The island of many names is about to get another mouthful: Home Island, also known by its alternate names Hub Island or Tutorial Island, could soon become Skydock Island.

We’ve mentioned before of the Daily Pop hinting at upgrades to Home Island, including a ship-shaped renovation and the possibility of a personal home to display your medallions…

The rest of this post is written by Nice Hawk. He first made these findings on his site, Poptrickia, and allowed them to be shared here on the PHB. Enjoy!

…But it gets even better. Poking around in the unreleased files of Home Island, I found these highly interesting scenes and schematics which (partially) confirm my theories:

This first image is a preliminary look at what the Main Street of the new Home Island will look like; apparently it’ll be called “Skydock.” The buildings in this image will lead to the rooms below, the Town Hall and Saloon (click to view full size):

Town Hall Saloon

These are actually scenes by the Creators that are in the earliest stages. Even though they’re mainly just line drawings and text on a black background, the descriptions are already getting me excited for the update. 🙂 It looks like the Creators are planning a lot of creative additions to Home Island this year.

Another thing that I found while looking at the code for Home Island, is that these rooms (Skydock, Town Hall, and Saloon) might even be common rooms! That’s right, you might be able to chat, friend, and battle with other players while also enjoying Home Island. Now I’m not 100% sure if that’s true based on the code, but it would be a reasonable enough assumption. 😉

​It looks like the Creators themselves are still working out the details though, like for instance how the rooms will look like and how they’ll be connected, so the final product may be different from what I’ve outlined here. But so far this looks like the gist of it. And I’m definitely looking forward to this huge update!

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Ever wondered why exactly the medallion shards are scattered all over the place when you play the Tutorial, and why there’s a pilot there talking to you? Well, another update to Home Island (that might be coming sooner than the ship-related one) gives the backstory to that. This dialog file shows what seems to be you talking with the pilot while you’re both up in the blimp:

You: The view is great from up here!

Pilot: Ahoy fellow traveler!

You: Ahoy!

You: Are you on your way to Poptropica too?

Pilot: I sure am! But first, a minor course correction.

Pilot: Woah!

Pilot: Oh no! The medallion!

You: Oh dear!

Pilot: I see where it landed, I am going after it!

Pilot: Want to join me in an adventure?

Then the pilot offers you a choice to either do the medallion-shard-finding tutorial or to go to Home. So basically, the medallion is in pieces down there because the Pilot dropped it from his own balloon. Interesting backstory.

Anyway, those are all the exclusive Home Island sneak peeks that I’ve got so far! Looks like the upcoming update is full of fun new things to do or to just enjoy looking at. The Creators haven’t officially announced it yet (though they did give hints of it in their New Year’s post), so we don’t know when it’s coming. But it sure is something grand to look forward to. 🙂

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Again, thanks to Nice Hawk for this guest post on the PHB! Be sure to check out his site, Poptrickia, which is full of tips, tricks, and Poptropica goodness. Stay popping, Poptropicans!