🏝️ Poptropica Help Blog 🗺️

Hello all! Was 2013 a crazy year, or what? I know for me it was! With a new year looming on the horizon, it’s always good to take a look back at what has happened in the previous year, and see what you may have missed! Between now and New Years, I am going to take you on a journey into the past, looking at Poptropica’s great leaps this year!!

January

January 1st: Happy New Year! Welcome to 2013. 2012 has seen some pretty major updates including new islands such as S.O.S., Vampire’s Curse, Twisted Thicket, Poptropolis Games, Wimpy Boardwalk, Lunar Colony, Super Villain, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Zomberry. Along with that, the Friends feature has been released and Members Only Bonus Quests are introduced!

January 2nd: Daily Pop posts (which later prove to be part of Night Watch Island) spark suspicion that Monster Carnival Island may be an upcoming island.

January 10th: It’s official. Zomberry Island is now out for everyone to play! Grab your flashlight and go find the cure for those zombies!

January 14th: After speculation of a “Mall Island” began to run wild, the newest Poptropica Island was announced, Night Watch Island.

January 16th: The trailer for Night Watch Island is released, with a first look at the island, including the burglar and snake.

January 17th: The Members Only items for Night Watch Island are released in the Poptropica Store.

January 18th: One of the most tragic events in the history of Poptroica, it is announced that the Poptropolis Games will sink!

January 20th: Some new Poptropica Books are found Amazon!

January 24th: The Poptropolis Games are gone forever…. or are they?

January 25th: Dr. Hare takes to the PCB to announce Dr. Hare’s Lair on LEGO CUUSOO.

January 27th: A new, never before seen Spy Costume is found.

January 30th: The PCB offers the first official preview of a new island.

February

February 4th: We received our first LEGO CUUSOO prize, a new Dr. Hare wallpaper!

February 6th: We get our second preview for the newest island coming to Poptropica!

February 12th: The Zomberry Guide for the Poptropica Tips and Tricks app is released.

February 21st: Poptropica’s newest island, Night Watch, is released to members!

February 27th: The LEGO CUSSOO project reached 2,500 and we received our second prize, the Big Carrot Costume.

March

March 4th: The PCB gives us our 3rd look at the new unnamed island.

March 9th: The Creators accidentally release the name of the new island, and them remove it.

March 12th: The Croods Experience is released on Poptropica.

March 14th: Night Watch Island is released to everyone!

March 15th: Back Lot Island receives its formal announcement!

March 20th: The Back Lot Island Members Only Items are released.

March 23rd: A large amount of Virus Hunters Island images are already released.

March 29th: The prizes for the LEGO CUUSOO page reaching 5,000 supports are previewed, but not released, on account of the page only having around 4,000 supporters.

Check back soon for Part 2 of The Year 2013 in Poptropica!

Viewer's Showcase

Viewer’s Showcase!

December 24, 2013December 24, 2013 HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

For some of you viewers, your ultimate goal is to get featured in a post for finding a glitch, or alerting us about something new… but some of you never get the chance — the once a month Viewer’s Showcase doesn’t require anything but some handy hands!

I will be showcasing some of the most awesome art, stories, and blogs in the Poptropica universe on these posts — but I will be the one deciding! I’ll scour the web to find the best, then let these geniuses have the spotlight!

Art

Silver Wolf, PHB viewer and PTFP owner has took off lately with her sensational new art. It is quirky but cool, and you can marvel at it for hours.

Looks like I have some competition. 😉

Stories

Comics qualify as novels, and novels are stories. Cool Berry the Unicorn Cat has been hard it work creating funny little gems that are awesome!

Blog of the Month

This month, We-Love-Poptropica deserves some credit. It’s not a regular blog, it runs on DeviantArt, and can also be called a group. Or, a cool and artsy community. It’s really awesome and I suggest you check it out. 🙂

http://we-love-poptropica.deviantart.com/

Also, Spotted Dragon is having a Christmas and birthday party for her blog over on the PTFP chat; I hope you can come!

