Tips, tricks, and cheats for Poptropica

Islands of the Month

12/3/2016

I'm back! With the Creators still busy working away on the New Poptropica, I've been having a dearth of sensational new islands to post about, and that's why I've been taking somewhat of a break. With the holidays coming up, the Creators will be taking a break, and most likely can't keep their promise of delivering New Poptropica before the New Year. We'll all be waiting excitedly for when it arrives! But there's been quite a bit of news in the Poptropica world meanwhile, and I'm here to report it to you, loyal readers.

The Creators have started a series of nominating one or two islands each month to be "Islands of the Month," often according to a theme of the current time of year. Whenever an island is nominated, the Credits reward for completing it goes up, and -- if it was a Members-only island -- it becomes available to all for that month, as well as limited time items coming back to the Store for Members only.

With each IOTM, we also get some sneak peeks of sketches and ideas from the time of that island's development, which have been pretty interesting so far. Some are character sketches, but the ones that I love are those that show what the Island's designers were thinking when they created what they did (click to zoom):

The first one (from Poptropolis Games) shows that even though Poptropica uses multiple designers, they all have a common style guide to follow -- which explains the remarkable level of consistency in the visual quality of Poptropica islands over the years. Also, judging from the signature on one of the notes, it looks like Jeff Kinney himself still has a creative hand in the game that he founded!

The second picture (from Shrink Ray) reveals how the Creators design game mechanics, another very important factor in the success of an island. The mechanic shown here didn't actually make it into Shrink Ray, and I can understand why -- from the notes, it seems they might have found it to be too tedious or difficult. I would agree with that, but I imagine it might have been fun to swing around the level whilst clutching for dear life onto a treacherous improvised hot air balloon, followed by the satisfaction of just barely sticking the landing onto a platform high-up somewhere... ah, the possibilities.

This month's select are Wimpy Wonderland and PoptropiCon; playing the island or any of the episodes will net you 500 Credits each -- for a total of 2000! Now you may think that's an absurd amount of credits, especially if you have been playing the game for a while, and you'd be right. This has been going on for most of this year, as the Creators gave credits away in the Daily Spin Wheel, raised the medallion reward to 300 credits per island, started awarding credits for replaying islands, and held frequent special events, like IOTM. Why are the Creators suddenly causing massive inflation in the Credits economy? The answer is simple: because bigger numbers are more fun.

This doubtless makes the game a lot more engaging, as players (especially new ones) enjoy the rush of getting a large payout of credits and then dashing it all in the Store. It's actually not a bad idea; before this, buying cool items and costumes from the Store was not even worth it for non-Members. Saving up for a single item, let's say one that cost 350 Credits, would require you to complete five islands. Not only is this disproportionately difficult compared to the unlimited borrowing enjoyed by Members, you would run out of islands! Perhaps the new way is how it should be.

Congratulations to Massive Sun for winning the last Poptropica Hide & Seek competition! (This one lingered around for a rather long time because of my inactivity, but it turned out that it was somewhat difficult anyway, so it all turned out fine. Remember, the first entry that is correct and detailed enough is the winner, even if others also got it right!) She correctly guess the image below. As always, there's another challenge up already, so head on over to the Hide & Seek page and take a shot at answering it!

Hard to believe, but this guessing competition has been running for over five years now! It used to be called "Guess Where I Am," and here's the original post that started it all. Sadly, I haven't kept very good archives, so I don't know for sure how many snapshots we've gone through, but based on my guess that I post a new one every two months on average, I would guess that there's been at least 30.

Now I can't promise anything, but I might have dug up enough material for one last post before the year's end. Keep your fingers crossed...

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Poptropica Art Contest and Spin for Credits

7/13/2016

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While the Creators are busy working away on expanding Poptropica and the "New Poptropica" using Unity coming later this year, there haven't been any new islands announced, and it's no wonder that there hasn't been much news in the Poptropica community lately. So basically what I'm saying is, laziness was totally not the reason I went so long between updates on Poptrickia! Totally.

Poptropica now has an official Art Contest! For years, Poptropicans have been making fan art and posting it on sites like deviantart or to fan blogs. But this time, if you like drawing and you love Poptropica, you can send in your work directly to the Creators by tagging it as #PoptropicaArt on social media. On the week of September 5, the Creators will announce the three winners and they'll get free memberships! Here's the official announcement with more details.

