Monster Carnival

Monster Carnival Island was an Island that was supposed to be released in 2008, but strangely disappeared from the map. It returned 5 years later in February 2014. It is the sixth island to be beta and the fourth to be released with beta. It is the 38th island released on Poptropica.

Plot Synopsis
In the dead of night, a caravan rumbles into town. The traveling carnival has returned! But this is no day at the park. Behind the lights and the laughter, the carnival harbors a dark secret. Buy a ticket if you dare, but beware — once you enter, you may never be able to escape the Monster Carnival!

Disappearance
The island was supposed to be released in 2008. The island was even pictured on the map,with the words "COMING SOON!". However, for an unknown reason, it was scrapped. Monster costumes were also accidentally leaked into the Poptropica Store, but were quickly removed upon discovery.

A few years after, the Creators released a sneak peek of a concept art of what appeared to be a circus and stated that it was for an unfinished island which was presumed to be Monster Carnival Island. This shows that Monster Carnival Island was cancelled because it wasn't finished.

Later still on February 3rd, 2014, Captain Crawfish officially announced on the Creator's Blog that Monster Carnival wasn't released because it was announced too early not being finished back in 2008 and nobody was able to finish it, having other projects to work on. The name kept popping up in the discussions for new Islands every year, and everyone agreed that it should be revived and sure enough, it was.

Beliefs of Return
Multiple times it has thought to be returning. Sneak peeks of monster-related islands were posted on Daily Pop but they turned out to be sneak peeks for Cryptids Island and Zomberry Island. When a sneak peek of what seemed to be a carnival appeared on Daily Pop, some people assumed that it was for Monster Carnival Island. However, it was actually for the Carnival Costumes store on Night Watch Island. There are four monster costumes in the store that resemble the leaked costumes. On the Creator's blog, there was a post by Captain Crawfish that showed notes for a "Haunted Amusement Park Island", supposedly an early name for Monster Carnival Island. At the end of the blog post, Captain Crawfish quotes: "You never know, I guess.", hinting that it could be returning. A paper in the trash can of Mocktropica Island had the words "Monster Carnival NOPE" on it.

Return of Monster Carnival Island
On the Poptropica Creators' Blog, Captain Crawfish announced that Monster Carnival Island will come back in February 2014, with all new features and member only items to be released in the future, The teaser trailer only shows a picture of a mysterious ringmaster-like Poptropican with a black skull mask and red monster eyes above.

Non-Member Demo
First, turn left and enter the Pharmacy. When you enter the building, turn right and you'll find the Pharmacist. He will ask you to fetch an order for him: sodium chloride (Table salt). Go upstairs and head over to the lab and look for the ingredients for sodium chloride. You'll find them on the shelf. Click on shelved items to find out what they are. When you have done the above, go to the mixing machine. You will find yellow and blue molecules floating around, spray them to separate them and combine the yellow with the yellow and vice versa. After that, bring the sodium chloride (there's that name again,) to the counter and the pharmacist will thank you.

Then head out of that pharmacy and head on over to the plot core of the whole island. Yes! It is the carnival. However, a carnie apprentice asks for your help because the carnival isn't ready and it's getting late. Now ask around the carnival. You'll have to ask the guy at the floating ducks stall, who needs a hose to fill up his pool, the lady at the fried dough stand...........oh that would be so good right now.............WHOA! I'm awake! I'm awake! Anyway the lady will give you the recipe for some SUGAAAAAAAR!!! You'll also have to talk to the guy at the out-of-control ferris wheel. Round and round and round it goes, when does it stop? Nobody knows.....

Head into the DARK DARK WOODS. Walk past the clown head *shivers* and lurk around for a bit. Doesn't matter. You'll always find yourself back at the same place.When you get out of there, you'll find a lever on the floor next to the clown head. Give it to the ferris wheel guy and you'll have solved that problem! Yay!

Now head on over to the pharmacy again. Do what you did just now with the sodium chloride except follow the recipe for sucrose on the poster. WE GONNA MAKE OURSELVES SOME SUGAAAAAAAR!!! Then head on over to Honest Gabe's Auto Repair and not-Gabe will run on over to you. Tell her you need a radiator hose and then grab the hose off the top shelf. Well,now you got a new hose! Or should I say......NEWELL hose! GET IT?!? Gabe Newell? It's......it's a........I'll shut up. Get the hose over to the duck man (*cough*weirdo*cough*) and fill up his pool. Then give the SUGAAAAAAAR to the fried dough lady. In return for the SUGAAAAAAAR she's gonna give you fried dough-straight from the oven and chock-full of SUGAAAAAAAR!!! The carnie apprentice will run on over to you and tell you that the carnival is ready to open! YES!!! And then,all your hard work helping the carnies suddenly goes to waste............when the demo period ends.

Games Of Chance And Skill
Later... Go to the boy near the Pop The Balloon! mini game and talk to him. He will give you a blunt dart. You're gonna need that later.

Now head on over to the weight-guessing booth. The telepathic nerd will guess your weight as 115 pounds. And he's right! Wow. That guy's got some mad magic! And then you decide to cheat the carnie to get the prize, because that's what a normal person would do!

Go to Dr. Dan's pharmacy and then tell him you need something small, but REALLY heavy (like a chubby gerbil). Click on the small yellow box next to the desk and you will get a vial of osmium-the densest element known to aardvark. I meant man.

Now that you found it, head back to Honest Gabe's and sharpen the Blunted Dart with the machine by the door and you will get Sharpened Dart. Now RETURN TO ZE CARNIVAL and pop any one of the balloons, to get the Souvenir Cup. *cough* cheapskate *cough*

Then go to the weight-guessing booth and the magic factor of the osmium will blind the wizard's telepathic prowess (not really it just makes you heavier than you look). The wizard guy will give you a super bouncy ball which would come in handy if you had a dog. Or a Test Your Strength game.....

Fixing-Wait, FIXING?!? I AIN'T NO MECHANIC!!!
So now go to the Test Your Strength game. Use the super bouncy ball and you'll knock the bell off with the uppy shooty thing. The girl will give you a hammer.

Now go to the Ferris wheel, and you'll see that a guy and his girlfriend are stuck up there and the gears of the Ferris wheel are jammed. Go to the nice lady (for now *insert second all-knowing face here*) at the Fried Dough stand and use your cup.She'll give you a cupful of fry oil! Functional?Yes. Healthy? Next question. Use the oil on the gears to fix the ride, and the couple will go to the Tunnel of Love.

Fly On The Wall (Because I'm All Out Of Puns)
Talk to the Carnie at the Love Tunnel of Love and he will ask you to scare these teenagers because of the 'hands to yourself' policy. He will also give you a flashlight. Go to the Haunted Lab, make your way to the top and get the Fly Mask from the Fly-man statue. Put on the mask,equip the flashlight and head to the Tunnel of Love. Lovey dovey time's about to get SCARY!

Gather The Carnies! I Need A Bathroom!
After you freak them out of the ride, you can get out of there. A nice couple will walk to you and tell you that the carnies have disappeared into the woods! Go into the woods and look for objects on the ground. Follow the trail and it'll lead you into a secret area of the forest where all the carnies have gathered.

A dark, cloaked figure stands atop a rock and ordered the carnies to obey it. Its voice bellowing across the clearing like a dagger through glass. Sorry I've really been getting into the whole poetry scene. Anyway, the carnies will mutate into random (although befitting) monsters that-OH!MONSTER CARNIVAL ISLAND!Now I get it.I really should have guessed that earlier, the title should have given it away.

The Raven
Once you get out of the woods, Edgar will run up and tell you all his friends turned into monsters and that you should talk to the mysterious Ringmaster Raven. Get to the ringmaster's tent and talk to him. He'll tell you that he knows how to cure the carnies and revert them to their normal selves. Well, sort of normal. I mean.......they're carnies. Moving on now.

Goblin On A Ferris Wheel
Unfortunately, the formula is in the pocket of the Ferris wheel guy, who is currently a hyperactive green goblin in a leather jacket. That was a nice jacket. Fortunately, you have a giant hammer. Use it under the Ferris wheel to knock the little bugger off the ride. Then the formula will come-a-popping out of his little goblin pocket.

Black Bulbs And Dodgy Ducks
Edgar will reveal that the ducks in the duck fishing booth contains a secret message that will appear under black light.

Hey! There just so happens to be black lightbulbs in the Haunted Lab! By the way, it's guarded by a floating demon puppet from the depths of-oh wait I can't say that on a kids website. Um.......let's just say it comes from the depths of a Justin Bieber concert! Yeah! That's an appropriate synonym! Jersey Devil, meet your match!

Get the black lightbulb, get out of there and then head on over to the duck booth. Use the black lightbulb and you will create a flashlight with black light (oxymoron in the HOOOUSE!!!). Now fish out the ducks in order of Green, Orange, Red, Yellow. (GORY!Huh?HUH?!?) It will form a chemical formula!

Unpleasantness Revisited
Yep. Back to the pharmacy. I'm detecting a pattern. Except now it's locked and Dr. Dan is gone. (More on that later.) Get into Honest Gabe's repair shop and use the car-lift-thing to get up to the open vent. Get in and go along the vental system to get into the pharmacy.

Of course first, you'll need to get rid of the large stack of newspapers in front of the grate. Nothing much, just stories about the last time the carnival rolled into town and how an orphaned "Bird Boy" was left behind and was accused of burning down a house and forced out of the town. Completely unrelated to anything. Yep. Just make the "cure" *insert third and thankfully last all-knowing face here* with the same method as you did earlier and then run on back to the Ringmaster's tent.

Plot Twist!
And then,PLOT TWIST!!! Turns out Edgar was a mindless zombie who had been brainwashed by none other than Ringmaster Raven himself! I WOULD HAVE NEVER GUESSED!!! #sarcasm.

And it turns out that Ringmaster Raven was Bird Boy! Actually neither of those are surprising. Cliched maybe, but not surprising. What's really surprising was that HE HAS A NOSE UNDER THAT MASK!!!

Then Edgar knocks you out and he straps you to a chair and aims a massive raven-shaped monster-fier-ification ray at YOUR FACE! If it were me, I would just let it happen, I mean who wouldn't want to become a rampaging monster of death and death and death? AND NOT TO FORGET THE DEATH!!!

But your Poptropican has a different idea. To wake Edgar up from the trance, use the Fried Dough. Ain't no one can resist the dough!

A Million Years Of Bad Luck!
Then of course, you'll have a good old fashioned Poptropica villain chase into the mirror maze. Follow the Ringmaster as he hides behind various mirrors.

Get to the mirror he's hiding behind and smash it with the hammer.

That's a lot of bad luck. Seven years for each one. Then after you corner him, your Poptropican will twist the mirror somehow hypnotizing Ringmaster Raven. Into becoming a chicken. Another bird-themed aspect. This is getting old.

Afterwards, in the morning, the carnies packed everything up, including their newest attraction-THE INCREDIBLE CHICKEN MAN!!! Then Edgar hands you the medallion and they all lived happily ever after. Except of course the Chicken Man, that............that goes without saying.

Bonus Quest: Finding Dr. Dan
Start the Bonus Quest and you'll learn that Dr. Dan is missing. Enter the forest to the right. When you get there, Dr. Dan is telling to stay back from him. Immediately, he'll run away from you. Follow him up the roller coaster, which he'll explain to you that he's a monster and needs a cure.

Now, run past him and jump off the roller coaster and pick up the '''wild mushroom extract. (It's yellow colored and has blue spots.) Go to Honest Gabe's and pick up the pickle juice''' from the shelf from the left. Head to Apothecary Pharmacy and pick up a cola soft drink from the vending machine on the left.

Now, go start working on the formula. Separate the H20 and Nac1 and combine them to each other. Chemical X should look green colored. Once your're finished, go back to Dr. Dan. He will say that he's forced to leave to but the townspeople come to him, telling him to stay. Thus, the chemical is yours. If you use it, you'll look like a goblin with green eyes! (Note: You can't save this in your closet, and the effect will wear off after you leave that room.) Congrats, you've finished the bonus quest!

