Returning to GDPB+ 1-Year Anniversary Announcement

Hello, everyone! My name is Gentle Dolphin, and — man, it’s been a while since I posted something here…

It’s hard to believe that I left this site untouched for such a long while. I haven’t written a blog post here since last October, and the last time I posted art on the Pop Art Museum page was this past February. In case you don’t know where I’ve been, let me give a brief explanation of what I’ve been up to for the past few months.

Back in May 2018, I began my blogging journey here on this very website. Like a lot of other pop bloggers, blogging was just another way of expressing my love of Poptropica and interacting with other fans. I updated the site semi-frequently with posts about game updates and contests, along with some of my fan art.

Later that October, I was invited to become an author for the Poptropica Help Blog. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, so I accepted the invitation and joined the team. During my time on the PHB, I learned a lot of things about blogging and working with a team. I even got to play a big role in 2019’s April Fools Day prank. You can read my PHB posts here.

When I first started writing for the PHB, I originally planned to continue writing for GDPB (Gentle Dolphin’s Pop Blog); however, a mix personal events and waning interest led me to abandon the website for a while. Now, I am bringing GDPB out of hiatus and will start to update it more often! Maybe I’ll get around to adding content to the Fan Fiction page.

Now, let’s get to the big announcement: Gentle Dolphin’s Pop Blog is turning one year old this Sunday! To celebrate this occasion, I’ll finally post my “My Place in Poptropica” story.  I’ve actually been writing it on and off for the past few months, but I figured that the anniversary would be the perfect time to post it. I hope you guys stay tuned for that when it comes out!

I didn’t want to have this post be all-text, so here’s a drawing of Gentle Dolphin and her cat Amy (short for Amethyst) ready for springtime.

I hope to keep this site going for a while, so leave some suggestions for what you would like to see on Gentle Dolphin’s Pop Blog. I’ve got a few things planned, but I’d like to know what you want to see in the future.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

—Gentle Dolphin🐬

Winning Stickers, Member Benefits, and Spooky Photos

Hey, guys! i just wanted to share a few small Poptropica updates with you guys!

Update #1: A bunch of new stickers have recently been added to the Poptropica Stickers app (available on the Apple app store for iOS devices)! Plenty of spooky scary stickers have been added, but you may also notice a few other stickers in the top row. Yes, it’s the winning designs of the previous Poptropica Sticker Design Contest! I will say that the artists did a good job adapting the original designs into official stickers.

Update #2: Yesterday, the Creators’ Blog announced a new membership perk. Now, members can keep the prizes they won during sponsored events, even after the event ends. Nothing too groundbreaking, but still neat. Fret not, non-members; the Creators are working on new stuff for all players to enjoy later this year! We’ve got two-and-a-half more months, guys! Brace yourselves!

Update #3: The photo booth on Home Island has recently been updated with new backgrounds, characters, and props so that players can create some Halloween photos! Throughout October, the Creators are giving fans a fun challenge. Just share your photos on Instagram with the hashtag #spookypop for a chance to be featured on the official Poptropica Instagram page! Here’s a few photos that I recently made:

 

That’s about it for now.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

October’s Freaky Member Gifts

Greetings, macabre members! Hallow’s month has arrived, thus we are treated with a trio of ghoulish gifts. Remember that you, with an active membership, will receive these gifts until the end of the month, so act swiftly.

This month, members of Poptropica will receive the following items:

• Toilet Paper– With this item, one can become a toilet paper mummy. It’s a simple but classic Halloween costume. Be careful, though; the paper is easy to tear.
• Horse Head– This is definitely a bizarre item for one to possess. I mean, gaze into its deep, soulless eyes. What in Poptropica traumatized this poor equine soul?
• Headless Fun– The legend of the Headless Horseman lives on through you! All you to do is take his pumpkin head and become the infamous spirit.

