Hiya, Poptropicans! Happy Easter (if you celebrate)! It seems as if within the last week or so, Poptropica has picked up its pace (quite dramatically) from the past month. See what happens when you focus on your exams? You miss all the cool stuff. 😜 Just kidding, of course. There’s plenty of time for school and fun!

The first piece of news is that there have been some Store updates for April! As with every month, there are Members-only gifts for April, this time focusing on historical icons. They are Cleopatra, Sir Lancelot, and Pocahontas:

I would like to thank Gentle Dolphin for noting something here that I may not have realized otherwise – the Pocahontas costume is the exact same as Sacagawea on Time Tangled Island. It’s not really the best look to reuse an outfit from one person to another just because they share the same culture (especially when they were born nearly two centuries apart in two distinct areas of the country). Either way, though, you can customize the outfit for free from Time Tangled.

Moving on, other changes for the Store include some April-themed updates, such as a chick follower, egg launcher, hiking shoes, and more:

Not only are campfires and hiking trips good April activities, but they’re also relatively safe (as long as you stay with people in your home)! So hey, you can grab some hiking boots and marshmallows yourself for some fun activities, while matching your Poptropican.

Timmy Failure Made Members-Only

Poptropica has done some interesting rebranding with Timmy Failure Island recently, including a post on the Creators’ blog describing the island’s plot and linking a promotional video from 2015. But that’s not all – they’ve also made the island Members-only:

Am I a little upset, considering this was one of the last two islands I had to complete (with no current Membership)? Perhaps…yes, I am. However, there may be a good reason behind this. Poptropica seems to be currently moving from Flash to Haxe JavaScript, and Timmy Failure Island may be an experimental run. That would explain the “early access” wording, after all.

Haxe JavaScript

So it’s pretty well-known by now that Flash is ending in 2020. I mean, most browsers already require you to agree to run it in the first place. Luckily though, Poptropica has been preparing for this, and it looks like they’ve made their first step to transitioning to Haxe JavaScript instead. When creating a new character, this screen appears:

This is quite different from the normal character creation screen. Instead of customizing your name and outfit, there are only seven pre-made Poptropicans to choose from. I don’t know about you, but choosing my name was always my favorite part of the process, and that’s why I got the awesome name Silver Wolf. 😉 You can tell this is a bit of a test run for Poptropica because the URL now says “poptropica.com/haxe.” When you continue on, there are even more changes…

There are only 6 islands at all, if you include Snagglemast and Home island. It looks like they’re also working on moving Pelican Rock over to JavaScript. Although sad, this is a actually a good sign that Poptropica’s plan is going well. Changing the entire code that a game is built on is hard, and sometimes I don’t think we give the Creators enough credit. There are plenty of other games out there where the developers have given up due to old code or engines.

There appears to be a new Menu, too, with a Clubhouse icon and no Friends or Realms icons. It looks like those two things aren’t quite ready for JavaScript yet, but I’m sure they’ll arrive eventually with the other islands.

Perhaps it’s just me, but the JavaScript version of Poptropica also looks slightly…sharper? Things seemed more refined and better quality, but maybe that’s my imagination. Leave your thoughts in the comments below! Also, keep on the lookout for a continuation of the Virus Hunter Island post.

-Silver Wolf 🐺