Ask Poptropica Siri

Ask Poptropica Siri #12: Horrors, heroes, and heartbreak

🌸Smart Icicle🌸

Ask Poptropica Siri is a Q&A segment here on the PHB where you, dear readers, are invited to send in your Poptropica questions to have them answered with all the wisdom you can expect from a Smart Icicle.

Hey fellow Poptropicans! Welcome back to Ask Poptropica Siri. I’m so excited to be back and return from yet another hiatus. Let’s jump into it!

If all the islands existed in real life, which one would you not want to go to? ~Magic Kid

I would love to go to most any of the islands IRL, but I would not want to go to the Monster Carnival Island. No offense, I like carnivals, but when it becomes nighttime with all the monsters, I’m not really a fan. Another would be Vampire’s Curse because meeting a vampire hunter would scare me. (It would be cool flying around as a bat, though! 🦇)

Who do you think is the most well-written hero? ~Serious Heart

This was hard, but I would have to say Basho from Red Dragon Island. I really like how he teaches us how to become a ninja. It was fun to learn, but stealth is not my specialty.

What is your reaction to what’s currently happening in Poptropica?

So this is the most brought-up question I see in the fandom. My initial reaction on the Poptropica shutdown rumors was that I was devastated. I have been playing Poptropica for a really long time now and it’s sad to see a popular game run into problems and almost come to its end. To me it was like seeing the disappearance of Club Penguin again — any OGs here will remember Club Penguin.

Poptropica is one of my favorite childhood games that I still play to this day. I’m glad it’s not shutting down yet, because if it was, then I don’t know what game I will play. It is the only thing left of my childhood that I remember playing.

Dog Paddle: Keep kicking those feet.

How can you send in your questions to Ask Poptropica Siri?

That’s a great question! You can use the following methods:

  • 📧 Send an email to askpoptropicasiri (at) gmail (dot) com. This way, you’ll get to keep your questions a surprise when they get answered on the blog.
  • 💬 Comment on the latest Ask Poptropica Siri post. Your questions will be publicly visible before they appear in a Q&A post, but this allows others to interact with your question if they so choose. If you don’t have an email address, you can enter a fake one in the email field when you post your comment.
  • ✍️ If on the PHC server on Discord, DM me (my username is SmartIcicle) and you will possibly see your question on the next Ask Poptropica Siri post. 

Thank you so much for being a part of this journey. I’ve been busy IRL especially with writing for my school newspaper and taking time for my mental health. Now that the stress has lifted, I’m so happy to be back in the Pop community. See you all soon! ~🌸📚❄️🌸

Web Development

Poptropica is moving in with Coolmath Games, keeping membership free ➡️🔢🕹️

Slanted Fish

Big news, Poptropicans: Poptropica is officially moving to Coolmath Games, a sister site owned by the same parent company, Sandbox & Co. (**Jan 19 & Feb 1 UPDATES added below with new insights from CMG.)

On Poptropica’s homepage, you’ll now be greeted with a pop-up message explaining the move. You can close the message and continue perusing the site as usual, including being able to log in and play.

As the pop-up states, Poptropica won’t be shutting down (despite the rumors), will still be playable on Steam and mobile, and will stay membership-free. They also promise refunds this month for those who had purchased membership before it was made obsolete.

UPDATE – Jan 19: Coolmath Games (CMG) also made a blog post about the move, sharing how they’ve already made a couple of improvements to the CMG version: making it playable on mobile and tablet devices straight from your web browser (no app download needed), and expanding the big-screen mode (lower-right corner) so the game can now be played full screen after watching a sponsored ad video.

In their decision to step up, CMG shares that “the original Poptropica decided to wind down,” which Pop had notably never mentioned before, and which also shows that there was some merit to the shutdown rumor after all. Seeing this, CMG “offered to cover the ongoing costs and hosting of the game” so it could live on. Your current Pop account will still work on CMG, separate from CMG accounts.