I hope that this overview gives you insight into these classic and spooky items. Which of these items has particularly peaked your interest? Share your thoughts on the matter in the comment section below this very post!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

Poptropica Halloween Costume Contest Winner Announced!

¡Hola, chicos y chicas! The Poptropica Creators just announced the winner of the Poptropica Halloween Costume Contest! You can read the original post here.

And the winner is…  “Day of the Dead” by @luckyjokerpop aka Lucky Joker!!!

Inspired by the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), this costume definitely fits the occasion. This costume is vibrantly colored and intricately detailed. Elements like the roses, the fan, and the calavera mask tie together the theme of Dia de los Muertos. This is a beautiful costume, and I can’t wait to see how it will look in the game!

Congratulations, Lucky Joker! Your costume will be added to the Poptropica store in the October store update!

There were plenty of other amazing entries that were submitted for the contest. You can view them on Instagram with the #poptropicahalloween tag.

(Psst! By the way, I’m planning something special for Halloween. Keep an eye out for that!)

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

Poptropica Halloween Costume Design Contest

Hello, boys and ghouls! Who’s ready to celebrate Halloween? Sure, it’s still September, but that means we have more time to prepare for the festivities! It’s time to start planning our trick-or-treat routes and designing our crazy costumes!

Speaking of designing costumes, the Poptropica Creators have recently their newest contest: the Poptropica Halloween Costume Design Contest! Check out the announcement post on Instagram!

Here’s a brief rundown of the contest rules:

1. Design a Halloween costume that you would like to see in Poptropica! You can create a new costume or mix and match already existing costume pieces.
2. Present your costume idea in any style or medium. Whether you have pencil sketches or digital sprites, just make sure that your vision for your costume is clear.
3. Submit as many entries as you would like. The more, the merrier!
4. Post your costume designs to Instagram with the hashtag #poptropicahalloween so that the Creators can see it.
5. The contest ends on September 21, so get designing! 

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

Returning to Old Realms

Hello, Poptropicans! This is Gentle Dolphin here with the scoop on the latest Poptropica news! Wait a minute, the Creators already posted about this four days ago? Darn it… I need to be faster when reporting Pop news.

Oh, well. Everyone else is talking about it, so I may as well join in on the discussion.

Surprise, surprise! REALMS IS FINALLY BACK!!!

To any new players out there who don’t know what Realms is, let me explain the best that I can.

In Poptropica Realms (aka Poptropica Minecraft), you enter a new world and find a legendary hammer named Svadilfari. With this hammer, you have the power to shape the world around you and create something extraordinary! You can encounter strange creatures, build crazy structures, and even visit other players’ realms!

To access Realms, just go through the portal above the Movie Theater on Home Island.

There are plenty of articles and videos that go into extensive detail on Realms. One guide that I greatly recommend is the PHB’s Poptropica Realms Guide. Hopefully, you guys are ready to explore, build, and destroy!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

September’s Colorful Member Gifts

Hello, everyone! It’s time to see what exclusive gifts await members this September! As always, active members will automatically receive these gifts upon logging into Poptropica Original.

Here are this month’s items as well as my thoughts on them:

• Rainbow Afro– Here, we have a colorful and floofy rainbow afro. If you want to add a big splash of color to your look, or if you want to show your dominance as king/queen of the clown kingdom, then this item is for you!
• Whoopie Cushion– I might be immature, but I love this item! Running across a path of whoopie cushions is surprisingly entertaining. You can even use it to bring levity to a dire situation, like being hunted by Myron van Buren.
• Rainbow Toilet Launcher– This is undoubtedly the weirdest item in this month’s gift pack. I mean, a porcelain toilet that shoots rainbow Skittles powerful enough to send Poptropicans into the sky is… strange to say the least. It’s fun, but it’s still weird.

Overall thoughts: The items in this gift pack are funny, wacky, and worth the price of membership. These are good items, but I feel like they would be better suited for an April Fool’s Day pack, not a September pack. When I think of September, I think of sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes; I usually don’t think of practical jokes and rainbow toilets.