Rewards

 * Island Medallion
 * Edgar, the Carnie apprentice, rewards you with the Medallion after you defeat Ringmaster Raven and save the people.
 * Chemical X
 * It is a solution you thought was a cure to monsters, but it will turn Poptropicans into monsters and will give extra features to already monsterfied Poptropicans. If you drink it you will turn into a green horned monster with red eyes. Available to members after completing Bonus Quest.

Trivia

 * The username MonsterCarnival2012 is very briefly seen in the Poptropica Friends trailer. If you enter the username MonsterCarnival2012 on the Avatar Studio, a Poptropican called Monster Carnival will appear. The account was probably created to hint towards the Island's revival and is most likely being used by one of the creators themselves.
 * In the video, Poptropica Tour, posted by the creators, you can also see a username box, and in it was the username "monstercarniv-" However, the typing was cut off abruptly.
 * This was the first island to be released in 2014 and the last island that wasn't played out in episodes.
 * A blog post called The long, strange journey of Monster Carnival in the Creator's blog stated that the island wasn't finished and all the other Creators were "too busy with other projects to give it the attention it needed". http://blog.poptropica.com/2014/02/the-long-strange-journey-of-monster.html
 * Honest Gabe is a pun on Abraham Lincoln's nickname, Honest Abe.
 * There are brief references made to The Hunchback of Notre Dame in the old newspapers found in Dr. Dan's apothecary. One article is written by a reporter credited as 'Esmeralda Modo'- obviously an amalgamation of the names of the gypsy, Esmeralda, and the titular hunchback, Quasimodo. Another article mentions the 'Bird Boy' hiding from the townspeople by stowing away in a bell tower, very reminiscent to the book's protagonist.
 * Interestingly, both storylines to the book and Island carry overtones regarding society wrongfully mistreating people due to difference or prejudice.
 * The Fly-Man in the Haunted Lab is a reference to The Fly, a horror movie and short story about a mad scientist who accidentally turns himself into a fly-human hybrid.
 * A statue in the Haunted Lab is actually a statue of Ro-Man from the movie Robot Monster
 * An apparently rotted jackalope is also seen mounted on the wall of the lab.
 * The character Edgar may have been named after Edgar Allen Poe, who is most famous for his poem The Raven. This is supported by the fact that the main antagonist of the island uses the raven's image as an emblem of sorts, even adapting 'Ringmaster Raven' as his stage name.
 * The puppet monster may be a reference to Slappy from the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine; though Slappy is a ventriloquist's dummy whereas the puppet monster is depicted as a marionette without strings.
 * This island has multiple similarities with 24 Carrot Island.
 * Both have an animal-themed villain.
 * Both have a villain who utilizes mind-control as part of their plan.
 * Both have a villain who is defeated in an ironic manner, with Dr. Hare being blasted off into the void of space and Ringmaster Raven being hypnotized by his own magic trick.
 * Both involve your Poptropican having to rescue the townspeople of the island.
 * Both involve your Poptropican climbing through air ducts at some point during the island's quest.

Review

 * Benjamern531 : Awesome Island, especially the carnival games and rides. This Island was too easy and short for me. 6.5/10.
 * Rough Fang:MOOORE!!!!!GIVE MORE!!!Seriously that was way too short.9.999/10
 * Pikachu4807/Super Hawk: I now have a new favorite (and easy) island! The biochemistry and monsters were AWESOME! 10/10
 * NBerkhof/Moody Eel: I freakin loved it but they took forever. No offense to Dr. Hare, but he's nowhere near as cool as Raven was. Except the nose thing. Poptropicans do not have have noses, especially not noses with a diameter as large as his. Too short to me. It was easy, and I was happy that there was more duct-crawling. Everyone loves duct-crawling. Some of it was actually a little bit creepy, at least with my volume all the way up anyway. I give it a 9.3/10.