Contest: Design a Jamaa Shopkeeper!

UPDATE #2: Thanks so much everyone for submitting your amazing entries!! I'm traveling this weekend so you can expect voting to begin this coming Tuesday. Late entries will be accepted until then, so you still got some time! :)

UPDATE: The deadline has been moved from August 31st to September 10th! Submit your entry by September 10th :)

Hey Jammers! Whew, I'm finally here again with the contest details. I'll try to keep it short and simple. c:

Have you ever wandered through Jamaa, looking at all of the shopfronts, and wondered what it might be like if they had NPC shopkeepers?

Well, that's what this creative contest is all about! In this contest, you'll choose one shop in the world of Jamaa, decide what kind of animal the shopkeeper is, name them, draw a picture of them, and describe their personality and likes/dislikes!

This contest came about because for some reason, I imagined that the Flag Shop should be run by a raccoon named Archie who sleeps a lot, likes eating popcorn, and wears a blanket made of sewn-together flag scraps. I was going to draw him as an example, but I'm reeeaaally tired today so you can just join me in imagining him xD

Submitting an entry for this contest will be pretty straightforward– it's a Google Form I made that is linked at the bottom of this post. You shouldn't have to be signed into a Google account to fill it out, but let me know if you have any issues with it!

There will be three winners, and they'll be anonymously chosen by vote during the week/s after the contest deadline on August 31st September 10th!

As for the prizes, I gathered together my rarest nonmember items that I'm comfortable giving away– including some rare prizes for AJPW players, too! 

––– 

Prizes for Animal Jam (Classic) players:

1st place - The artist of the character who gets the most votes will win: 1 Green Gecko Plushie, 1 Elephant Shoji Screen (black wolf variant), 1 Globe, and 1 Rectangular Coffee Table (green variant)

2nd place - The artist of the character who gets the second most votes will win: 1 Rare Tiara (black and red variant), 1 Rare Guitar Rug (yellow and green variant), 1 Basic Healing Staff (yellow and green variant), and 1 Wood Lawn Chair

3rd place - The artist of the character who gets the third most votes will win: Rack of Clothing (variant with silver wings), 1 Rare Fall Butterfly Wings, 1 Tiger Plushie (rare-ish variant with sunglasses/necklace), Worn Blanket (dusty blue variant)

Prizes for AJPW players:

While I don't really play AJPW, I still have a good handful of items that have become uncommon since I joined around 2016. On the Google Form, you can select if you'd prefer AJPW or AJC prizes!

1st place - The artist of the character who gets the most votes will win: 1 Founders Trunk, 1 Rare Butterfly Painting

2nd place - The artist of the character who gets the second most votes will win: 1 Founders Helmet, 1 Rare Unicorn Horn

3rd place - The artist of the character who gets the third most votes will win: 1 Play Wild Backpack, 1 Panda Power Backpack

–––

> Click here to go to the Google Form contest entry sheet! <

And this goes without saying, but no personal info is recorded– it's just the details you write down about your shopkeeper, the link to your drawing of the shopkeeper, and your AJC or AJPW username.

Remember that the deadline to enter the contest is AUGUST 31st SEPTEMBER 10th! After that day, voting will begin. 

Alright, see you in Jamaa! You can let me know in the comments if you have any questions c:

Fishy20002's Succulent Garden Sphere + Rainbowheartcool27's Neon Sign

Hey Jammers! Ok, so the actual Animal Jam Stream contest details are still coming soon! I just wanted to post about the first couple of new Jammer-designed items that have come out today. Because they're special. 

You'll find them in Jam Mart Furniture, right at the top of the first catalog page– and wow oh wow, it looks like both of them are nonmember!

Let's get a closer look at each one:

While I'm normally really picky with items, I'm actually happy with how this came out! It's simplified, yes, but it actually looks like a polished AJ item. It has the chunky geometric curves that make the plants, the bowl, the sand, and even the metal rings look unique. 

It also has some light gradients on the succulent and the metal pieces, and while there could be more of that to flesh out this item, it still looks great! I think many people will really like this item. ^.^

I have some really vine-y indoor plants I'd love to hang like this, but they're so heavy I'd worry they'd fall T^T

My vine-y indoor plants also need to be watered more than the desert plants featured in this item. 

If you've ever noticed that the leaves of many desert plants are thick and rigid, that's because they hold on to a lot more water than other plants! Because many desert plants only need to be watered every few weeks, sometimes it makes sense to have them in a hanging vessel like that.

If the wall can support them, that is...

Moving on, we also have a new neon sign! A nonmember neon sign, in fact– this might be the first one ever.

It looks pretty alright in its display in Jam Mart Furniture, but it does have some small gaps when you place it in a den:

If you look closely at it, you'll see some white spots, like the bottom left of the letter L. It's also kind of pixelated, which makes it feel a bit out of place in my den, but maybe not everyone will be bothered by it.

Despite its flaws, I think many nonmembers will find some good use for it when designing themed dens! I can imagine this working in an arcade den, a shop den, a hair salon den... the possibilities are endless. :3

And as you may have guessed, both of these items come in a bunch of different colors aside from their defaults! 

