This is a guest post from HeartOfEnder sharing her My Place in Poptropica story, which is all about one’s Poptropica journey. Enjoy!
Heart here, back with — not the next part of The Witch’s Heart, though still working on it, don’t worry — something different. Ever since my discovery of the Poptropica Help Blog, I always wanted to write my own “My Place in Poptropica” story. So as a break from putting my poor fanfic characters in danger, now’s the time. Without further ado…
2018: Finding Poptropica
I found Poptropica in the strangest way possible.
Whenever I discover a new game, it is either because a video about the game appeared in my Youtube recommended, my friends play the game and I thought it looked fun, or the game was on sale so I bought it. Poptropica… was none of those.
Instead I found Poptropica when I was googling games similar to Animal Jam, a game I was obsessed with. Poptropica was on the list, but back then, I scrolled past without interest.
A few days later, I was about to leave my local library when I saw a kid playing a game with a blue screen, vines, and white letters with the word ‘Pop’ in it. If he was playing it, it must’ve been fun! So when I got home and was allowed on my laptop, I returned to the list, found the game with ‘Pop’ in it, and started playing.
The first variation of my character, Spotted Thunder, had pink hair, and she pretty much looked like some pop star from some cartoon. I completed Monkey Wrench Island and was like, “huh, this is a fun game.” And so my Poptropica adventure began.
Still 2018: Making memories through the darkest times
Though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I started playing Poptropica when things were going downhill, what with longtime Pop Creators leaving and things going silent. However, I wanted to experience Poptropica and enjoy more of it.
One of my favorite (and slightly embarrassing) memories is how long it took me to remember the name “Poptropica.” It took me about two weeks just to figure out it wasn’t “Poptrioca.” Close enough!
Now back to the actual gameplay. The first island I attempted was Time Tangled, but all I did was walk around, then leave, because I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to be doing. What do you do when you have no clue? Ask Google. I found a few Wikihow articles, but unfortunately they weren’t very helpful.
Next stop, YouTube! I googled “poptropica island walkthroughs” and was blown away at just how many there are. I noticed that most of them were made by this one YouTuber named Thinknoodles. Every time I found an island I wanted to complete, I would watch Thinknoodles’s walkthrough on it before attempting the island myself.
Despite this, I was no super genius, so I couldn’t remember everything. So I googled for other guides and found… the Poptropica Help Blog.
With the PHB and Thinknoodles to help me, I completed island after island, and Poptropica was the only thing I could talk about for the rest of 2018. (I apologize to my friends at the time.)
2019–2020 | Still going strong… or not
When 2019 began I was still talking about Poptropica. If my friends thought that my obsession would end, well, it didn’t.
I continued playing Poptropica, watching things change, patiently waiting for new islands, and generally doing regular Poptropica things. 2019 was the year I discovered and completed my favorite island, Vampire’s Curse.
2020 came around, but by then, my interest in Poptropica finally faded. I still remembered it, but stopped playing for the most part.
2022–present: Hey, what was that Pop game again?
A couple years later, I found myself bored and remembering all the games I used to play when Flash was around, like Animal Jam, Transformice, Poptropica…
Wait, isn’t Poptropica still around? Didn’t they move to a new build before Flash went goodbye?
I googled the game and found it still going! I remembered my login and was greeted with a brand new Home Island and someone stealing a statue. Typical Poptropica.
Returning to the game, I gave Spotted Thunder a brand new look and a proper name: Gwendolyn. It popped into my head — maybe because of one of my favorite characters from The Owl House, Gwendolyn Clawthorne — but anyway, I thought it sounded cool.
I joined the PHB’s Poptropica Help Chat, began noticing an increase in Poptropica fanfiction, and thought it would be fun to join. So I reworked the plot of an old fanfic I wrote and started posting on Tumblr (and later Quotev, because Tumblr likes to force people to make an account to continue reading). My story became Storm’s Calamity, which people seem to be enjoying so far!
As I was writing the third chapter, I had the idea of writing a short series focusing on one of the characters, Alouette, as the protagonist — and that’s how The Witch’s Heart came to be on the PHB.
Well, it was fun remembering and writing about my Poptropica journey. This was something I wanted to do for years, and I have finally done it. I hope you have a good day, everyone!
Hope you enjoyed this “My Place in Poptropica” story! If you did, you’ll probably enjoy our other MPIP stories here on the PHB.
If you haven’t already shared your story, we invite you to send in your own. Interested in writing for the PHB under a different Pop-topic? Take a look at our Write for the PHB page for ideas, guidelines, and more!
🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺 