🦄 Ponytropica 🦄

Hi Gs,

One of the first posts that I ever made here on the PHB was titled “10 things you DIDN’T know about Poptropica!“, and from the looks of the title, you probably have gathered that this is the sequel. Hope you enjoy it. 😀

1. Lunar Colony: Flag of Poptropica

This was mentioned by deviantArt user “Child-Of-Hades“, so you can check out the original post here. In Lunar Colony you can see the first instance of Poptropica’s official flag, somewhat like one of the United States’ numerous flags from over the years — after counting the stars, you will find that there are 28 stars in total — and Lunar Colony was the 29th island! Well played, Creators. 😛

2. Meeting the CYOA Book’s Author

You can meet R. A. Montgomery, author & founder of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, in the CYOA hut on Main Street of Nabooti Island.

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3. Customizing Secret

On Time Tangled Island in Timbuktu, you can customize the silhouettes from inside the buildings!

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4. Wimpy Wonderland inspiration

The scene in Wimpy Wonderland island where you climb the Leisure Towers building is inspired by a Simpsons game called “Bart’s Nightmare”, in which he is “Bartzilla” and climbs a tower while people throw random items down on him from windows.

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5. S.O.S. Common Room

While this may be known by some, it may surprise others — S.O.S. Island does in fact have a common room on the far left corner of the Main Street entitled “Daggoo’s Fish Market”.

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6. Vlad the Viking

The old Creator, Vlad the Viking, had a Poptropican account with an unknown username. It is the only known account to have three prefixes (Vlad the Viking) instead of the regular two. Here’s a picture of him (on the right) from one of his old Creators’ Blog posts, when he ran a series called Snapshot Sagas:

7. Job Requirements: Poptropica flash developer

According to this Google Forum post by Poptropica Creator Jordan Leary (Dr. Hare) from 2010 (one of Poptropica’s most active years), you must meet the following requirements met in order to be a flash game developer at Poptropica —

Submit a strong portfolio demonstrating solid game development experience.
At least 3 years experience in AS2 or AS3 with expert level skills.
The ability to work well both on a team and independently.
Experience using object-oriented design methods.
Good code organization and knowledge of ActionScript best practices.

AS is the acronym for ActionScript, the code that Poptropica used to run on (I don’t know for sure if it still does). Read the full job posting here, it’s pretty interesting!

8. The Origin of Poptropica

According to an interview with Jeff Kinney by Words on a Limb, he got the idea for Poptropica one day while mowing his lawn! Here’s his exact quote:

I was mowing my lawn one day when the idea for Poptropica sprang up. It’s changed a lot from its initial conception, but the basic idea is still there. We publish every story we come up with that feels like it has merit.

9. Strange Poptropica cityscape

This photo, released by Poptropica Creator Nate Tufts back in 2009, shows an apartment building with an insane-looking Poptropican in front and a leaf monster on the top. The image document is entitled “CityScape”. What could this have been made for? Monster Carnival? Or another unreleased island?

CityScape

10. Ad Creator

Coralee Lazebnikova is a 2D animator, and if you read all of her profile, you’ll find that she’s previously done work for Poptropica and Family Education doing advertisement design. Like Nate Greenwall (senior graphic artist at Poptropica), she may have had a hand in designing ad games for Poptropica!

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That’s all the cool facts I have for you today! 😀 Tell me in the comments your thoughts on these – did you know them? If so, how many? The person who knew the most facts gets a cookie!

TAFN.

