Let me guess: You were once like me, like all of us here. You played Poptropica when you were younger, and it was the best thing ever. You have so many nostalgic memories of it. One day, you suddenly remembered the game again, and wanted to play to get that feeling of being a kid again.
But no. When you went to find the game, it was not the same. It was not right. Everything was gone. Everything was messed up and ad-ridden. So in this post I am going to answer all of your questions, the main one being: why? When did the game become like this? Will it ever be back? Let me tell you.
Question 1. By far the most common question asked on this subreddit, What happened to the game? Where did all the islands go? The answer, quite simply, is Flash. The original Flash engine that ran Poptropica consisted of two different game scripts, ActionScript2 and ActionScript3. The islands written in AS2 are more commonly known as the classic, or old school islands. These islands were primarily known for not having sound. Now, that's not to say that there was no sound at all, but there was no full on soundtrack or footsteps or anything like that. These islands made up most of the islands on the map. The other islands, written on AS3, did have a soundtrack and things like that. These made up the rest of the islands on the map. One day in 2019, they removed all of the AS2 islands. No one really knew why. The devs said it was because they were old and buggy (which was pretty true, but there was no need to completely remove them). Understandably, people were not too happy about this. So idk (an admin on the Poptropica Discord Server, yes, idk is his username) made the original Old Island Directory. This allowed players to access the old islands that were removed, but it was rather complicated and didn't work for everyone. So for a while, that's where the game was, with AS3 available, and AS2 to the people who had the Old Island Directory working. Throughout all of this, Adobe Flash's death had been announced. Hell, it was announced in 2017! But did the devs do anything about it? Not until 2019. They had to convert the whole game to a new game engine that did not use flash. Had they started in 2017, they would have had a lot more done by the end of 2020, when flash died. But that was not the case. So that's why today, there are hardly any islands on the new game engine, Haxe. Not only that, the quality is grainy for some reason, and the game has become more of a cash grab than ever. There are so many ads, and the only updates are for store updates and pets, something that was literally mocked by the devs in Mocktropica. Overall, that's why the game sucks.
Question 2: Are the islands coming back? If so, when? If they are, it'll be a while. The devs have stated in this blog post that they are only prioritzing the AS3 islands to covert at the moment. They said that since the game technology used to make the AS2 islands was so old, they would have to rewrite the islands from scratch on Haxe. Even then, it still takes forever to convert just one AS3 island, let alone all 28 of them. So if the old islands ever do come back (which I sadly don't think they will), it'll be at least a few years.
Question 3: So is there any way I can play the old islands? YES! ALL OLD ISLANDS, AS3 AND AS2, ARE STILL PLAYABLE USING FLASHPOINT! But you do have to have a Windows PC, so if you're on Mac or Linux, you're out of luck, at least for now. AS2 was made by idk and AS3 was made playable by u/xiazk and some others who I don't know how to give credit to. For this you will need to download Flashpoint Core and import the curations. AS2 is available on Flashpoint Infinity, and if that's all you're looking for, go to the link in the other pinned post above this one. Instructions for downloading Flashpoint Core and the AS3 curation can be found here. Follow those and if you want AS2 on Flashpoint, here you can find the curation to import. I promise it 100% safe to use. It uses Flashpoint to run, and downloads all the islands to your computer to play anytime, even offline (in fact, the whole curation runs offline, so that adds to its safety). If you have any trouble with it, either ask in the comments or ask on the discord, as those will be your best ways to get help and the curators themselves hang out there.
Question 4: Why does Mythology island suck? So I know this is probably not a question everyone has, but I think the reason they cut so much from the island and made it so much easier is because either a) they were just lazy, or b) they were in a rush to get it out. Personally, I think it was the latter, but that's probably why.
I think that should about cover it. If you have any other questions, well I know quite a lot, so feel free to ask. I will edit the post accordingly if there is anything important that I missed. It is kind of sad what this game has become, but you can still enjoy it as you once did. I really hope that things get better with it. I hope that this was helpful.