CMG also explains that the Poptropica site will fully redirect to CMG at some point, and plans to preserve “all content users find valuable… including… blogs.” Perhaps we may see the Pop Creators’ Blog (which mysteriously disappeared earlier this month) make a return on CMG?

UPDATE – Feb 1: CMG again modified their blog post to address the question of whether old islands from Poptropica’s early days would be returning. Unfortunately, the answer at this time is a disappointing no.

Screenshot

Over on social media, Poptropica and CMG further elaborated on the move with posts on Instagram and Twitter (X). The migration is happening “in the coming months,” exact date to be announced.

The message refers to Poptropica’s official website, Twitter, and IG as places to find info about the game, while Pop also calls on its followers to follow CMG for info about Pop’s status. A tweet from CMG also links to Pop’s contact form as a place to ask questions.

CMG also has a much more active social media presence on both Twitter and Instagram than Poptropica lately, which seems to be a good sign that they will be more responsive in addressing fans’ concerns.

A promising CMG tweet from last year shares how they’ve been working with AwayFL, an Adobe Flash emulator, to bring back classic Flash games to their platform — bringing hope that this may someday include more of Pop’s old islands. However, CMG hasn’t promised this yet.

Poptropica has actually been on CMG since 2019 with the release of Reality TV: Wild Safari Island, though this island is no longer in the game. Poptropica’s presence on CMG continues to mirror what is on the official website, as it has throughout their “years-long partnership.”

Could the shutdown hoax have been the catalyst to CMG deciding to take action, as their social media posts seem to suggest? What do you think of the move? Share with us in the comments and on the PHC!

~🐠

Graphic Novels, Membership

Poptropica Party till it’s 9999 🥳🤔✨

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans! Though we haven’t heard a peep from the Pop Creators since the whole shutdown scare a month ago, there’s still a bit of buzz going on in the fandom. Read till the end for a symbolic surprise!

First up, membership has been made free for a while now, but now every player is officially gilded with the ‘Member’ status bar on their character screens. Plus, if you go into your account settings, you’ll find that this new status doesn’t expire until Dec 31, 9999! ✨

Meanwhile, the membership page no longer lists this obsolete feature for $2,000, but now simply states, “We are no longer offering memberships.” This matches the wording used when the free membership first appeared last month, but once again calls into question whether this spells a looming end for the game… 😬

Onto more slightly sus news, upon logging in you may now discover a new banner stating that Poptropica is using cookies on their site. Not the delicious kind 🍪 unfortunately, but the kind that tracks your internet browsing. It’s pretty standard on many websites, but this notice is new for Pop. Still, you can rest assured that Pop won’t share your personal data with third parties, according to their privacy policy.

Besides the gameplay, fans have been digging into Poptropica’s books as well. 📚 Sleepy Biker recently asked former Pop Creator Mitch Krpata, author of the last three books in the Poptropica graphic novel series, about the ages of the books’ main characters. Mitch replied that Mya is 12, the boys (Oliver and Jorge) are 10, Octavian about 30, and Jonas is college-aged, around 18–20. Now we know!

Last and perhaps the most lasting of all, invisible_b0nes shared on our Discord server, the PHC, their new and colored Poptropica tattoo, featuring Dr. Hare riding the iconic yellow blimp. Super cool! 🐇 (Speaking of Pop tats, you can find a couple more here.)

Tattoo in progress
The finished product!

Keep on poppin’ on!

~🐠

Fanfiction, Guest Posts

Fanfic: Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! 🧟 Ep. 16: Blueberries… AGAIN

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Magic Kid. Enjoy!

Hello there! It’s Magic Kid back with the next episode (episode 16)  in my fanfiction, Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! If you missed the last episode, you can catch it here, or if you’d like to start from the beginning, here.

Normally I would update you on the story so far, before you read what happens next, but I have one word for y’all: MWAHAHAHAHA! Enjoy!  🙂

Character doodles by Magic Kid

ZOMBIES, ZOMBIES, ALWAYS ZOMBIES!