Interestingly, most social media sites only allow users who are 13 years or older (which is a rule that everyone totally follows without question, amirite?). On the other hand, Poptropica's stated target audience is ages 6 through 15. The fact that Poptropica is focusing so much on social media these days shows that a large number of Poptropicans today are teenagers who started playing back when they were younger (including myself and most other fan bloggers).

So, will Poptropica keep changing the theme of its content to match the new audience (as they've been doing in some of the more recent islands), or will they let today's players rotate out and focus in on the newer generation (which is possible, since Monkey Wrench Island is targeted at such players). Only time will tell, but either way, big changes will have to come to Poptropica. I, for one, am equally excited to see it go either way!

Speaking of Monkey Wrench... yes, the guide will be finished soon. It's been low on my priorities lately, since as a tutorial island, it

should be easy enough to figure out given enough time, and
the point is to learn by doing so you can feel the satisfaction of completing other islands without relying too much on my walkthroughs (not that there's anything wrong with seeking help when you're stuck).

But for completeness, yes I will write the guide. Soon.

In other news, the Creators have just introduced something new to the Store: Bronze Cards. They're only here for about a month, so they're featured in the Store. All of them are cards that either were limited to members only during Early Access for an older island, or popular costumes from an older time in Poptropica's history that are being featured again. So get them while you can!

Though, I hope this doesn't mean that these classic costumes will be gone after the month is up; after all, they were still available before the Bronze Cards promo. And, if you don't mind me ranting a little, does anyone else think that bronze is a rather poor choice of color for these cards? They're supposed to look special and expensive and fleeting, but instead the color contrast of the text and background on them is terrible and the "shiny" reflection effect makes them look sightly cheap. I hope they realize this and correct it at least before the promo is over. As you can guess, the prices for all of them have been jacked up accordingly, but...

To help you get your hands on these Bronze Cards, there's something new on Home Island: the Daily Spin Wheel! Like many games, this allows you to click on the wheel to spin it and get a randomly selected prize, except you can only spin it once a day. It's meant to encourage people to log in and play every day. Most of the prizes are credits, except for the Grand Prize, which gives you one of the new Bronze Cards, chosen at random. (And if you don't happen to get the Grand Prize, the vast amount of credits you're accruing from the wheel and other recent sources will probably let you buy one directly from the store).

Has anyone else noticed that the spin wheel itself is continuing a Monkey Wrench Island-inspired theme? The fact that it's a ship's wheel, the weathered look, the rope binding it together, all makes it look island-y. Is that the new theme that Poptropica is going for on the Home Island? In case you forgot, the theme that Home (and Realms) has had so far is a sort of Viking-mythology inspired sky-paradise. It would be interesting if the Creators are going to periodically change up the theme of Home Island.

Last but not least, there's a new winner for the Poptropica Hide & Seek competition! Congratulations to Slippery Dragon, who correctly guessed the picture below. Want to know what the answer was, or compete in the next Hide&Seek challenge? Head on over to the Games page now!

As an aside, can you believe that the Hide & Seek contest has been running for five years now? Wow, I feel old ;). You can check out all the previous winners and images that have been featured in the contest by going to the Guess Where I Am blog tag (that's what the contest used to be called before it was briefly interrupted and renamed in 2013). Enjoy, and make sure you participate in the latest round!

Oh, and before I leave another long mega-post: The Poptropica Help Blog is running their annual Poppies award contest! In case you haven't heard of it, it's an awards ceremony for the Poptropica community, and it's in the nominations phase right now. You can vote for your favorite islands, characters, and even favorite fansite! Time is running out, so make sure to fill out the form and nominate Poptrickia for best fansite!

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The New Poptropica Island Map!

5/28/2016

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Just weeks after promising big changes, the Creators have surprised us with: a brand-new Island Map!

Poptropica has gone through a few revisions of the map over the years, but this one is important. First of all, it uses the same engine as the newer SUI islands! That means it loads faster, has sound, and you don't have to go through the classic engine if all you want to do is switch islands. In that way, it's now more similar to how it is on the mobile app. On top of that, there's a huge amount of new features...

Originally, all islands were rendered in outline on the island map, which changed when the SUI islands were introduced. Now, they've changed it again, adding color to the icons of the classic islands. Even though not all of them have actually been updated yet, we've been suspecting that the Creators have plans to upgrade more classic islands. Could this be an indication that they are heading towards that?

