Wow, hard to believe that 2015 is almost over already! This year, Poptropica turned 8 years old, released 7 new islands (including finishing off the last episodic islands of 2014, Arabian Nights and PoptropiCon), gave Poptropica Realms to all of us, improved the Poptropica app, became poised to expand to new types of media (like comic books and hopefully TV as well!), and so much more! Here's Poptrickia's review of all of 2015, the good, the bad, and the ugly (well, very little ugly):
| Arabian Nights got an incredibly successful finale in Episode 3. It was interesting to see a Poptropica Island that is so deep and ends with an actual message. Even though the island pushed the theme of how bad greed is, it wasn't cheesy or annoying at all, and actually made the island more enjoyable in my opinion. |  |
A surprising total of 3 sponsored islands were released this year: Galactic Hot Dogs, Mystery of the Map, and Timmy Failure. Interestingly, all three were based on comic books (Mystery of the Map was based on Poptropica's own comic book series of the same name). Add this to the fact that Poptropica's been closely tied with Funbrain in the past, and you can see that a lot of Poptropica's target demographic is heavily interested in comics and reading, which probably influences how even their original islands are developed.
As for the islands themselves, the reactions were fairly the same for each: good art and music, but weak storyline. Galactic Hot Dogs in particular got called out for its laughably easy gameplay.
| In a similar vein (albeit slightly more negative), 7 Islands were made Members-only this year: Nabooti, Wimpy Wonderland, Big Nate, Red Dragon, Great Pumpkin, Wimpy Boardwalk, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Meaning that now, players have to pay in order to play these islands. A few things I noticed: |  |
- that all of these islands were sponsored (meaning based on other franchises),
- the sharp increase in new sponsored islands being made,
- Poptropica's recent acquisition by a new company (Sandbox Networks)
- and their plans to rapidly expand to other things like merchandise, comics, and even a TV show
Although by now, all indications are that Poptropica is recovering well. The Creators kind of paid us back in their own way with the many giveaways of Credits this year (e.g. tripling the amount of credits given for winning islands, all the freebies leading up to Timmy Failure Island, and the Daily Pop-in Prizes). Credits can't buy Early Access to new and locked islands anymore (not since 2010 I think), but they do give non-Members much more access to the Store (which Members can just borrow infinite items from).
And finally to finish off 2015 on a high note, the incredible and original Escape from Pelican Rock Island recently came out for all players after what must have been the shortest Early Access period of all time: a mere three weeks! I gave it a review that you can read in detail, but suffice it to say that Poptropica has set a new bar for the quality of the storyline, music, and general development of their future original islands :)
Last but not least, the mobile app got quite a few upgrades that brought it close to the quality of the desktop version, including many multiplayer features and importing desktop looks. No logging in has been implemented yet, though, and islands no longer cost money, so it looks like the app is going to be free for all. And Poptropica Realms has also come along quite well, adding many immersive features as well as sharing.
The post doesn't end here -- click Read More below to see more New Year's stuff!
2015 Recap
(This is a more detailed review of 2015, so if you read this far you can skip to Next Year below if you want).
The Creators recently took a look back on their accomplishments of the year so far, and the list is so detailed that I'm going to base my 2015 recap on it. It's been an incredible year for Poptropica! I've tidied up the original list written by Captain Crawfish quite a bit though, and the items in bold are the ones that I added in. And if you want to take a further trip down memory lane, click on the name of any month below to see the archives for that month on the blog:
| January:
| February:
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| March:
| April:
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| May:
| June:
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| July:
| August:
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| September:
| October:
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| November:
| December:
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Next Year
| No one knows better what's coming next year than the Creators themselves, but here at Poptrickia I'm in the business of guessing :). Oliver and Jorge are due for a revival I think, either in another run of comic strips, or in Volume 2 of Mystery of the Map. Or who knows -- the Creators have been dropping plenty of hints that a TV show is in the preliminary stages. |  |
As Poptropica becomes older, so do its players. Many of the people who first played Poptropica and started fansites are teens now. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; it just means that the character of Poptropica will (and already has, a little) change over time to reflect that. We're already seeing new islands have deeper themes and somewhat more intimidating scenes, which is all a good sign in my eyes :)
A Poptrickia New Year's post wouldn't be complete without a list of resolutions, now would it :). So without further ado, my goals for 2016 are to:
- Post more often on the Journal (that's what I call this blog), hopefully at least three times a month! Sneak peeks are my favorite posts to write but they take a long time to write, so I'll try to improve on those.
- Make guides for new islands even faster. I'm planning on finishing the written guide by the day after the island's release, and adding pictures and the video guide in the following weekend. This is something that I actually used to do, but alas, school getting busier has gotten in the way a little bit :(
- Maybe try to get the community of Poptrickia more involved, in commenting more often or other things? I'm not sure how exactly I'll do that, but it's definitely a goal for next year.
