Welcome to Poptropica Secrets! Today I will be discussing the new map. This map was released in the past few months, and I'm going to tell you what I think of it.
To begin, I believe that this is the worst map shape so far. Ever since the map changed format in 2010, they have consistently gotten wider and shorter, eventually reaching the point that we are at now.
Now the map is over twice as wide as it is tall, at around 950x425. It would be a lot better if it were sized ~7x4 as it was before, adjusting the bars on the top and bottom. The hint bar on the bottom is quite unnecessary, due to the hint bar already present below the play screen. The bar on the top features four unnecessary features, which are as follows: The Poptropica logo, settings, Home Island, and the store. The Poptropica Logo is already above the play screen. The settings page is available by landing on any SUI island. Home Island is on the first page of the map. The store is available by entering the building on Home Island or by clicking the icon in the menu crate on any island. There is no reason whatsoever why it couldn't have an aspect ratio of 7x4.
Another thing that I dislike about this map is that clicking on an island will show an information page, regardless of anything that you have done on the selected island. The settings menu should have an option to disable this, or the information page should be disabled once you finish the island unless specified otherwise (could be enabled in the settings menu).
But I do have a few positive things to say about the information page; it has a "Restart Island" button, which is no longer accessible from SUI Islands. The Difficulty bar is helpful for newer players and players who have not attempted to complete many of the islands. A brief description of the island is available on the right. And as of late, there are no other places in-game to see the islands' official logos, as far as I am aware.
The colored island views are really interesting and fresh, but they are not consistent with the colored icons shown in various other places such as the homepage and merchandise.
Skullduggery Island as seen from the Poptropica Blimp box art. Notice the green hillside and lightly-colored pier.
Skullduggery Island as seen from the map, which lacks green and has a darker-colored pier.
(The Blimp toy I used to take a screenshot of for the image above is available here.)
One really weird thing I noticed is the placement of Poptropica Realms on the map. It is located on the fourth slide (out of seven) when it most likely should have been placed on the first slide in one of the corners. I understand that Realms is also available in the menu crate, but it would be more convenient if it were on the first page of the map.
The very last slide concerns me a small bit. As you can see in the image below, there are six islands; four are on the top row, and two are on the bottom row. This makes it look goofily uneven. As you can see, there is an island in the bottom-left and the bottom-middle, but not the bottom-right, making this slide look lopsided. This is a problem, but I have some simple solutions. Poptropica would move Nabooti Island to the bottom row so there can be three islands in each row. The team could place Big Nate Island directly under Steamworks Island and Great Pumpkin Island directly under Twisted Thicket Island as to make it somewhat symmetrical. Poptropica Realms could be moved from slide four to slide seven and be placed to the right of Great Pumpkin Island; this would leave six islands on slide four (three in each row, which is what is recommended) and 7 islands on all of the other slides. Since there are forty-eight islands, each slide could have eight islands on each slide, resulting in six slides of eight islands each. But in all honesty, it's not a big deal to me and I would be okay with nothing changing.
The seventh slide.
In conclusion, this map is okay. While this is currently my least favorite variation of the map, it could have certainly been worse. It has a few slight problems with it, but most are simple fixes. The only one I'm really concerned about is the aspect ratio. It's nice to see a change in the map. It only happens every 2-4 years and I can't wait to see what changes are introduced the next time a new map format is released. Goodbye!
Hello and welcome to Poptropica Secrets! Today I have a video to show you listing off a bunch of ideas for future builds of Poptropica realms. I thought for a few hours on this, so I hope you can look past the terrible audio quality and enjoy the video.
If you come up with any more ideas, tweet me @Icystorm9. Goodbye!