Personally, I think it looks great to have them all be in color! Also, the brighter colors all over the map looks cheerier, and it has a lot more appeal to newer/younger players. But I do have one gripe, something that's hard to see unless you look too closely: the artists who made the originals did not have color in mind, so they used a lot of small details that looked great in outline. But when color is added, it makes them look slightly... brittle. Take a look at the image above: the windows on the Super Villain island logo's tower look really thin and (unintentionally) shimmery, whereas the Mission Atlantis one has much better shapes and proportions. Also, the newer island logos just look too small; this may be out of necessity, but it kind of exacerbates the small-details issue. In general though, I think the actual choice of colors is done pretty well and looks awesome!

The next big change is the new island info screen that now appears when you click on an island. It shows you the level of difficulty for the island, how many times you've completed it before, the official description of the island from its Island Tour Page, and--the coolest part--a progress bar that shows you how close you are to finishing the island! (The progress bar for each island is also shown in front of it's icon from the map screen).

How the difficulty is calculated is a mystery to me (you can see my own ratings for all the islands on the Walkthroughs page), but I'm sure that the Creators have access to a lot more data about player behavior, and they probably based this on analysis of how much time it actually takes the average player to beat that island for the first time. (Also, older players will remember that on the even older Island map -- the one before 2012 -- the islands would show difficulty ratings when you moved your mouse over them). On a similar note, the new order/organization of the islands across the 8 pages of the new map may look completely random at first glance -- but according to the Creators, it's actually based on how popular each one actually is among players. Personally I feel that the order should be mixed up from time to time so that newer islands are still at the top, but the lesser-known ones still get cycled to the front occasionally, letting players rediscover them.

Image credit Poptropica Help Blog.

The progress bar is the most interesting addition -- there's never been anything on Poptropica like it. Or has there? A long time ago, classic islands on Poptropica all had a map (a map of all the rooms on the island itself). At first all of the rooms had question marks over them, but as you got through the island, they would be revealed and you could see the names of the scenes. Also, the map showed the links between the rooms, so you had a rough idea of how far you were. So the new progress bar is quite similar to that feature.

Behind the scenes, the gameplay of all islands is split up into things called "events." Basically, whenever anything changes in the state of the game, like collecting an item or getting past a certain point in the story, the game is automatically saved and an event is added. When all events are completed, you get the island medallion. So the new progress bar is probably visually showing you how many of the total number of events you have completed for that island or episode.

Wow, that's a huge amount of new changes! Another recent change that's related: now, when you log in, instead of going to the old Home screen (with the quizzes and the "Return to Game" button and the news slideshow), you go straight to Home Island. From there, you can click the "Return to Game" icon floating underneath the bridge.

I think this change makes a lot of sense because, for one, most of the important features for the old Home screen were already obsoleted (the quizzes are also on the Friends page, you can see recent Poptropica news from the homepage now before you start playing, etc.) So it was just getting in the way. Also, with the new change, you go straight to the SUI engine when you log in. If all you want to do is play the recent islands, you never have to go through the classic engine.

So this appeals to newer players, and also brings Poptropica one step closer to phasing out the classic engine and moving towards the more modern one. But aside from that, the Creators recently told us that later this year there will be an even newer Poptropica engine -- and this time they'll be using Unity, not Flash!

@CDJAndybot The good news is with the new Poptropica, there will be zero Flash issues because we're building on Unity!
— Poptropica Creators (@Poptropica) May 21, 2016

In case you aren't familiar with Unity, it's a game development program that is mainly used to make 3D games. Unlike Flash, which creates a SWF file that your browser then runs, Unity can either create an app (for desktop or mobile), or a webpage with your game in it. This means that the new Poptropica, built in Unity, will still run in browsers and on mobile apps -- hooray! And since it'll be compiled, it'll run even faster. But all this Unity stuff raises an even more intriguing possibility: will the new Poptropica be in 3D?

A 3D game being developed in Unity

Although Unity can do 2D just fine, it's mainly used to create 3D games. Will the Creators basically be porting the old Poptropica to Unity, or will they actually be re-imagining it in 3D? I think now that they're making such a large shift, they have a perfect opportunity to redesign Poptropica from the ground-up. I'm not sure what sorts of features they're thinking of, but whatever it is, it's sure to be very new and different from anything we've seen so far!

