Shrink Ray Island

Shrink Ray Island is the 20th island on Poptropica.

Synopsis
A young genius has invented a ray gun that shrinks anything it touches - including you! But when the scientist and her invention go missing, you'll have to keep the shrink ray from falling into the wrong hands, and find a way to bring yourself back to normal size. To solve a problem this big, you've got to think small!

Full Walkthrough
Go to Shrink Ray Island on the main Poptropica map and you’ll arrive on Main Street and land on top of a slide and swing set. You can head to the left to enter the multi-player room, which is the Sweet Dreams Candy Shop, but for now you want to head to the right and go inside PS 201, which is holding the River City Science Fair. Enter the school through the double doors next to the sign. Run to the right and go through the doors with the Science Fair sign. Once you’re inside the science fair, run past all the exhibits until you get to the right. If you want, you can check out the different exhibits, which include The Sixth Sense in Calamari, Balloons, Fashion, and Electricity, Chocolate Volcano, Candy and Soda Propulsion, Evolution of the Belly Button and an empty exhibit at the far right end near the stage. Go to this last exhibit and talk to the guy standing there. The man is Mr. Silva, the science teacher, and he’s worried that his star pupil, CJ, is missing. The two people on the right are CJ’s parents. Talk to them and CJ’s dad will tell you to go look for her at their apartment on Avenue A. Head back out of the school and go to the right to enter the Avenue A zone.

Avenue A and CJ’s Apartment
When you arrive on Avenue A, you can head all the way to the right side to get to CJ’s apartment. It’s the one with the orange cat outside the door and a telescope inside the window. Inside, you’ll see that CJ and her family are kind of messy! Click on the door to enter the apartment. The cat will follow you inside. Follow the cat from room to room to try and chase it back out. After it leaves the bathroom, it will go back outside the door. Go into CJ’s bedroom, which is on the left side of the apartment. Click on the microscope that is on her desk next to the computer. A masked man will come in the room. He looks like he’s right out of Wild West Island. And he’s carrying a shrink ray gun! He’ll tell you he’s going to put a stop to your snooping around and will chase you to the left side of the bedroom. You’re cornered! The bad guy uses the shrink ray gun on you and you’re shrunk down to a miniature size!

CJ’s Apartment: I’ve Been Shrunk!
This is the main part of the quest. You’ve now been shrunken down to miniature size and need to find out how to get back to normal size, catch the thief, and rescue CJ! Run to the right, jump up onto the shelves, and then jump to the right on top of the fan. It will start to drop down. When it’s done, press the red button to start it and it will blow away all the dust bunnies under the bed, revealing the thumb drive underneath. Turn the fan off, and jump up and over it. Then go under the bed and pick up the thumb drive. Run to the right to get to the next part of the bedroom and then go right again to enter the living room. Watch out for the cat’s paw when you run past the living room door. Jump up in the air as you run past.

CJ’s Apartment: The Kitchen
This is one of the most complicated parts of the entire quest. You need to do a lot of different steps to navigate through the kitchen and get the remote control on top of the refrigerator. Head right one more time to get to the kitchen. When you arrive, you’ll see there’s a remote control on top of the refrigerator, but getting to the top is going to be more complicated than you might think. Run to the right until you see some open drawers above a green and yellow sponge jump up on them and get the screwdriver. Then jump up onto the counter and run to the right to get to the next part of the kitchen. There’s a piece of notepaper here that you need to get and it’s on the far right side on top of a table. Getting there is a bit tricky! First, push the rolling pin so that it knocks the teapot onto the other burner. Then run up and jump into the steam coming from the teapot. It will lift you up to the shelf with the flour and sugar. There’s a bottle of oil here. Push it over onto its side so that it starts dripping out. Drop down to the floor and then push the cat’s food bowl so that it’s under the dripping oil from above. Next jump back up onto the counter and then jump up and down on top of the cat food bag several times to make lots of food fall out. You should jump on it at least 4-5 times. The food and oil will stick together making a little stepping stool out of the cat food that you can use to get up on the table. Next, push the cat food bowl to the right so that it is underneath the table. Jump up on top of the cat food and then up onto the table top. Walk to the right to pick up the piece of paper. Also, pick up one of the purple grapes, which you’ll need for the next task. Drop down to the floor and run to the left to get to the first part of the kitchen. Jump up on the counter and run over to the toaster. Click on the plug to plug it into the socket. Jump onto the toaster handle while holding the grape and stand there for a few seconds. The toaster will heat up and then the handle will pop up, sending you flying up into the air. You’ll land on a shelf with a spatula, a cup full of utensils, and a salt shaker. Push the salt shaker to the left so that it’s on the very end of the spatula handle. Then jump up onto the cup and then jump to the right so that you land on the other end of the spatula. Hold still and let the salt shaker fly up in the air and come back down. When it lands, it will make you fly up in the air. Jump a little up and to the left as you fly through the air and you’ll land on top of the refrigerator, where you can now pick up the remote control. Now head to the right and push the green and yellow sponge next to the Power Clean spray bottle on the floor. Jump on the sponge and then onto the top of the bottle. Finally, jump to the top of the garbage can and go inside it. (Gross!) Once inside, you need to solve a puzzle by moving certain objects, like tuna treats cat food cans and blocks of cheese. Objects that can be moved are clickable. First click on it, and then click on either the right or left green arrows to move it. Be careful: if you move an object that was holding up others you want to watch out that everything doesn’t fall on top of you! First push the can of tuna treats near the entrance to the right. Then jump down and pull the cheese to the left. Go back up and push the milk to the right. Then jump down on top of it. Next push the cheese above you on the shelf to the right. Walk over it and pull the tuna can to the left. Stand on on top of the can and jump up one shelf so that you’re standing right next to the tuna can above. Push it to the left to give you running room. Jump up and to the right. Pull the tuna can on the bottom to the left then jump on it and finally jump up to the right to get the Torn Page. To leave quickly, click on the green restart button in the lower left. Run left to leave the kitchen and head to the living room.