Hello, and welcome to Poptropica Secrets. Today, I am bringing up a new glitch I found, that being the Black Glass Glitch (as I have unofficially named it). This glitch gives your character/Poptropican a black glass to carry around. How I discovered this glitch is quite simple. After a few weeks of having light blue hair on Poptropica, I decided to go back to having my usual light red hair color. Seeing how I'm not good at using the colorizer, I headed toward the diner on 24 Carrot Island to change my hair color, as I have done in the past. So I changed my hair color, using the drinks on the counter; when I finished, I noticed that my Ninja Dagger was nowhere to be found. I flew over to Super Villain Island to get my dagger from the Store Items section (the Midnight Red Ninja isn't available in the Store Items section of SUI Islands, and 24 Carrot Island happens to be an SUI Island) and when I arrived, I noticed that my character had a black glass in his hand. How did this happen? I don't know, but I suggest that you guys look into it yourselves and tell me what you find. I'm on Twitter, @Icystorm9 for you to tweet your findings to.
Welcome to Poptropica Secrets! Today I will be discussing the new map icon for Galactic Hot Dogs Island and what I think about it.
I think it's actually really cool. It shows off the main city that they live in, Funketoun, in all it's glorious colors, and the main character. And while he is 40 feet tall, this is the style of many other islands, such as Big Nate Island, Great Pumpkin Island, Poptropicon Island, and the like. Cosmoe also looks a lot less goofy here than on the island. The GHD art style clashes with the Poptropica art style too much, and these characters, made of mainly straight lines, are forced to be rounded to fit in the mold of the typical Poptropican. On the map icon, as it is with Big Nate Island, Wimpy Wonderland, and Timmy Failure Island, they don't need to be designed like that to be recognized as Poptropicans. Heck, in the islands I just mentioned, none of the characters have the typical Poptropican body shape. I really am glad they made this change.
But why did Poptropica make this change? Well, if I remember correctly, the original island, as seen from the map, was the Neon Wiener (which may or may not be the most immature, nonsensical name for a ship ever). Oh wait, it was. Here is a screenshot I took of the map for mobile devices.
The island, formerly seen on the map.
In case you didn't notice, this is not an island. This is their stupid spaceship bus. Besides that, this picture is still lazy. Do you want to know why? Well, guess what I found on the Galactic Hot Dogs website. The image below is almost the same as the image on the right, except one is more cartoony, and the other is more Poptropica-styled. But otherwise, they're the same image. The icon designer must have just uploaded the original image to paint.net and drew over it in a new layer, and called it a day. It doesn't help that it doesn't have a shadow or anything, like regular flying objects would. So that's probably why the team changed the icon.
So those are my thoughts. I don't specifically like Galactic Hot Dogs Island, or Galactic Hot Dogs in general, but I think this new map icon is pretty great. What do you think? There's a poll on the sidebar for you to take part in, and I sincerely encourage that you vote.
Wow, I haven't posted on here in a while.
Anyway, Welcome to Poptropica Secrets! Today I'm going to make a quick review of Timmy Failure Island.
I really like this island. It really fits the Timmy Failure art style, but also feels like it belongs in Poptropica. This was also the first island since early 2014 that felt like it was a full island with a full story.
My favorite free item from the development stage
I really like the development stage of this island, including a new free item every week upon visiting Main Street. All of these free items were magnificent; and while a bit unnecessary, all were very creative and original. I really like the poster; it may be my favorite out of the batch. It is shown on the right side of the page.
I also like the story quite a bit. It doesn't skip around like episodic islands do. It has a definite start and end, and gives me everything I need in-between. It fits in very well with the world, as well.
Before Mistakes Were Made, Timmy's pants were taken. But by whom, and why? And how will he get them back? Since Timmy isn't as great of a detective as he believes, you're put in charge of doing all of the work yourself.
I would actually like to see this adapted into a book; and this is not something I could say for Big Nate Island, Wimpy Wonderland, or Galactic Hot Dogs Island.
The music is some of the best in the game; I could listen to it for hours. In most cases, the music in the game annoys me and gets very repetitive, but the Timmy Failure music is very simple and doesn't annoy me in the slightest.
The items are also nice, but putting a cat in a bag with garden shears isn't necessarily the best idea. I don't understand how rice krispies calls Total, but bonbons don't, when he likes bonbons a lot more.
Hey guys, I'm Icy Storm. Today I am going to be talking about when Poptropica became slightly less wonderful. I've been playing the game for four and a half years now, and in that time there have been many updates, many features added and removed, and many replaced. Today I am going to be talking about some of the okay, meh, no, and TERRIBLE decisions that Poptropica has made during the past that helped it become what it is today. I will also give some ideas of how to fix certain things along the way.
