Bad and (Possibly) Good Changes

Get ready for a long, embarrassingly complainy rant (:

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Oh boy it's Thursday, let's see what's up in Jama–

AAAUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhsjmsfbm,


UUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH




I'm gettin' a bad feel about this marketing decision, Wildworks. 



Even worse that now the AJ homepage just centers around Play Wil– oh, I mean Animal Jam. 

And there's not even a clear notice of the change. Do you know how many 11 years olds will question the integrity of reality because of this? I KNOW I HAVE. Come on, just put a text box at the top!!! Communicate!!!

I didn't want to say this but come on, it's quarantine, everyone is losing their minds, and they're turning to virtual worlds to feel normal and when you make a big confusing change WITH ONE DAY OF NOTICE and don't even put a text box at the front telling us what's up? Why do we have to go to the Daily Explorer to understand what happened?

I have a literature final to do today and I was planning on just focusing on that but as soon as I heard about this bizarre change I knew I just had to jump on here and rant about it until the shock subsides and I can breathe again. Maybe it's pathetic but I'm kind of shaking right now xD

AJHQ, I feel like you'll regret this. There is pretty much 0 benefit to you confusing everyone. 

As far as I know, pre-existing games don't change names unless they're remade. 

Animal Jam and Animal Jam: Play Wild! are a perfectly logical series... just because AJPW might be a little more popular doesn't mean you have to completely rebrand IN ONE SINGLE DAY!!! Tell me, WHAT game has done that before???

UUuUuuuuughggghhhh

What also sucks is that they have a shady player login button on the normal Animal Jam page that goes nowhere if you input you login info:

Kinda makes me feel like I just gave away my info to someone :\

I downloaded it, and..

At least it seems full as normal. Not too many people are freaking out, thankfully.

Though I hope AJHQ makes it so the display of the app is less... uncomfortable:

I really feel like the full blue border background is important to make the user experience less overwhelming, but I can't get that with this app. Stuff is blocked out and I can't see the full border, which is something important to consider. 

Lots of people won't be used to the border being messy, and considering how quickly and without notice this transition happened, it is important for AJHQ to fix the display ASAP.

I try to shrink the window to make it feel more normal and it just doesn't work out:

AJHQ, if you're reading this very complainy post from a very complainy Jammer, please fix the display so the whole blue border (and the wood border within) are visible. It's visually uncomfortable the way it is.

I guess I'll also add in that the home screen could use a re-vamp to make it look more like Jamaa, but that's a given and AJHQ is probably working on it:

Calming down and moving on, let's talk about what this transition could mean about AJ in the future:

I am hoping with all my heart that this doesn't mean AJHQ is trying to push aside normal AJ as its flagship game and give less attention to it than Play Wild. (Yes, I am still going to be using "Play Wild" and "Animal Jam" in the way that they are. You'll see that everyone probably will.)

Updates better not get reduced even more than they already are on normal AJ. 

Many of us have waited a bunch of years for Wildworks to establish Fer.al and therefore resume the more interesting AJ updates we've lacked since late 2017. As I've said before, the character of AJ has been a little diluted since work on normal AJ updates has been outsourced to other studios (which happened due to work on Fer.al).

While the new homepage layout makes no sense and will need to be revamped so AJPW and normal AJ are equally accessible, I'm feeling kind of hopeful about what the new art of the home page might mean for the future.

To help you get what I mean, let's compare the art of the previous home page with what we have now:

Above is how it looked before the switch. Pretty basic, not the most distinct color scheme, heavily focused on items and promos. 

And now...

 If you've played AJ even half as long as I have, you'll recognize that the original warm, earthy, jungle-y color scheme has finally returned! The leafy border is very telling.

Last time it looked even remotely this earthy was a while ago, when the homepage looked like this:

But the olive tones almost look even more like an older, far prettier home page:

(Side note: Why'd they even change this in the first place??? Why did the homepage get less cool looking over the years??? What the heck. Also I used the Wayback Machine for this image so the other animals didn't load. The frog is here, tho :D)


Maybe you don't care about the homepage, but I am really passionate about the  original visual style of AJ, back when nature was emphasized more. It's not just nostalgia. When I look at the older homepage right above, I just feel so safe and happy and at home and excited about life. 

There's so much depth, I feel like I'm right there in Jamaa and not just looking at characters on a screen. It's just so beautiful!! X)

It's sad they changed the style to flat and 2D. You can always change it back, AJHQ!!! 

Which is why I am a little bit more hopeful about what the visual re-vamp of the home page could mean: more focus on nature and the environment. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it and AJHQ is too overworked to think about the homepage. 

(YOU KNOW WHAT I SHOULD DO??? I should make a giant color palette of all the classic AJ colors!!!! YES.)

Now this has become a ramble-y post. To finish it off, I painted the clay panda I showed you all in my last post:

I used the default AJ panda colors, with some highlights and shadows :)

The only paint I had was earth-based facepaint, so I just need to keep this little friend away from water or I'll have to repaint them <3

Now I have a friend to sit near me while I post :')

Thank you for reading this ramble-y post! I hope your days are as sweet as they can possibly be in times like this. 

What do you think about these sudden changes on AJ? Do you agree or disagree with my all-over-the-place thoughts? Any way you think, I wanna hear your thoughts!

See you in Jamaa~

~DoomyPanda