-HPuterpop

Poptropica Portfolio: Nate Greenwall

September 4, 2014January 2, 2017 Slanted Fish

Shark Boy may have been alienated from Poptropica, but his alter ego (otherwise known as Nate Greenwall, Poptropica’s lead graphic artist) is still out and about, churning out some really cool (and even unreleased) Poptropica imagery. They’re available for viewing on his portfolio website (scroll down for more info!). Here’s a look at some graphics of interest (as usual, click to enlarge):

Wow, did you catch all that?! Anyway, Nate has several pages on his portfolio site dedicated to various works he’s created for Poptropica (not all of which are posted above, but some may be familiar). If you’re interested, you can browse through them by clicking the links below:

Advertisements – designs for Poptropica ad buildings & characters
Dr. Hare’s Lair – LEGO Cuusoo – includes unreleased designs for a Dr. Hare minifigure
Papercrafts – from the LEGO Cuusoo campaign
Character design & animation – various Poptropica character designs (if you look closely, you’ll see the Sultan to be encountered on Arabian Nights Island!)
Posters & wallpapers – a selection of Poptropica wallpapers/posters
In-game illustrations – some full views of areas in the game, including the area by the sea in Ghost Story and even a palace for the upcoming Arabian Nights Island
Merchandise – among various things, the most noteworthy of all are the iTunes music CD covers and kids’ tattoos/face paint designs, both of which it looks like Poptropica is planning on releasing one day! (you can listen to Poptropica’s music at the PHB’s Behind the Scenes page too)
Logos, web, mobile design – graphics relating to Poptropica’s user interface (UI), including an array of buttons and icons, some of which have never been released

There’s a lot of creative work that goes into making Poptropica what it is and what it will be, and the artistic geniuses at Poptropica give us beautiful results. Enjoy the Nate Greenwall collection! 🙂

Daily Pop Sneak Peeks, Labs (Land), PoptropiCon Island, Shark Boy Mystery, Social Media, Super Villain Island

More Land creations & PoptropiCon peeks

September 3, 2014September 9, 2014 Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans — friendly reminder that the PHB’s Land Construction Contest ends this Friday, Sept 5th, so if you haven’t sent in your greatest Land creation to us yet, get building and click here for the post with instructions on how to enter! Or, if you’ve made something that caught the Creators’ eyes like Magic Fire‘s self sculpture (she’s a PHB reader too – hi MF!) and Young Fish‘s panoramic port city have, you might even be featured on the Creators’ Blog! (click to view full images)

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Have you ever wondered why Poptropica tends to release islands on Thursdays? While this doesn’t explain why Thursday exactly (Friday in some time zones), they did recently address the question (brought up by Poptrickia) via their official Twitter:

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PoptropiCon (guide here) had its first episode debut just last week for members, but if you’re wondering what’s up next, a good place to look are the Daily Pop sneak peeks. Let’s take a look at what we’ll be seeing inside the convention center (click to enlarge images):

Collect Em All: Keep them in the original packaging and they may be worth dozens someday.

Victory: It’s in the cards.

Hall Pass: Low-pill carpet for a high-traffic area.

The Help: With an attitude like that, you’ll go far.

Look Closer: It’s what’s under the cap that matters.

Silver Age: This archer gets right to the point.

Marvelous: A real stand-up comic booth.

History Lesson: Golden age, silver age, outrage… we’ve got it all.

Brony: Don’t say no, here we go, off across the plain.

You Hall: The swag bag is loaded, but where’s the exit?

Off-Screen: But we’re monitoring the situation.

Among all the random tidbits, it looks like there’ll be a booth for a comic hero called Elf Archer — created by some guy called “Stan Ditko”: a reference to Marvel Comics co-creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Plus, there’s even a Balloon Boy collectible that can be seen on a table!

And not far from the My Little Pony mimicry (“Pony Bros”… even the Daily Pop’s caption is “Brony”), there’s a poster for “Lava Twins” — it may be a long shot, but could this be a reference to a film called The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl? Yes, you read that right, “Shark Boy”: like the beloved Poptropica character who no longer is. (You can read all about the Shark Boy Mystery here!)