CJ’s Apartment: Living Room
Here fishies! Have some food! We’re getting close to the end. In this part, you need to get CJ’s Diary Key out of the fish tank. You can’t just jump directly in the tank because the fish will bump you out. We need to distract the little fishies! Run over to the toy truck and then use the screwdriver from your backpack. This will remove the battery from the truck. Jump up onto the table top, stand next to the TV remote, and then use the battery from your backpack. Then jump onto the green button on the remote to turn the TV on. Now jump up onto the TV and climb the antenna to build up a static electricity charge. You’ll see white sparkles all over you. Then jump up to the left to the green balloon. The static electricity charge will attach you to the balloon and you’ll float up and to the left. You will land safely on the frame of the Poshville Boardwalk picture on the wall. Jump off to the left, and you’ll land on the shelf with the fish food. Push it to the left so that it tips over and drops food into the fish tank. The fish will start eating the food and will be distracted so that you can jump into the tank and take the key. Jump out of the fish tank onto the floor.

Return to CJ’s Bedroom
Now that we’ve got the diary key, it’s time to head back to CJ’s bedroom and find the next clue. Go left to CJ’s bedroom and then jump up on her desk. Open your backpack and use the thumb drive to put it in the computer. You’ll need to enter the password. The correct password is m4r13 cur13. Marie Curie is CJ’s hero and you should replace the i’s with 1′s, the a with a 4 and the e’s with 3′s. The blueprints for the shrink ray gun will be uploaded. Jump up again to get on the shelf with the Rubik’s Cube and her green diary. Use the key in your backpack to open the diary. Use the torn page in your backpack to complete the ripped part of the diary and you’ll get a message from CJ. It sounds like the thief is close by! Now jump on the thermostat and make it spin to red so that the heat turns on. Jump down onto the desk and stand next to the microscope. Then use the piece of paper from your backpack to put it down on the desk. Jump up onto the lamp and then bounce up and down a few times to bring it down closer to the paper. When it won’t go down anymore, click the light switch to turn it on. The heat from the lamp reveals the secret message from CJ that was written in lemon juice on the paper. It says, Look for me in the telescope. School coordinates. Now go to the left to the next section of the bedroom. Knock over the wastepaper basket and a bunch of paper will fall out and then rise up in the air from the heat coming up through the vent. Use the papers as jumping platforms to get up on top of the bed. Then pick up the morse code key from the top of the bed. Jump over onto the telescope. Then stand on each dial and spin them to the following coordinates: x – 87 and y – 16. Now look through the telescope. CJ is inside the classroom at PS 201 and she’s sending you a message in morse code. Use the key to decipher the message and click each letter as she sends them to you. The full message is: flush the thumb drive. Leave the bedroom and head for the bathroom.