And finally, before I close off another mega-post (sorry :), it's time to announce the latest winner of Poptropica Hide & Seek! Congrats to Happy Lobster for correctly guessing the image below. Too easy, you say? Well, I've put up another one just now that should be just a tad harder, to say the least...

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Feats of Speed, Big Changes, and Monkey Wrench Island

5/8/2016

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First of all: Many apologies for the very long delay in updates here on Poptrickia! Trust me, I haven't abandoned you; I've just been extremely busy because of the robotics team that I'm a part of, and balancing all my schoolwork and tests and projects on top of that. Now that I'm starting to get my life back in order again, I'm going to try to give Poptrickia the attention it deserves. So I bring you the traditional post-hiatus... MEGA-POST!

In recent news, the new Feats of Speed minigame is sweeping the Pop-nation. Why? Well, because it's the first time you can get shoes as an item your Poptropican can wear! All you have to do is go on Home Island and challenge Speedy Sam on his treadmill. If you defeat him at his own game, he'll give you the shoes. Each week, the color of the shoes, the type of the game, and the setting changes. So far, there's been purple, maroon, and blue shoes.

The game is straightforward, since all you need to know are the basic skills of running and jumping in Poptropica, and Speedy Sam is not particularly good at it :). When you do get the shoes, they look surprisingly nice. I was expecting to find them somewhat jarring since I'm so used to the classic form of a Poptropican, but they fit right in. Except, of course, for the somewhat annoying trail effect:

If only the new Poptropica had a "Turn off Special Actions" feature like the classic one did.

(Technically though, this isn't the first time a Poptropican has been able to wear shoes, e.g. the Booted Bandit on Pelican Rock and another case I can't remember; it's just that this is the first time you can permanently wear shoes on your own Poptropican).

Speaking of big changes... Skinny Moon (who seems to be the semi-new PR person for Poptropica -- she now runs the Twitter for Poptropica and is a lot more outgoing, it seems, than anyone else before her) just posted about big changes to come to the game in the future (as in, later this year). They're pretty vague as of now, but here's the basics:

First of all, the entire "look" of Poptropica (the website and the app) will get an overhaul. This could include the UI, and making it so that there isn't such a jarring border between classic Poptropica (with the old Islands, the Daily Pop, and Friends) and the newer interface (modern Islands, Realms, etc). They could be making a full transition to the newer mode. We've already seen indications of this, as they are making the menu in the newer islands , the older islands, and the Home screen more and more similar.

Also, the concept of the Poptropican itself is going to change at a fundamental level. Something that's been virtually the same since the game's start in 2007. They've already given us shoes, which could actually be some sort of experiment into how players will react to the bigger change they're planning next year. We'll see some "new designs, new movements, and new looks for the Poptropican avatar," as well as an oft-requested feature: pets.

Now this all seems intriguing, but we don't have enough information yet, so I can't really tell how "pets" will be different from, say, followers, and how the upgraded "designs and movements" will be different from the new player animations that we see in the newer Islands. It sounds like it has the potential to be a cool addition, but only time will tell, I guess.

And lastly, Skinny Moon mentions "the idea of a unified story that connects all of Poptropica in a way that we’ve never done before." This, to me, is the most concrete suggestion so far. It could be like Poptropica's origin story, something that is already being explored through Mystery of the Map, and possibly something that ties in with the Poptropica TV show that the Creators have been hinting at for nearly a year.

There's more, but it's so vague that it's nonsensical at this point. Normally Poptropica has a habit of developing new features and stories somewhat secretly in the background, and then suddenly jumping the news on us. It's not necessarily a bad thing -- it's always a nice surprise -- but it has led to many people looking for alternative sources of information for sneak peeks, like Poptrickia and other fan blogs. Now they're taking a new direction, by telling us the vague outline of their plan far ahead of schedule. Was that a good idea? Only time will tell.

Some older news (again, sorry I took so long)...
Monkey Wrench Island has been released! This island is quite unique in that it's geared specifically towards newer players, focusing on teaching simple Poptropica skills. Yet it's still got the storyline and island development that old players are looking for in a new island. I haven't actually had time to play through it yet -- I know, shame on me -- but since it's very straightforward I think you guys will be fine if I don't make the walkthrough for a while.

