Is Poptropica Phasing Out the “Island”?

There are now 39 official “islands” in Poptropica, with Survival and Mission Atlantis starting a new trend of episodic adventures, where we play a short episode or chapter of an island right away rather than wait for the full island to be developed. But there’s another trend forming: the lack of the word “island” on the official names of these quests.

It used to be that every Poptropica quest ended in the word, “Island” and it’s become almost commonplace to refer to these quests as islands — that’s reinforced by Poptropica’s use of the map to navigate from adventure to adventure, with each one represented as a separate island on the map. That part hasn’t changed, but if you take a peek at the official list (known as the “island tour”) on the Poptropica home page, you’ll notice that the term is falling a little out of fashion.

With the important exception of Early Poptropica, the very first quest in the game, most of the early adventures were called “Island.” In fact the next nineteen all carry that term. Mystery Train, the 20th adventure on Poptropica, was the next to not use the island designation. After that, Twisted Thicket, Poptropolis Games, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wimpy Boardwalk, and Lunar Colony all released without the word “Island” in their official names. In some cases, that makes sense, because many of these don’t take place on an island (Poptropolis being a huge exception!) There was a brief return to the use of the term starting with Super Villain Island and going through Virus Hunter Island, but the last four quests (Mocktropica, Monster Carnival, Survival, and Mission Atlantis) all do not have the word Island (at least not on the official list on the Poptropica Web Site).

In fact, of the last 20 quests released, less than half are called “Islands.”

What do you think? Is “Island” doomed?