CJ’s Apartment: Bathroom
This toilet is disgusting! The bathroom in CJ’s apartment is kind of disgusting. Good thing we only need to spend a short time here. The goal is to get past the bathtub and over to the toilet so that we can flush the thumb drive. Run to the left and jump up on the drawer handles to reach the counter top. Jump onto the hair dryer and stand on the back end so that it tips up. Then click on the red button to turn it on. Leap into the stream of hot air and then you’ll end up on top of the shower curtain rod and move to the next part of the bathroom. Drop down onto the soap dish and push the bar of soap off to the right. Jump down into the tub. Go to the right and climb up the rope. Then stand on the faucet handle and run to spin it and turn the water on. The water will fill up the tub so you can swim over to the floating bar of soap. Jump onto the bar of soap and from there jump onto the rubber duck’s back. Now jump out of the tub to the left. Jump onto the red plunger and onto the stack of toilet paper. Then leap up to the toilet bowl. While standing on the bowl, use the thumb drive in your backpack to drop it inside. Next jump onto the flush handle to send the thumb drive on its merry way. Finally, head back the way you came to leave the bathroom.

CJ’s Apartment: The Great Escape
Yee-haw! We're outta here! Now we need to get out of the apartment, which is going to be challenging because we’re still shrunken. Here’s how to do it! Go all the way back to the telescope in CJ’s bedroom and set it to the same coordinates (87,16). Peek into it again and CJ has a new message for you. The new message reveals the villain. It reads, thief is Mr. Silva. Now we need to escape the apartment and rescue CJ! Go back to the living room and take the battery out of the remote control. Then put it into the toy truck. Get in and drive the toy truck left into CJ’s bedroom. Get out of the truck and jump up onto CJ’s bookshelf. Go to the top where you’ll find a book called, Tess’s Tree by Jess M. Brallier. Push the book off the shelf to make it land and form a ramp that your truck can go over. Jump back down and get in the truck. Drive over the ramp and you’ll see a short cinematic where you drive up and through the glass window out into the street.

Rescue at PS 201
Now we’re off to rescue CJ and stop Mr. Silva once and for all. You’ll start playing an easy overhead mini-game where you need to drive the truck down the street while avoiding obstacles. The ride lasts a little over a minute and its very easy to complete. You’ll end up inside the window of Mr. Silva’s office in the school. Run to the left and there’s CJ! Unfortunately, Mr. Silva shows up and he’s trying to shrink you into oblivion. Now you need to avoid the ray gun. The next sequence is a lot like the World War I sequence with Snoopy in Great Pumpkin Island. You need to hide behind objects when the ray gun appears so that it shrinks the object instead of you. Move to the left across the floor. You can either pause behind each object or skip every other one (if you’re quick enough). If you get hit by the ray gun, you have to start over. When you reach the reticulated quartz sample and Mr. Silva shrinks it, jump up onto the yearbook on the left and then immediately jump onto the desk above. Then quickly hide behind his microscope. After he shrinks the microscope, run right to the base of the globe. Mr. Silva will shrink it and the globe will fall off to the floor. Jump down to the floor and hide behind the books. Wait for him to shrink the books, then push the globe under the chair. Jump up onto it and then leap to the chair and to his desk. Land behind the apple and lunchbox. After he shrinks the apple and lunchbox, run all the way to the right until you are hiding behind the mirror. When Mr. Silva tries to shrink you this time, the shrink ray reflects off the mirror and hits him! He shrinks himself and falls into the ant farm jar, where he’s trapped! CJ appears and tells you to flip the switch to grow. Walk over and click the switch and then you’ll both return to normal size. You’ll be back at the science fair, standing with CJ and her parents. Her new exhibit is on display and it’s called, The Incredible Shrunken Man. Looks like CJ won first prize for the exhibit and you get the island medallion for solving Shrink Ray Island. Congratulations!

Trivia

 * Although they're presumably just a middle school or high school sports team, the River City Rodents are very popular and are seen in the Sluggers store at the Twin Palms Mall (Night Watch Island).
 * The chocolate volcano could possibly be based off of the baking soda volcano stereotype, in which every science fair has at least one baking soda volcano.
 * The idea that a villain is trying to steal a young genius' science fair project could very well be based off the movie "Meet the Robinsons".
 * A Shark Boy plushie is seen in CJ's dresser, and a Dr. Hare plushie is seen on her bed.
 * This is the second island where a character has a pet cat named Whiskers, the first being 24 Carrot Island.
 * CJ's laptop password is 'Marie Curie' in leet, a popular internet meme of replacing some letters with numbers or other computer symbols.