SUI
Poptropica has changed their interface a few times over the years, but SUI (Sound Updated Islands) is quite obviously the largest change yet. While the original play screen is sleek and smooth, the SUI interface is slow and full of glitches and bugs.
The regular Poptropica screen
SUI gives players a larger vision range, but this makes it incredibly slow and filled with lag.
I also found 2 glitches within 2 minutes.
My idea of how to fix this: Fix the bugs and add a feature to either A: Make the screen smaller like Club Penguin did, or B: be able to press the - button to get a lower resolution, like Club Penguin did. Failed Members-Only Island Plan
In case you didn't notice (in which case you've been living under a rock thats under a rock), Poptropica occasionally makes islands about third party products such as the comic strip Big Nate, the children's book series Magic Tree House, the short film It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and some other stuff. In July 2015, all of these islands now required Membership to complete.
Islands that are permanently member exclusive isn't a bad idea, and it's actually a great scheme idea to make money. The problem is with the way it was executed. All 7 of the third-party regular islands were made members only, while the new SUI ones were left free. If anything, I would make the newer ones member's only. Along with the 2 newer ones, I would release about 4 OTHER members-only islands on the same date without releasing it publicly until the day all 6 go live.
Everybody knows these two feelings.
1: I love this thing a lot and have enjoyed many hours of entertainment with said thing, but now I have no way to access it without handing over at least 3 bucks a month.
2: This looks like something I might enjoy, but I have to pay money to access it.
Most people prefer the latter.
Official Walkthroughs
A big part of Poptropica is a YouTube community. Many people make videos about Poptropica. Walkthroughs, animations, comics, etc. Walkthroughs by themselves are not my problem.
My problem is, Poptropica is a game where you have to think of what to do. Some parts are really hard to figure out and some parts are also very complicated. With a walkthrough, you don't really have to think about what to do. You just kinda watch a video, see what somebody else does, and then do exactly what they do. This does not seem like something Poptropica would condone, but now they've jumped on the bandwagon.
I think a better way to do this is to have a little section on the Island Info page that gives little hints from a few parts of the quest.
They kinda do this with their new blog posts about it, but they go into too much detail.
Holy guacamole, there's like 12 video walkthroughs!
Galactic Hot Dogs: The Uprising Continues
Oh boy, Galactic Hot Dogs. Boy, do I have a lot to say about this franchise. I've already talked about Galactic Hot Dogs on my opinion blog, so I'll just copy a few excerpts from there.
Galactic Hot Dogs Advertising
I don't mind advertising for one of the products coming from Poptropica's partner site, but there is Galactic Hot Dogs everywhere. Billboards, login prizes, ad buildings, videos popping up in random places sometimes, kiosks, minigames, quests (app), and now it even has its own island. Now, if GHD had a good story with lovable and relatable characters, and was easy to understand, then it would be an okay choice to advertise. There is a problem with all of these factors though.
And now Galactic Hot Dogs has a book. I saw it at Sams Club last summer. The cover is totally bland and colorless (aside from the logo, the cover only has four colors. Three of them are shades of gray.)
The book also uses the number 37 million as an exaggeration. Thirty-seven million is my exaggeration number and you have no right to take it. It also uses pages from the online series, which is really lame. The book not only reuses material, but it also is on the same level of comedy as a 7-year-old boy, resulting to fart jokes and the like. Poptropica, my favorite game, is now advertising this like it's the Holy Bible of children's books. Please stop. Just please stop. I haven't seen it as much lately, but it still has a very large presence in this game.
This is an actual, real, unedited page from the Galactic Hot Dogs book. Check Amazon's preview of the book if you don't believe me.
No More Save Button
Let me tell you a story. One time I was working on my Club Penguin realm in Poptropica Realms. I spent probably a half-hour working on this one scene. I put lots of detail into it. Broke lots of stuff, placed lots of stuff, tested lots of stuff, broke a lot more stuff, placed a lot more stuff. When I was finished, I exited realms. When I came back, all my work was gone. But guess what else happened? The Poptanium I spent was still gone. So what happened? To this day I don't know.