All in all, I think it's about time that Poptropica got a proper tutorial. For the longest time the best introduction that new players had was Early Poptropica Island. Simple, yes, but it's not self-explanatory nor is it exactly the pinnacle of Poptropica creative achievement. The Home Island tried to correct that, but it still fell short in my opinion, seeming more like a detached and abstract overview of the controls than a true taste of the game. Now a real island with a storyline, characters, and dare I say, a heart of its own, is the first real tutorial!

And the Poptrickia Hide & Seek game is back again! This time, congratulations to Tall Cactus, the latest winner! She correctly guessed the special animated image to the right. There's already a new one up, so check it out on the Hide & Seek page!

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Home Island to become Skydock Island?

1/3/2016

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First post of 2016! I'm going to kick the year off with an exciting start by showing off some evidence and sneak peeks, relating to an upcoming overhaul of the Home/Tutorial island on Poptropica! And it's quite a big update.

First of all, a lot of recent sneak peeks starting from mid-November of last year have some surprising similarities: they all hint at some sort of large ship. In the first one, you see the distinctive style of Home Island: the building in the foreground hovering on rocks above an ocean full of Poptropica Islands below.

From these, it looks like there's soon going to be a ship-themed update to the Home island. Instead of the current version with shops spaced out on a street, the new one will be a large ship with doors to various shops and interactive things pertaining to your Poptropican. Cool!

Looking at the last two, it seems like your Island Medallions will be showcased in a room on Home Island as well, rather than on the Friends page as they are right now. This brings up a lot of interesting possibilities: will everything eventually be converted from its place on the classic Home screen (like Friends and the Daily Pop) to rooms on Home Island? Maybe Friends could even become a sort of common room!

But it gets even better. Poking around in the unreleased files of Home Island, I found these highly interesting scenes and schematics which (partially) confirm my theories:

Skydock

This first image is a preliminary look at what the Main Street of the new Home Island will look like; apparently it'll be called "Skydock." The buildings in this image will lead to the rooms below (click to view full size):

Town Hall

Saloon

These are actually scenes by the Creators that are in the earliest stages. Even though they're mainly just line drawings and text on a black background, the descriptions are already getting me excited for the update :). It looks like the Creators are planning a lot of creative additions to Home Island this year.

Another thing that I found while looking at the code for Home Island, is that these rooms (Skydock, Town Hall, and Saloon) might even be common rooms! That's right, you might be able to chat, friend, and battle with other players while also enjoying Home Island. Now I'm not 100% sure if that's true based on the code, but it would be a reasonable enough assumption ;)

It looks like the Creators themselves are still working out the details though, like for instance how the rooms will look like and how they'll be connected, so the final product may be different from what I've outlined here. But so far this looks like the gist of it. And I'm definitely looking forward to this huge update!

Ever wondered why exactly the medallion shards are scattered all over the place when you play the Tutorial, and why there's a pilot there talking to you? Well, another update to Home Island (that might be coming sooner than the ship-related one) gives the backstory to that. This dialog file shows what seems to be you talking with the pilot while you're both up in the blimp:

You: The view is great from up here!
Pilot: Ahoy fellow traveler!
You: Ahoy!
You: Are you on your way to Poptropica too?
Pilot: I sure am! But first, a minor course correction.
Pilot: Woah!
Pilot: Oh no! The medallion!
You: Oh dear!
Pilot: I see where it landed, I am going after it!
Pilot: Want to join me in an adventure?

Then the pilot offers you a choice to either do the medallion-shard-finding tutorial or to go to Home. So basically, the medallion is in pieces down there because the Pilot dropped it from his own balloon. Interesting backstory.

Anyway, those are all the exclusive Home Island sneak peeks that I've got so far! Looks like the upcoming update is full of fun new things to do or to just enjoy looking at. The Creators haven't officially announced it yet (though they did give hints of it in their New Year's post), so we don't know when it's coming. But it sure is something grand to look forward to :)

In other news... Congratulations to Fearless Melon, who won the previous Poptropica Hide & Seek competition! She correctly guessed the image below. If you want to know the answer to last week's or, better yet, try your hand at it again, the newest image is up already at the Games page.

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Island Hopper, Pelican Rock, and the Classic Homepage

12/6/2015

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Hello Poptropicans! There's some exciting things going on right now in Poptropica. First up: the Island Hopper Sweepstakes! They've already been here for 2 weeks (sorry guys, late post again :/), but the contest is going to go on until the end of the year, December 31. If you enter any common room during the contest, you can find a yellow Island Hopper ticket. Each ticket that you have increases your chances of being drawn in raffle to win prizes!