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That’s it, I hope you enjoyed some awesomely unique creativity. I hope you got a fill of something fresh and new. 😀

-HP

Merchandise, Nintendo DS Game, Reviews

Poptropica Adventures for Nintendo DS: HP’s Review

December 23, 2013February 25, 2014 HPuterpop

Hi Gs,

A while back, Poptropica and Ubisoft released a DS game called Poptropica Adventures. I have a feeling this was an experiment, and also a feeling that this is the first and last one. This was one of the first things that started to get Poptropica to what it is today in a drastic way. Not many online games can say, “Yeah, we have our own DS game.” I finally got to play it, and the results are in! Let’s get to it!

Design

The fact of the matter is, Poptropica didn’t make this game. Ubisoft did. And even if they are game designers, it doesn’t mean they are the Creators.

Character Design

My take on it is, it’s adorable, but it’s not quite right. The placement of the eyes are strange, and their creepy smile gets to me. But I think it’s adorable because I can’t believe Poptropica has come this far. I don’t know why, but these avatars sorta symbolize that.

Material Design

Nothing much to say about this except it’s the same as the islands. One thing that’s nice, though, is that the background isn’t pixelated like the actual characters. I’m not a big Nintendo fan, so I don’t know if this is normal, but it’s still pretty cool.

Story

One thing I can say about the story — it’s definitely Nintendo. Even I know enough about it to recognize it. It doesn’t feel like Poptropica, and the quests are very – not simplistic, but not as intense as the online game. Instead of finding the six magical items for Zeus, you deliver packages for Hermes. Instead of an epic battle between you and Zeus, you have a race with him. Then he’s all like, “Boo hoo, you’re faster than me.” I do see an effort made here, though, like they wanted the connect-the-dots sort of game play to be in there, but just to drown it with little quests…

If you’re wanting the stories for each island, here they are –

Museum Island – A museum is in crisis. You have to travel to three islands to find artifacts and things to put on display while the curator cleans up.

Super Power Island – Someone has stolen Ned’s comic books. You battle different villains, who each give you a comic book if you defeat them. But none of them are the ones who stole the comic books. You finally figure out who this thief is… Betty Jetty, after finding pieces of a picture of the thief that were torn up (but by who?).

Mythology Island – Hermes (Zeus’s son) has lost his flying hat. He is the postman of the mythology world, so you get sent to deliver packages to Hades, Poseidon, and lastly Artemis — but she can’t take the package until she can catch and give a deer back to its owner. When you catch it, you will obtain Hermes’s hat, which you bring back to Hermes. Then Zeus will show up, and you will race him, and that’s the end.

Astro-Knights Island – The king has been acting strange ever since a strange visitor from the sky visited. You are sent on a mission to find out why. He turns out to be a robot droid, and you have to rescue the real king from Binary Bard (who is totally cute in this version!). You defeat him by, you guessed it, racing him, then leave the king there, because he won’t go back… then you have to deal with the robot king that does a little dance when you talk to him… yup.

Controls

The controls are surprisingly similar to the online game. They are exactly like they should be for a Poptropica arcade game. They use the control pad (obviously), and the character bounces around perfectly!

Soundtrack

This was the first time that Poptropica ever had sound affiliated with it, not counting trailers! I think it may have sparked some ideas leading up to present day, but what about the soundtrack itself? The word that describes it best is “lonely”. I don’t know why, but it just feels lonely. They are good soundtracks, but 1) they get annoying after a while, and 2) there are not many. They are awkward, but they seem to fit in a sad way… but let’s just say that Jeff Heim does a better job.

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So there you have it! Is it worth getting? It depends on who you are. If you are a die-hard Poptropica fan, then yeah, you’ll enjoy it. If you are not… I advise getting something else. I finished it in two days. Did I enjoy it? Slightly. What do you think?

-HP

PHB Parties

PHB Christmas Party 2013: Recap

December 23, 2013December 23, 2013 Slanted Fish

This weekend, the PHB hosted a Poptropica Christmas party for all Poptropicans, where much fun was had as holiday cheer spread across various Multiverse rooms (there were just too many people for one!) as well as our chatroom, the PHC! Maybe we should let the recap picture speak for itself:

There were candy cane gun snowball fights and fortunes told in cookies, confetti was thrown and “worst island” ideas discussed, favorite carols were shared and doodles were made. Those who came had a chance to talk to some of the PHB’s authors: Tough Icicle (Samwow5), HPuterpop, Blake, and yours truly (Fishy). We even raffled a rare costume account (courtesy of Cool Octopus), which Brave Sky won. The party itself went on for about four hours!