The next time I worked on my Club Penguin realm, I waited about 5 minutes after I finished to let it save. I logged out, and when I came back, all my stuff was still gone.
The third time I worked on this realm, I waited fifteen minutes for it to save. It did for the most part, but some stuff was still missing.
Now every time I use that realm, I usually wait about a half an hour after I'm done just to let it save. I wouldn't have to do this if there was a save button in the menu crate. Please add one.
Episodes
In 2014, Poptropica announced episodic islands, islands that would be released one bit at a time. Episodes would be relatively short, so they could release more episodes more often. Except this wasn't the case. Episodes were released on a similar schedule Poptropica had for releasing islands in 2012. Episodes were released every 2 months or so. They also didn't handle episodes very well. Episodes usually began with text to read and ended with text to read. Most episodes were also just lame tasks, such as beating Omegon in Poptropicon 3 and taking pictures of fish in Atlantis 1. I think the biggest sufferer of this is Mission Atlantis.
Episodes have since ended, but their legacy still lives on. Galactic Hot Dogs Island (yuck) was basically tasks. It had very little story or character development at all. It basically went down like this:
Get to plot starting thingy
Rescue Cosmoe
Rescue Dagger
Rescue Humphree
play Poptropica's version of Flappy Bird
you win
The things you do to achieve each of any of the (I guess I have to call them this) plotpoints in each aren't even fun or exciting, so it makes you feel frustrated when you don't win. Game Show Island, for example, has a lot more plotpoints (I actually mean it this time) than episodic islands. The things you do to reach those plotpoints are also new and fun. Here's the list of things to do in order for Game Show Island.
Have fun messing around at factory.
Help a robot
find the scientist guy
chase him
fly a plane to some cool place
play a little puzzle game
play a game show about scaredy pants (fun and challenging)
fly a plane to some cool place
play a little puzzle game
play wheel of fortune (fun and slightly challenging)
fly a plane to some cool place
play a little puzzle game
play jeopardy (fun and challenging)
fly a plane to some cool place
play a little puzzle game
play a american ninja warrior (fun and extremely challenging in a good way)
fly a plane to some cool place
play a puzzle game
play a really fun game where youre a chicken and a bowling ball and a baby and its really fun
play the pipe game from club penguins 2015 halloween party (but harder) four or five times
play tictactoe with a computer that was ruler of the earth less than a minute ago
A plot as repetitive as this one can still be incredibly fun if you try something new and exciting.
If you're reading this, Poptropica, thank you. I hope you take this seriously and try to do something really fun and new with all of the power you have. And remember, even at your lowest point, you are ahead of Club Penguin at their average. (that sentence does not give you right to sell out) Goodbye!
One of my natural but manmade Poptanium bunkers located on the Moon.
Welcome to Poptropica Secrets! Today I will be discussing how the Moon is the best type of realm in Poptropica Realms.
1: Jumping
Because of the low amount of gravity on the moon, in the game and in real life, you can jump super high up to reach the poptanium way up on the top of the screen that you couldn't reach in a normal realm.
2: Poptanium Bunkers
In Poptropica Realms, every once in a while you will find Poptanium bunkers every once in a while when exploring. Well, on the moon, they are more common than you would think. Most of the time, you find a Poptanium Bunker every other sector, and it's almost guaranteed that you will find one at least every third sector. Some sectors have 2 bunkers, and in my Moon realm, a bunker from a double-bunkered sector is my entrance into my mine.
3: Animals
In Poptropica Realms, you will most likely encounter many animals, and some are dangerous and hazardous to your health. But on the moon, as far as I know, there are none (my mining moon realm is huge) and you wouldn't have to worry about this.
4: Water
Let's face it. There's obviously water in Realms. EXCEPT on the moon. For some reason, in most realm versions, water hurts you. I don't know why, but that's how it works. To avoid running into water mining, go mining on the moon.
So that's why the Moon is the best Realm type to choose to go mining. I hope you took note of this, enjoyed this post, and found it useful. Thanks for visiting, and goodbye!