Details are available on this official page. Here's a list of the prizes though:

In addition to the grand drawing at the end of the month, 5 players are drawn every week on Thursday! If you're in these weekly top 5, then you'll win a 1-month Poptropica membership, just in time for Pelican Rock Island (more on that below). So far, only 2 out of 4 have taken place, so there's plenty of time!
At the end, the winner gets a 30-minute call with Jeff Kinney (sweet!)
The 10 2nd-place winners get a free 6-month membership (so that should cover early access to 2-3 islands)
And the 20 runners-up get a Poptropica Toy Blimp (which comes with the Blimp Adventure game) as well as a 1-month membership.

In other news, the Main Street preview for Pelican Rock Island is open to all Poptropicans. If you go to it from the map, you can explore the (still unfinished) Main Street of the upcoming island, and there are a number of free things you can get by walking left and talking to the characters, namely these two:

That dog's gotta be the funniest and most creative Follower ever in Poptropica :). And last but not least, if you go all the way right on the preview, you can check out the Photo Booth. This is just like the Photo Booth on the Home Island, but with prison-themed items and backgrounds. All this elaborate pre-Island hype, plus the Creators' promise that Pelican Rock is like no other island, is definitely getting me intrigued!

Yes, the fish is as large as the police dog.

Quick interesting aside: many people aren't impressed with Poptropica's new homepage (well, it's almost a year old now, but it's new in relation to the 8 years of the game's history). Yes, it looks great aesthetically, but there's a lot more distracting clutter, links, and ads that you have to load and see before clicking on the Play Now button, which some older players don't like. But there's a way to get the old homepage back!

The following link takes you to a clutter-free "Poptropica Login" page almost like the classic main page. After you log in, things continue the way you're used to. It's at http://www.poptropica.com/play-poptropica.php I don't know how long it'll be here, but might as well bookmark it while it lasts!

But wait, there's more! (I've got to start making shorter posts more often rather than these mega-posts every month; sorry about that). We've got a winner for the Poptropica Hide & Seek contest! Congratulations to Comical Melon, who correctly guessed the following image:

If you haven't won the Hide & Seek yet, what are you waiting for? There's a new image and a new challenge up already, go check it out and give it a try! And if you're up for something more like this, check out the Stolen Snapshots game on my friend Slippery Raptor's blog; the format's similar, the games are harder :)

Ever wish there were even more ways to connect with the Poptropica community than Twitter? Well, now there is: HPuterpop and the Poptropica Help Blog team have recently released the new Poptropica subreddit! Older Poptropica players can post and comment on all things Poptropica over on r/poptropicahelp, so come join and help the forum grow!

Anyway, that's all for today! Enjoy the month of holidays, and I hope I'll get an opportunity to post more often; at least once before my traditional New Years' post. :)

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TFI Week, the new logo, and Poptropica Cartoons!

10/10/2015

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Timmy Failure Island just released earlier this week for all Poptropicans! To celebrate, the Creators continued their recent streak of generosity in Store credits. A whopping four (!) promo codes were offered throughout this week:

TIMMYTODAY1: 75 credits (expired)
HUNGRYTOTAL2: 75 credits (expired)
ROLLORATTLE3: 100 credits (expired)
FINDTHEPANTS4: 150 credits (valid all this weekend)
Not to mention the 150 credits for completing the island! It used to be that only 50 credits were given (and 100 way before that) for first-time island completions.
And of course, first-time completions of Early Poptropica are still valid for 200 credits until the end of the weekend! Don't miss the last chance to celebrate Poptropica's birthday this year.

Has anyone else noticed the many ways that the Creators have started giving away free credits? This increases the freedom for non-Member Poptropicans quite a bit; they can now buy a lot more from the Store. At the same time, recent changes to Membership (the 7 islands made Members-only and rise in some Store prices) have been aimed at increasing the value of paying for Poptropica and getting more paying customers. So it seems that the Creators are making up for the shocking withdrawal of those 7 islands from public status, by getting the best of both worlds and making both Members and non-Members happy. Well, it worked, didn't it?

Anyway, enjoy Timmy Failure Island, and if you need any help, Poptrickia's guide is always handy!