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Although it’s been about two years and ten islands since Super Villain Island, Brave Tomato recently uncovered this little snippet of Poptropica Creator Jeff Kinney working on it on a computer. It may not look like much, but it’s a pretty neat find nonetheless:

This came from a “making of” bonus feature on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days DVD, where they talked briefly about Jeff and Poptropica. (Jeff is also the author of the Wimpy Kid series.) Speaking of Jeff Kinney, I wonder if/when we’ll get to see his ice bucket challenge? 😉

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In other news, issue 19 of the PHB magazine, The POPCORN, releases this Sunday, Sept 7th, so be sure to have your creative entries sent in to phbpopcorn(at)gmail(dot)com before then! That’s all for now (or TAFN, as HP the hip one likes to say)! Keep on poppin’ on, Poptropicans. 🙂

Arabian Nights Island, PHB Sneak Peeks

Arabian Nights Ep. 1: item sneak peeks

September 1, 2014September 2, 2014 Blake

What’s popping, Poptropicans? Blake here, with a bizarre (you might even say bazaar) sneak preview of items for episode 1 of the upcoming Arabian Nights Island! (Thanks to Nameless UnDEFiNed for the links and Giant Rock for providing full views!) Click to enlarge the images, or scroll down for file links:

Down on the right is a sneak peek of one of the island’s areas, which you can find more about in this earlier PHB post. Also, here are the original links to the SWFs:

Keep checking the PHB for more sneak peeks on Arabian Nights Island and other Poptropica shenanigans on the horizon! Stay popping, Poptropicans.

*walks away humming Arabian Nights from Aladdin*

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island, Labs (Land), Mission Atlantis Island, Nintendo DS Game, PoptropiCon Island

Thursday wrap-up: Land pets, DS trailer, & CatCF pics

August 31, 2014April 6, 2015 Spotted Dragon

As you guys know, a lot of stuff happened this past Thursday. This post will be a wrap-up of all the updates/announcements, other than the release of PoptropiCon and Mission Atlantis (already mentioned by Samwow5).

However I do want to say that PoptropiCon has to be one of my favorite islands right now. I love how there were random Poptropicans (that you could customize) that just roamed around the island (along with the Poptropicans you could actually talk to). It made it feel more like real life, ya know? 🙂

land Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we? First off, PopLand has been updated to include animals. Most of them will harm you, but a few are nice and will mind their own business. (For the PHB’s guide to Land, click here!) Sadly, the furniture that we saw in the sneak peek was nowhere to be found or earned. Hopefully they will be added soon because in my opinion, the animals aren’t that big of a deal. They can hurt us, but while we can’t tame them, we can get rid of them by bringing them to lava. Click to enlarge the images:

To emphasize the update, the PopLand tour page now reads:

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself face to face with a blue-feathered tigerphant or an elusive fox monkey while exploring in Poptropica Land! Strange creatures will be showing up in the next version of the Poptropica Land labs project. Just be careful, they’re not all friendly!

You may also get an invitation to take a survey about Land, which you can check out here. From past experience, the Creators do listen to our suggestions, so be sure to let them know what you’d like to see in future Land updates!

In other news, the Forgotten Islands 3DS game that was recently mentioned now has a trailer! The title of the video indicates that the game will only be available in North America (at first/for now?).

As the video says, it will be released on October 14, 2014, but you can pre-order it now. According to the Creators…

The 3DS version of Forgotten Islands includes all of the content from the iOS game, including seasonal costume packs, and is presented in stereoscopic 3D! You’ve never seen Poptropica like this before.

…so if you’ve played it before, it’ll probably be the same game, just on the DS. 😉 To see what the iOS version of Forgotten Islands is like, check out the PHB’s walkthrough here!

Now onto our last big subject. The Creators wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by showing us some of the concept art (and their final versions) they made for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Island, which came out in 2012.

We will show you the pictures below, but to see what the Creators had to say, click here. Poptropica also got to post on the actual Roald Dahl website, which you can read by clicking here. Note that the two posts are not the same, so you probably want to check out both of them (click to enlarge images). 😉