Thanks to everyone for coming & hope you all had a great time. Merry Christmas to all! 🙂

Mocktropica Island

Mocktropica’s Place in Island History

December 20, 2013December 22, 2013 HPuterpop

Hi Gs! (If you’re looking for the PHB’s Mocktropica Island Guide, click HERE!)

Well, first and foremost, I got my braces adjusted yesterday! IKR? So EPIC!

Haha, fooled you guys. That’s not the main topic of this post. 😛 (I did get my braces adjusted yesterday for real though.) Well, you know what you’re here for, I know what you’re here for, so let’s get to the Mocktropica Island review!

Storyline

The story is just incredible; the Poptropica Team is under new management. These managers are not the greatest; all they care about is money and the cheapest way out. Even worse, they keep the Creators locked in the basement, where they continually work… pretty awful. The Creators want you to go and find the fired developers, as they can’t finish the newest island without them. And I know it sounds pretty lazy to send the player on a fetch quest, but it really is quite fun.

This is the funniest of islands yet. They obviously wanted to “mock” their work, and I bet they had fun making this island. I sure had fun playing it. The only thing I could pin the story for was its originality. Not the premise, but the quest. The “fetch” quest.

Some of you may have played Humongous Entertainment Games when you were younger… have you ever played Pajama Sam? That’s them. The third installment of Pajama Sam is pretty similar to Mocktropica. The candy is being a jerk to the other foods. A council meeting needs to be made with all the different food groups, to iron things out. The delegates are missing, though, and so you have to find them. You get a hat for each delegate, and the way to find them and bring them back to the council is much like that of Mocktropica.

Gameplay

The gameplay brings to my mind the word “scrumdiddlyumptious”. It’s appropriately glitch filled, most being quite humorous, such as a barking fire hydrant. Although, for me, it has been a real life glitch land mine. I’ve had to restart the island numerous times because of game breaking glitches; the piece of cake, the server loading page, and the one I’m stuck on now, none of the managers show up in front of the building to summon the mega fighting bots… which really irritates me, but I guess I should have expected it. 😆

The actual steps to win the island are whimsical, not quite believable, but you sort of go with it. The color scheme is amazing, the narfs are adorable, and I wish the followers would walk like the narfs in the game instead of flying… hint, hint.

One thing I WISH they would bring back from the old one was the “skip dialogue” feature. For the fast readers, even with the dialogue speed set as fast as it can go, I have to wait an extra 20 seconds before going on. Bring back the “S” key, people!

Soundtrack

I need to start a petition: we want a CD of Poptropica Soundtracks! They are awesome! They are so amazing, and sort of necessary; the soundtrack makes the game. I loved every bit of the soundtrack. The cheese factory, the farm, the NIGHT SOUNDTRACK WAS MONUMENTAL! Check it out:

http://static.poptropica.com/game/sound/music/mocktropica/NightTheme.mp3

Spoilers

For all you Non-members: do you really want to know the secrets? You can find most of them in Samwow5’s PHB walkthrough, but here you can actually experience the awesomeness. The new managers/executives of Poptropica own megafightingbots.com, and they had planned to destroy Poptropica all along! But since you’d been fixing the intentional glitches, they had to release their full power:

static.poptropica.com/game/assets/scenes/mocktropica/mainStreet/boss_cutscene.swf

That’s something you will only find here, and for now, something only Members have been able to see. I hope you enjoyed the cutscene!

Conclusion

All in all, I think we can all say that Mocktropica was a genius and EPIC island! More and more of the upcoming islands look like they will be experimental, and I gotta say, experimental islands are not bad! Sometimes they do have a few bugs and glitches, but they are always more or less fun! If you have played it, what do you think? And to Non-members – how do you think it sounds after my review? Tell me in the comments! 😀

One more note: islands are becoming stabilized again. Virus Hunter, I gotta admit, wasn’t the greatest. Everything seemed to be strung out everywhere. This has been the first island that things seemed to be pulled together quite nicely. I am starting to actually like the new format, and no pun intended since this island is about them NOT pulling it together… 😛

-HP