Noticed anything new on Poptrickia recently? Hint: scroll up. It's Poptrickia's brand-new logo!

What do you think? This is, somewhat surprisingly, the first time Poptrickia has ever had a logo. (I know, it's been ridiculously overdue). All credit goes to the Poptropica Help Blog author and graphic designer HPuterpop; he came up with the idea and designed the logo for me! I'd love to hear feedback in the comments.

And now for some very interesting news... Poptropica may be starting a new line of YouTube cartoons! Two new videos were released recently (well, not that recently, but I'm sorry I've been so busy lately):

Watch them. They're genuinely funny. The first, "Shark Toon," is about Shark Boy (who they're now calling Shark Guy). Glad to see the character surprisingly revived after his disappearance! At the end, it promises a new installment of the series every week, but that hasn't happened yet. Perhaps due to lack of enthusiasm on both Creator's and our (the viewers') sides? Anyway, the second one features another well-known, albeit newer, Poptropica character: Gamer Guy, in a "Draw my Life"-style video. Responses to that have been quite positive, with many fans submitting their own Draw My Life videos related to Poptropica. What do you think about the cartoons? The art style is very fun in my opinion, and we need more of them, hopefully regularly.

And last but not least, the winner of the incredibly difficult Poptropica Hide & Seek challenge has been declared! Congrats to Paultropica6 for getting the correct answer. The reason why this one was so difficult (and thus dragged on for more than a month) is a little thing called parallax.

If you want to know the right answer, and have a shot at the newest game, head on over to the Games page.

Well OK, one last hint: note the point of view that you see outside of a window in Poptropica (or in real life) as you walk past it. Notice how it shifts?

Well, that's all for this mega-long post :). I've said this many times before, but I've been very busy with school and other responsibilities recently. I don't want to make excuses, but that's the reality, and if I had enough time I would make a higher amount of reasonable-length posts more frequently rather than a couple huge ones per month. Oh well; enjoy Timmy Failure Island and Poptrickia's new logo (again, thanks a ton HPuterpop!) until next time!

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Poptropica Acquisition, Hide & Seek Winner, and more

6/11/2015

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The results for the latest Poptropica Hide & Seek are in! Congratulations to Gentle Scorpion for winning the last Poptropica Hide & Seek competition! In case you're new to the party, every two weeks I post a screenshot of something on Poptropica, and anyone can guess what it is. Whoever answers in the most detail wins! This time, Gentle Scorpion guessed this image:

If you want to know the answer, or participate in the new challenge, head on over to the official page.

Some exciting news... Poptropica (the company) has been bought by Sandbox Partners! It's a company based in the U.K. Previously, Poptropica was owned by Pearson (you know, the ones who write all your textbooks). The amount it was bought for hasn't been revealed. It seems like this is for the best, as Jeff Kinney and the CEO of Sandbox Bhav Singh were optimistic in their interview. The important phrase was "helping to bring the brands to new markets." So Poptropica could be expanding in the near future. Already there is speculation that it will become a TV show. Seems more likely now, right?

And finally, Mystery of the Map Island has just today been released to all players. Check out the walkthrough if you're stuck, and have fun!

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MOTM Review, Poptropica Hall of Fame, and more

5/31/2015

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It's been a little more than a week since Mystery of the Map Island released to Members on Thursday. It was also the first island in a long time to have a demo for non-Members. The demo is actually of a nice length — you can get as far as rescuing Octavian — so what did you guys all think about the island? Something about it (and OK, the long weekend too) made me want to write a short review. So, here it is!

Quality

The first thing I noticed was the theme music (click here to listen or download). It fades into the background at first, but eventually it grows on you and it's an extremely fitting piece for the "island mystery" sort of theme. (Of course, technically all the islands are "island mysteries" but this Mystery of the Map is even more so — more on that later).

Next striking feature: the map. The map is a magical device that not only shows the current state of the island, but allows you to travel anywhere on it with a single click. The attention to detail and quality is pretty stunning. Objects on the map are constantly moving, making it seem even more realistic.

Some more general quality notes: the animations were fairly good, and there were few bugs. No complaints there.

