monster high – 🏝 Poptropica Help Blog 🗺

Howdy, Poptropicanos! Welcome to a Poptropica Portfolio, where we feature the work of a former Poptropica staff member. Today, we’re going to be taking a look at the contributions of Todd Heard, who worked as a sponsored game level designer in 2009 and 2010.

Todd is the founder of Treefox Cartoons, a studio dedicated to cartoon animation and illustration which has been around for a while. He further honed his skills in traditional animation studying with the renowned Don Bluth. Yes, that Don Bluth! How awesome is that? 😄 Now, let’s get into the Poptropica stuff.

During his brief tenure at Poptropica, Todd developed several game levels for the game’s sponsors, which included both the exterior and interior visuals. Here, you can see two outdoor scenes from the Despicable Me and Honey Nut Cheerios advertisements from June 2010. (The images, along with the rest featured in this post, are sourced from the Game Design Page of Heard’s website.)

Next up, we have a variety of interior/world scenes, featuring the aforementioned Despicable Me ad, in addition to LEGO Hero Factory, Monster High, and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, all from the year 2010. I feel that each environment really captures the essence of what it draws inspiration from, don’t you? 🙂

Lastly, here are some creative costume designs. One is from the Lego Hero Factory ad and is modeled after the character Preston Stormer. The other designs include two cave person outfits, a costume made from paper bags, a stone gladiator suit (which, to me, resembles some of the imagery from Poptropolis Games Island), and a vibrant hippie ensemble. ☮️

Other than the factory suit, I don’t recall seeing any of these actually make it into the game (please correct me if I’m wrong), but I think they’re quite cool. I definitely would’ve loved to snag some of these items, especially that caveman club! My guess is that they were intended to be purchasable costumes in the store rather than characters we would meet on an island or in an ad game, but who can say for sure? 🤔

As I wrap up my thoughts, I realize that not everyone probably paid much attention to the ads on Poptropica. However, having played quite a few of them as a kid to later covering them frequently here on the PHB, I’ve always appreciated the effort that went into making them immersive and fun. Thank you, Todd, for your role in creating some of the magic (albeit underrated) that made Poptropica memorable, even if it was just for a short time. After all, 2009 and 2010 were truly some of the best times for Poptropica! 🙌

Now with that, we come to the end of this spotlight. I hope you appreciated this insight into the work of one of Poptropica’s lesser-known artists. Everybody deserves their flowers. I’ll talk to you guys soon. Pop on! 🍀

Hey Poptropicans! There are a couple of new ads on Main Streets: one for boys, and one for girls. To get to either ad, just click on its respective banner in the home page carousel when you first log in, or the button on the ad card you may automatically receive upon logging in.

For the girls-only Monster High: Freaky Fusion ad, all you need to do is click on the billboard to receive two prizes: the monstrously fashionable Bonita Femur costume, and a printable Wish List.

(Thanks to Magic Fire of The Poptropica Package for the pics & insight. By the way, if you’re brought to an ad-less Main Street – like I was – try visiting a SUI. If you still can’t see it, it may be because you don’t meet whatever mysterious criteria have been set for the target audience, be it age, gender, or location.)

For the boys-only Hot Wheels: Street Hawk ad, just watch the video for your prize: a Hot Wheels: Street Hawk Remote Control! Press spacebar and the car will turn into a plane that will fly around your screen and exit upwards. Your character will be left in awe, saying, “Wow, it went 200 feet!”

(Thanks to Slippery Raptor the pics & insight! He recently joined the PHB team, but you can also check out his Poptropica blog here.)

Also, the Creators recently recognized a few more Land creations that have impressed them, which you can view on the official blog or below (click for full size):

Creepy Singer made a spectacular brick abode.

Golden Leaf gave us this floating domicile.

Prickly Monster made, well, a prickly monster!

Quick Tomato is the lord of this manor.

The good news is, everyone (not just members, as is currently the case) will get to play a bigger, better version of Land in early 2015! 😀

Anyway, that’s all for this post – be sure to catch up with everything else in the posts below! This post’s bad Pop-pun is: stay popping, not flopping.