana and I came up with the undercover name “Blake_Poison” for me. As you may notice, this ended up being the name I stuck with for all future blogging. So, you can thank our little Ocean’s Eleven heist for my name!
2010 | Author Nights
Now, we fast forward to the year 2010, and, therefore, my first encounter with our glorious vessel, the PHB.
It was Author Night, the first of a PHB tradition (now simply known as PHC parties) that I tried to make it to every year. We’d all meet our favorite PHB authors on the PHC. It was a golden opportunity to finally converse with my favorite author at the time, MT (author of Party With Hobos, my favorite web series at the time, which will sadly never continue).
Needless to say, I was very… hyper, as anyone who was at the event could tell you. Let’s just say, I went on a small rant. Around this time, I lost my 2nd account to a glitch on Red Dragon Island. This is around the time I created the account I use today (mickety2 if you’d like to add me).
2013–beyond | Popping & Blogging
Skip forward a few years, to 2013, and my first experience at Poptropica blogging. Now, for all you Blake nerds out there, I’ve actually ping-ponged through what I consider the top three Poptropica blogs out there: Super Thunder’s Blog, Poptropican Awesomeness, and the PHB. Most of these, I kept my job at for 2, 3 weeks. But then, after a PHB party (and me pestering Juyo/Fishy at every party we attended together), I got the golden ticket.
And now, I’m here. And let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. Three wild years at this place. This wonderful, slightly-sickening-with delight place. And all of you, you made it happen. Thank you. Thank you, every last one of you. I couldn’t have gotten to where I am today without a leg up from you.
And that, Poptropicans, is how I met your moth– errr, I mean My Place in Poptropica.
Welcome to my review on the latest Poptropica island: Escape from Pelican Rock! This review was first published on my site, Slippery Raptor’s Blog. Special thanks to Slanted Fish for letting me play EFPR Island on her account! And now, here we go…
Warning: This post contains spoilers.
With the release of Escape from Pelican Rock, Poptropica proved it could still make a solid island adventure with just the right amount of challenge. EFPR is not your cliché hero island with you chasing the villain – it’s a quest like no other.
We PHB authors were so excited about this island that we already knew it was coming months before its release! It was first known as Prison Break Island but later became known as Escape From Pelican Rock. EFPR also had an island preview similar to Timmy Failure Island’s a month before it released. We were also shocked (and incredibly honored) to find this interesting Easter egg on the island:
After weeks of free prizes and photo booth specials on the island preview, it finally came without warning on December 10, 2015 for members. And now, let’s see how it plays out!
Storyline
Pelican Rock is the toughest prison ever built. And after you’re framed for a crime you didn’t commit, it’s your new home! Use your wits to devise an escape plan, and your nerve to pull it off. But getting out is just the beginning — because the real criminal is still out there!
We’ve been through a lot of prisons in Poptropica.Brave Tomato stated that these prisons flopped and got destroyed— whether it was a missing ghost prisoner, glowing meteorites, obsessed rulers, or even Old West bandits! How would Pelican Rock stack up to the rest?
Pelican Rock is a treacherous place no one would dare to enter. Aside from it being secluded from the streets of Bay City, Pelican Rock prison is feared for being home to the most notorious criminals of Bay City. Now things turn upside down when you try to do something good – collar a thief – and instead end up framed behind the bars of Pelican Rock!
A question bugged me while reading the plot: “How will I find my way out of a prison of maximum security?” The story is intriguing indeed. You’re being framed for something you didn’t do — how harsh.
Overall, Poptropica gave us a fresh spin from the fallen prisons of past Poptropica islands, and Pelican Rock proved to be stronger than the rest.
Gameplay
The gameplay of this island is fairly good. Since it just released, it’s more prone to glitches, but that’ll probably get fixed over time. While I was playing, I got stuck on the first day of work, and the player slides while eating. Although I struggled with a few bugs at first, it was smoother as I progressed.
I also liked the idea of having the NPCs (non-player characters) designed to be the same gender as your player — definitely a Poptropica first. Both the prisoners and police come with male and female counterparts!
The mini-games were also quite enjoyable. I thought making license plates and earning gum was a clever idea, and the vent puzzles were a nice touch as well. What I didn’t like as much was the repetition of each day, going back and forth trying to make a little progress at each turn. But that was all part of the story, so in a way it worked out. It was also pretty helpful to have Marion, the inmate at the metal shop, offer some hints to keep us from getting too stuck.
In conclusion, Poptropica gave us some pretty great and challenging gameplay on this island. Keep it up, Creators!
Soundtrack
The music track above greets you when you enter the island. I believe it’s one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard on Poptropica. It’s very calm and sets a soothing tone. As for the other tracks playing in the prison, it’s creatively made and appropriate to the respective rooms. I like how detailed the sounds can go! The radio in the cell block is a good example.
Mr. Jeff Heim, once again, you’ve done a great job with composing!
Animations & Design
Moving along, Poptropica also improved on their animations. One of the best scenes on the island was the police holding back Big Tuna. Other good examples were the food fight part and the end scene of the island!
The character designs were also created well. I loved the little details, like Florian’s shiny hair, Big Tuna’s unusual body structure, the abs on Bert, the rollerskating kid’s outfit, and of course, the boots on the Booted Bandit, the only permanent shoe-wearing Poptropican! They certainly did a great job here.
Last but not the least, the rooms were created wonderfully. I like how they made the Main Street to look so friendly and calm with the color palette they used. As for the prison, I like how it made it quite realistic and detailed from the cracks and the rust on the galvanized iron sheets.
Verdict
Poptropica definitely ended the year on a high note with this excellent island. Compared to the other three islands of this year, this brought on the best challenge. Kudos to Poptropica! I would definitely recommend you to play it when it releases to all at the end of the month.
If I would rate this out of 10, I think Escape From Pelican Rock gets… an 8.2!
🦄 Ponytropica 🦄 