Story

Frankly, the story didn't make very much sense. Sure, if you've read the graphic novel you can follow along, but its mediocre on its own at best. And not even an island that's based on another story should be like that; look at Nabooti, Big Nate, and Red Dragon. Main complaints:

Several important plot points seem to happen automatically, and the player feels sort of cheated. For example, the Viking on the beach is guarding the gunpowder at first, but then suddenly goes to sleep later.
The whole gunpowder scheme didn't make sense either. Why would you needlessly demolish a mountain, create a landslide, and change the course of a river, just to get into the fortress? Aren't we as Poptropicans cleverer than that? The island would have been so much more fun if the way to get in was more creative, e.g. distract the guard with the gunpowder and then sneak in through the door. Well, I'm no good at designing an island, but you get my drift.
Side note: causing a rockslide is dangerous at best (more likely suicidal) and changing the course of a river will definitely destroy the ecosystem that is living there. Not trying to ruin your fun, but I wonder if they should include this in a children's game.
You're never given a good motive to find and rescue Oliver, Jorge and Mya. In fact, those characters hardly matter at all to the story, whereas they're supposed to be the stars of the show. Neither did they mention anything about the map. I was honestly sympathizing with Octavian the whole way, since he seemed the most human, realistic character.

Still, some parts were nice and interesting, like catching a fish in a goblet, escaping in an oversized costume, and the goblet trials. Depends on your perspective (have you read the comics yet) and your ability to suspend disbelief. All in all, I would give this island a 2.5 out of 5. It's severely lacking, but not quite abysmal.

In other, slightly more exciting news... The Creators have announced something new, the Poptropica Hall of Fame. Every week, people who have earned medallions are entered into a raffle (the more medallions you have earned, the more raffle entries to your name). Every Friday, some winners are chosen and their avatars will be put into one of 6 islands. So you basically become an NPC in an island quest for that week, as I understand it. Sweet! Start replaying islands and dressing up in your most unique costumes. As always, check out Poptrickia's walkthroughs for straightforward help on Islands.

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New Realms Features

3/15/2015

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New features have been added to Poptropica Realms! I'll go over them all in this post, but the major points are "Nightmare Fairies", new props, costumes, weather effects, and new abilities for high-level players. The new mining abilities are the Ground Pound, Hammerang, and Super Jump .

Ground Pound is unlocked on level 5. It lets you clear lots of land in one hit.
Hammerang on level 10. It is basically a boomerang of destruction. You throw the hammer and it destroys anything in its path. Best used with Ground Pound to completely decimate an area.
Super Jump on level 15. When activated, you jump about twice as high as normal. Somewhat underwhelming, but it synergizes well with Hammerang. Basically, press 5 to let the hammer loose, then 6 to jump up and let it spin around in circles.

When you reach Level 15, you can get the prestigous Master Creator costume. To the right you can see me wearing it. There's another new costume, the Realms Builder costume, which you can get by typing in the promo code GOREALMS on the home screen when you log in.

And the coolest thing -- weather! Each Realm type has its own type of weather phenomenon, such as snow for the Snow Realm. The effect is really detailed. The snow, for example, doesn't just go through the entire scene, but it can go down through holes in the ground. I'm really quite impressed with it. You can see how it works below:

The Master Builder impersonating me.

And also -- new interactive props! They each do something when clicked on (if they're interactive), or when stepped near (like trapdoors and explosive platforms). Be careful though, props cost a lot -- 1 Poptanium for each square that they take up, rounded up. And they don't count towards leveling up.

But not all of the new changes are favorable. New are the Twilight Pixies, little blue fairies that will fly out of nowhere. When you touch you, they steal 10 Poptanium. Ouch! Thankfully they are pretty slow to move and to maneuver, and they're nocturnal. But they come in swarms. First one, then 2, then 4; the longer they go without hitting you, the larger their numbers get. And they can pass right through walls if they want to. I call them the Nightmare Fairies. If they get overwhelming, move to the area right or left, or click the Relams button in the lower left to escape.

The Pixies are another reason I liked the old Land better than Realms. I think the old one made it easier to create things, by not taxing your Poptanium for it. And now these fairies are making it even harder, even stressful. You just can't take your time to create something big anymore without a swarm swooping in.

Still, it feels great to just be walking around in an arid volcanic desert and suddenly find a tower with a chest full of 500 Poptanium in it :)

Last but not least. The winner of last week's Hide and Seek challenge is Barefoot Sky yet again! She's won more games than I can count right now. The image that she correctly guessed is below. This week's image was surprisingly trickier than I expected. There's another picture and another challenge waiting on the Hide & Seek page!