Name: Nicktropolis
Company: Nickelodeon (Viacom)
Overview: Nicktropolis is a series of interconnected areas themed around Nickelodeon's programming and properties-- SpongeBob Square Pants, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jimmy Neutron and The Naked Brothers Band, for example. The rooms are all host to interactive content like minigames, songs and videos, and users can chat, play and explore.
How it Works: The world itself runs in browser-embedded flash, and the primary navigation mode is point-and-click, though some minigames require very simple keyboard use. The interface is essentially a window of icon images, each representative of a place, which users click to visit. Tab buttons on top of the play window let users go back, or return to their own room. Generally, users need only to mouse-over objects to see what they can interact with, and a click is all it takes.
Chat works with a typing field beneath the play window, and there are two modes-- NickSafe chat, which lets users choose from a variety of pre-made greetings, questions and responses-- and Dictionary chat. The latter lets users type their own communication, but this can only be unlocked with an activation code sent via email (the site instructs kids who wish to use dictionary chat to get their parents to provide an email address and unlock it for them).
Payment Model: Nicktropolis is entirely free and has always been, and currently no ads are featured (other than for Nickelodeon's own properties)-- though on the heels of Disney's announcement that their subscription site Toontown (a direct competitor) would be switching to an ad-supported model, Nickelodeon has also said that Nicktropolis will eventually feature ads also. The in-world currency is NickPoints, which users earn by playing games or by finding hidden Nick "blobs" in various colors. The points are primarily used to buy decorations and accessories for the user's room, though there are also status-item collector's cards in the game.
Key Features:
-Claims 4 million users as of June 2007
-Congruent web site and message boards that lead to individual sites for each TV show
-First multiplayer game launched late June 2007
Nicktropolis: In-Depth Tour
Signup at Nicktropolis couldn't be easier-- everything's embedded in one browser window, you choose a "NickName" and a password and you're good to go. If you want to have the option of using dictionary chat (composing your own messages), there's one extra step; provide an email address to receive an activation code that acts as a password to the parental controls. Though the site clearly instructs kids to ask a parent to input theirs, there's no reason a savvy kid with his or her own email address couldn't easily unlock dictionary chat.
The avatar creation process is standard, too-- choose gender, and then swap hair and clothing styles and colors. The color palette for Nicktropolis's avatars is slightly odd, though-- there's brown, green, and more than one shade of purple, for example, but no blonde, and there's only one hair style. As a result, very limited differentiation occurs. However, somewhat less commonly, users re-create their avatar every time they log in-- lots of fun for those who like variety, but possibly frustrating for those who prefer a consistent representation. This makes sense, though, considering that lots of Nicktropolis's themed areas have special avatars-- when you enter the room for SpongeBob SquarePants, for example, you'll need to customize a new, setting-appropriate avatar of a funny little squid-looking person.
Once inside Nicktropolis, the different areas (and there are a fair number) are accessible on a point-and-click map. A click on an icon-- Downtown Nicktropolis, TeenNick Point, or Nicktoons Boulevard, for example-- takes you to a subsection of more area icons, most of them themed around Nickelodeon Shows. There's the Naked Brothers Band Apartment, Jimmy Neutron's Retroville, and SpongeBob's Bikini Bottom, to name a few. Once inside a room, you can walk amongst interconnected areas by point-and-click, or use the navigation buttons above the play windows to go back a room, or return to the maps.
Some rooms have minigames related to the particular TV show theme of the room that launch when you click an item, like a video game arcade machine. The reward for playing is NickPoints, which can be traded for decorative items for your room-- which starts as a bare space accessed via the map navigation buttons. Lamps, chairs, and different carpets and wallpapers are available, and you decorate by clicking items you've purchased in a right-hand inventory window and dropping them into the room (think The Sims). Users may also visit one another's rooms, provided they know one another's user name and have buddy-listed each other.