What do you think of this month’s member gifts? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

Here’s What’s Going On!!!

Hello, fellow Poptropicans! As some of you might know, the Poptropica Creators’ Blog has been pretty silent for the past month. Aside from the Sticker Design contest, the Creators never really gave us any information regarding future Pop projects.

Well, that changed yesterday when an anonymous blogger wrote a post titled “What’s Going On!?!” (Now, that’s a title that grabs people’s attention).

I won’t be covering the entire post in detail since it goes over all of the information there. Read the original post here.

In short, the post discusses that updates will be made to both Poptropica Original and Poptropica Worlds, and that new features will be released for all players. The post also teases the possibility of more contests, including one that will be announced NEXT WEEK!

That’s pretty much it for now. What updates do you think will be in the games? What do you think this new contest will be? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

#PoptropicaStickers Winners

Hello, everyone! I’ve come back from my break to share some exciting news!

A quick refresher first: the Poptropica Creators hosted a Poptropica Sticker Design Contest on Instagram last month. Fans were given the chance to create their own original sticker designs, and the top 3 designs would be featured in the next update of the Poptropica Stickers app. Yesterday, the winners were finally announced on Instagram!

The post reads, “Congratulations to the winners of the first #PoptropicaStickers contest! Your designs will be featured in the next sticker app update in September! 🎉” It also shows the three winning sticker designs, which are shown below:

“What’s Up?” by poptropillustraticans

“Going Batty” by phs_animations (That’s me!)

“LOL!” by cloudiistarz

Do you see the bat sticker? It was designed by me, Gentle Dolphin! Let’s just say that I couldn’t stop smiling when I found out that one of my stickers was featured! You can follow me on Instagram if you’d like, although I don’t post there often.

I want to congratulate the other winners of the contest, as well as everyone else who submitted a design for the contest. You guys did a great job creating your stickers; plenty of designs ranged from funny to cute to relatable. Give yourselves some cookies, you guys earned it!

This contest was fun, and I hope it comes back in some way, shape, or form. Hosting contests and events like this is a great way for the Creators to have fun and interact with fans.

Of all the entries, which one was your favorite? Share your thoughts in the comments below! You can see the other entries on Instagram with the hashtag #PoptropicaStickers.

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin

August Member Gifts are Here… and Weird

Hello, everyone! July has come and gone, so it’s time to see what the month of August has in store… for Poptropica members since it’s also time to see the new member gift pack! 😛 As always, Poptropica members will automatically receive these gifts upon logging into the game. So, let’s get into the review!

The best way I can describe this gift pack is… weird. Let me explain.

This month’s gift pack includes a Raspberry Toss ability, a dog costume, and a rocket board. With these gifts, members will be able to toss giant raspberries to other Poptropicans, dress up as sassy and adorable boxer, and race across the screen at supersonic speeds!

Seems fine and all; however, I have been informed by another pop blogger that two items may not be entirely member-exclusive! How, you may ask?

The two items in question (Raspberry Toss and the rocket board) are accessible from the ASG machine with the usernames “Rosemoji62” and “ZombieEyesASG” respectively. So, non-members, these items are free if you know where to look. 😉

Everyone can get rare items and costumes by entering special ASG usernames into the ASG Machine.

As for the dog costume… um… Is it just me, or does the costume bear an uncanny resemblance to Cookie from the 2010 Pound Puppies series?

The coat pattern, the collar, the bow… Something’s fishy here!

I initially thought that this may have been a costume from an old advertisement, but I couldn’t find anything online about a Pound Puppies advertisement on Poptropica. It’s strange that this was included considering its mysterious and questionable origin.

Like I said earlier, this month’s member gift pack is weird. Two items can be hacked into the hands of any Poptropica player, and one item is heavily based off of a character from an eight-year-old cartoon reboot.

So that was my opinion of August’s member gifts! What do you think of these gifts?

Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

-Gentle Dolphin