The purple-y signs remind me of the old Play Wild Party...

It's kind of funny how out of all of these Garden Sphere color options, there isn't a normal green color for the spiky plant in front. :P

But all in all, these are some pretty good items! I'm glad we got 'em, and big thanks to Fishy20002 and Rainbowheartcool27 for being their designers. 

See you in Jamaa~

The Summer Den Item Contest Winners

Hey Jammers! An update came to Animal Jam Classic today with some new-ish stuff. I'd like to keep this post quick, so I'm just going to focus on the den item contest winners being announced! 

Oh, and don't worry– details about the contest I will be hosting are coming soon, likely in the next few days. ^.^

The amount of new Jamaa Journal pages this update is quite a lot, and some of the stuff towards the back feels too early for it to come out... I am wondering if it was released too early, which would be a blunder on AJHQ's part. National Honeybee Day is on the 21st, and there's already a page talking about it?

But announced on-time or not, let's look at the winning den item entries:

Congrats to all of the winners! It's awesome to see Jammers' creativity becoming more of a part of the game, and these look like they have the potential to become something interesting. I feel like the Tree of Dreams, the Succulent Garden Sphere, and the poster item could end up being pretty popular! I'm also wondering if the Plaque Display will come with plaques already on it, or if it will just be a backboard to hang plaques you already have.

Though I will admit it...

I'm a bit disappointed neither of my entries got in xD

I spent around 10 hours trying to recreate the old-school AJ item style with this one, but I guess maybe it was too much...?

Look, I made it so if you just take the purple background out and stick it in a den, it already kinda looks like an AJ item:

Thinking about it now, though, it's possible that they wouldn't be able to do that because of plagiarism issues. Choosing item ideas that give them more room to change them might be safer for AJHQ.

I also designed a second item:

I would have liked to see one of my ideas get in, but what I honestly care about most of all is that people enjoy the den items that come out of this contest. 

Wildworks not devoting as much effort to creating new content feels pretty sad, so I hope the creative and interesting items that won can help uplift some people who need it.

–––

In that vein, something I learned recently is that while Wildworks has definitely skimped on content updates for Animal Jam Classic, they do continue to do technical updates– meaning, bug fixes and improvements to AJC's playability. 

A recent example is them taking feedback from people who noticed this week's RIM being invisible, and then correcting it (albeit on Tuesday morning):

Screenshot credit to Rainbow000Pegasus' Ultimate Animal Jam Blog

Wildworks also completely stopped the bot raids in June by making it so that all forms of spamming in AJ/AJPW can get your account permanently banned:

(Try not to send tons of fast messages in chat, Jammer Walls, and just try not to press the same button a ton of times really fast because too much of that could get your account banned. I don't think the same thing happens if clicking is a part of a mini game, though.)

So... Wildworks has not abandoned Animal Jam, because they still care about the game working properly.

These are just the things I remind myself of whenever I'm anxious about Animal Jam Classic >.<

Well, that's all I got for now. I hope you have as good a day as you can, and I'll see you in Jamaa!

Short Post– Happy August!

Hey Jammers! Today is one of the rare times where I've posted twice in one day, so if you haven't seen my earlier post, you can scroll down to read it.

Just a few things to talk about in this one:

First: after far too long a time of being too picky to settle on a look for my panda, I think I've finally done it ^.^

Actually, I lied. I'm still conflicted because I love green:

Which of these three do you like best? :0

While I was asking his feedback, all my brother told me was that my panda's pattern makes it look like she has a beard. I'd legit never seen that before until he told me, but eh... I don't have a problem with that and it's still my favorite pattern X)

Second: According to Rainbow000Pegasus, there have been no new items in AJC for a few days! Aside from today's R.I.M., of course. The same goes for AJPW, but I think that game already doesn't get the same daily-item updates that we've been used to on AJC. 

If AJHQ has decided to release new items less frequently, I'm okay with that! I'd hope that would mean they'd prioritize quality over quantity with more time to make stuff. 

A related side-note– August should be the month when the 10 Den Item Contest winners get picked, so keep your eyes out for some creative new items.

Third: One of my goals for this summer was to come up with a more interesting kind of contest for you all, and I think I've finally settled on a concept! I'm temporarily keeping it a secret, but you'll likely be seeing the full contest details in the post after this one.

All I'll say for now is that is involves creativity, and the prizes include a bunch of decently rare nonmember items, such as a Basic Healing Staff and a Green Gecko Plushie!

–––

So... that's all for now! 

I had meant for this to be a Clearance Corner post– and I'd also meant to make another Clearance Corner post sooner as promised –but I think I'll just hold off on making promises about posts until I'm un-stressed and un-distracted enough to keep them ^^;

See you in Jamaa!

And Today's Rare Item Monday is...

I N V I S I B L E

–––

After months of re-colors, it's the first time Animal Jam (Classic) gets a totally original R.I.M.– and it's glitched. 

AJHQ is apparently working on this, so I'm hoping it'll be visible by the end of the day today >.<