By far the most desirable item to purchase with points is a fish tank. Nicktropolis lets users who visit The Aquarium adopt and customize a fish as a pet; without a tank in the home, the fish can only be played with in The Aquarium itself. The fish, when clicked, show a meter that indicates their mood (full is bad) and offer three activities to rectify a cranky pet-- feed, play or sleep. "Playing" simply involves making the fish execute a loop-the-loop, and the "feed" command releases a sprinkle of confetti that the fish eats. There's also an option to "set away," for users that plan on leaving the computer for a few days, lest the fish become irritable at neglect and run away. Even with a fish tank, visitors to The Aquarium will automatically bring their pet along, where it will apparently enjoy socialization with the fish of other users who are in the room.
Users can also earn NickPoints by discovering bouncing "blobs" that seem to appear in different areas at random; discovering them is a matter of luck, and the point reward depends on the color of the blob that's found. There are also events, like the Treasure Hunt, that give users a set period of time-- say, a week-- to find all of a list of items scattered around the Nicktropolis World. Finding all the items before the deadline wins a point reward, or a rare decorative item. These events, like the blob system, seem to be geared to encourage kids to explore all the areas of Nicktropolis.
Not all of the areas have games inside; others play video from Nick shows or are simply decorative, designed to be used as hang-outs or chat areas-- chat in Nicktropolis is enormously rare, though. There's a rather draconian text limit on speech bubbles, making communication in full sentences impossible, and even users who have dictionary chat enabled will have the game attempting to auto-complete their statements with the predefined phrases-- typing "Hey" makes it offer you "Hey Arnold!" the cartoon about the unlucky-in-love football-headed boy.
Nicktropolis wasn't particularly crowded at the time of my visit, either-- most of the copious rooms were empty or nearly so, with the majority of users preferring the more tween-oriented Naked Brothers areas, or the pet-focused Aquarium.
It seems that, somewhat uncommonly, Nicktropolis never forces auto-logout after idle time; you can leave the window open and your avatar active indefinitely.
Conclusion:
Even though Nicktropolis offers avatar creation, navigation through interconnected rooms and a variety of different events and activities for kids, its primary draw seems to be as a gaming and interactive content tool. It seems that users almost never chat in Nicktropolis, and while avatar selection is varied in that different theme areas require their own avatar sets, the range of options within a given set is relatively limited-- it's clear kids go to Nicktropolis to play, not to lead a multidimensional virtual life.
The games aren't great, either-- the interface is a little sticky, for one thing, and this affects everything from gameplay to object interaction, like placing furniture earned with points in your room. The interface just doesn't feel particularly fluid. It isn't clear, either, which Nicktropolis rooms have games inside and which don't-- if you're looking for something to do in-world, the best route is simply to explore. The points system encourages exploration too-- it's just as possible to earn points by luckily stumbling on Nickelodeon "blobs" that appear randomly and grant points based on their color, or by completing scavenger hunts announced in-world.
Rooms frequently contain simple interactive content-- objects that play sounds and perform animations if clicked, like a mummy that pops out of a coffin in the haunted house. It's never immediately clear which these are and which are just simple background, but the rooms are all fairly well-made in terms of detail, and users can easily make a quest simply out of finding these occasional surprises, even if they're disinterested in chat.
As a companion to the world itself, the interactive website that surrounds the Nicktropolis world has a lot to offer-- the games that can launch directly from the website are a lot more involved, perhaps geared for a slightly older set (though no more stable in terms of interface than the in-world games), even offering the option, in some cases, to design one's own levels.
The overall look and branding is delightfully consistent and familiar-- the themed areas based on the TV shows are an especially cute idea, letting users step into the world of the characters they enjoy most. Nickelodeon's signature branding is universal throughout, with the cartoony, ever-so-slightly sugar-hyper, off-kilter quirk humor (and slime!) that even users outside of the target age range might recognize from their own childhood. In that sense, Nicktropolis is enormously effective as an extension, or extrapolation, of the experience and flavor Nickelodeon television fans enjoy. Spending time in Nicktropolis is merely a more interactive incarnation of Nick's most popular TV lineups.
Useful Links:
Nicktropolis Reaches Almost 4 Million in 4 Months
Nick Message Boards
Virtual Worlds for Kids