A Zomberry Series

Episode Sixteen: Blueberries… AGAIN

The friends were coming closer to the wall, determined that nothing could go wrong, nothing at all.

Unfortunately things were going to go wrong. Things were going to go as wrong as they tended to do with all of Poptropica amidst an apocalypse.

Agent Thorn, shaken by the recent discovery of who her boss REALLY was, was walking down a flight of stairs when she glanced out a small window. The window had a perfect view of the hot air balloon coming ever closer to the wall. Three people were visible on the balloon and Thorn knew at once who those three people were. And she knew at once what she had to do.

It was kinda fun to be the bad guy, she had to admit, even though she should be focusing on her main goal.

She ran down the stairs and alerted the wall guards on her walkie-talkie.

Thorn

Three persons aboard a hot air balloon, heading towards the wall. Capture unharmed and under no circumstances are you to zombie-fy them, copy?

Guard (from walkie)

Copy that, Thorn. Capture, unharmed, and un-zombied. Where do we bring them?

Thorn

Just put them in one of the cells when you’re done!

Guard (from walkie)

Copy that.

Thorn walked quickly down the stairs. Part of her hoped that the three would get away… but she knew what had to be done. And if she couldn’t save them, she thought as she reached an elevator and ran inside, she might as well get a front seat for it.

Out on the blimp, the three friends were nearly at the wall, determined to save Toothpick.

Continue reading “Fanfic: Zombies, Zombies, ALWAYS ZOMBIES! 🧟 Ep. 16: Blueberries… AGAIN” →
Astro-Knights Island, Guest Posts

Poptropica Activity Books of Fun ✏️✂️🔎

Slanted Fish

Hey Poptropicans, this is a guest post by Invisible Ring. Enjoy!

Did you ever notice how many activities were scattered across the Poptropica Help Blog and the *cough*… “late” Poptropica Creators’ Blog? I thought that maybe someone should gather all those activities up into one spot so it could be more convenient to find… so I did.

First up, the Ultimate Activity Book: compiling not only the Poptropica activities and coloring pages, but also some additional coloring pages to honor the sponsored islands. BONUS: Lots of revived Poptropica activities and custom-made goodies in there, made by yours truly!

poptropica-activity-bookDownload

Next, I gathered up every Poptropica cut-out I could find, both here and on the Creators’ Blog, and put them together into a complete Crafts & Cut-outs collection. (See also: The PHB’s DIY Paper Crafts collection!)

poptropica-craft-bookDownload

And last but not least, it is my duty as the first person to have saved all the comics from the old sponsored islands of Poptropica to share them with all of you in this Scavenger’s Comic Book!

poptropica-scavenger-bookDownload

…But am I a scavenger, merely digging up activities that are already dug up? Am I a mere plagiarist stealing activities everywhere, putting them into books and calling them my own?

Gosh, no! It may look like that, but that’s not what I’m doing at all! I say that these are my books; not in the sense that I came up with everything in the books (I did come up with a few things, though), but in the sense that I worked so hard putting these books together for everyone to enjoy at no extra charge. 

Whatever activities I got from other websites are free downloadable PDFs in which I have cited and included their web links, and whatever activities I found by way of Google are those I checked to be sure they are royalty-free. For I do not intend to steal; I intend to share.

This is a non-profit project only meant to spread some fun for all those who are looking for it! And if that’s you, then look no further than these three free downloadable (and printable) books to share with your friends and family, compliments of Invisible Ring. Enjoy!

Hope you enjoyed this guest post by Invisible Ring. If you did, you might also enjoy another print-out project of hers, Bringing Mighty Action Force to life.

The Poptropica Help Blog welcomes interesting Poptropica insights from anyone in the Poptropica community with thoughts to share. Interested in writing for the PHB? We’d love to hear from you!