Currency Challenges

Hey Jammers! I started this post on Sunday morning, and now I'm continuing it Monday night. Hopefully I actually finish it tonight XD

Today's post is a more detailed version of something I've been talking about this month– The Gem Challenge. 

While I did the Gem Challenge (which I will describe again in this post for those who forgot) I thought about how other currencies, like diamonds and tickets could fit into it as well.

Because I don't care much about diamond items, I converted all my accumulated diamonds into gems and donated them.

I don't know about you, but it was so satisfying when my entire diamond count just disappeared. XD

So this post is about a challenge for gems, tickets, and diamonds.

I've been talking about these ideas a bit in the comments, and I've gotten some pretty helpful feedback. I see now that a Diamond Challenge would be hard for those who are interested in diamond items, mostly because the only place you can get diamonds regularly is the Daily Spin.

That's why I'm not gonna combine gems/tickets/diamonds into one big challenge– this post will detail separate challenges, and you can pick the one/s that you're most interested in! :D

The purpose of challenges on AJ is to make the game harder for you– in a fun way! It's like Animal Jam: Hard Mode. 

The purpose of these specific challenges is that reducing the amount of gems/diamonds/tickets you can earn creates more of a sense of accomplishment when you finally have enough to buy something you want.

They're also like "beta simulators", too, because it was way harder to earn gems back then. If you want a taste of beta testing, these currency challenges might be fun to try! :D

The Gem Challenge

I went over The Gem Challenge in a previous post, but since then I've developed it a bit more, so I'll still explain it here.

Here's what you'll do before you start the challenge:

Step 1: Go to the Conservation Museum in Appondale.

Step 2: Click on the donation box.

Step 3: Donate your gems over and over again until you don't have any left!

Once you have less than 10 gems total, congrats! You have officially started the Gem Challenge. Welcome aboard! :D

All you need to do now is follow these rules:

– Don't spin the Daily Spin. Every time you log on, just X out of it. (Members who use the Diamond Spin are exempt)

– Only play games with a low gem yield. Some fun low-gem games include Long Shot, Swoopy Eagle, Gem Ball, Mira Says, Wind Rider, Double-up, buddy games... the list goes on! Who knows, this challenge might help you appreciate some under appreciated games. :)

– Avoid gem bags/chests in adventures. A single round of a kinda-easy adventure is enough to make a fortune, so collecting all the gems kinda defeats the purpose of the Gem Challenge XD

– Instead of recycling your unwanted items for gems, try trading them away. Who knows, your trash might be another Jammer's treasure!

If you follow this challenge for long enough, I can guarantee you'll feel super accomplished anytime you can afford something you want! I'm currently going through it myself, so feel free to ask me any questions. :)

These next two challenges are less complicated, because, well, there's only so many places you can get tickets and diamonds.

The Diamond Challenge

Does the Diamond Shop annoy you? Do you think diamonds are just too sparkly for Animal Jam? 

...Or, do you just want diamonds to seem more special?

If so, the Diamond Challenge might just be the thing for you!

Before you begin:

Step 1: Go to the Diamond Shop in Jamaa Township.

Step 2: Exchange all the diamonds you have for gems. (If you're also doing the Gem Challenge, you can donate these gems)

Now that you have 0 diamonds, your entire diamond count should just vanish! You can pretend that the Diamond Shop never existed :D

As you continue through this challenge, you might wanna commit to a couple things:

– If you're a member, always X out of the Member Spin. Kinda defeats the purpose ;D

– This part is optional. If you're totally dedicated to ignoring diamonds, just go on with your life without 'em. However, it will make them seem more valuable if you get them solely in December through the yearly Jamaaliday Calendar. 

I'd imagine this Diamond Challenge would be the least popular, as I admit there is occasionally a really cool diamond item to buy.

You can try it out, or you don't have to. :)

You may like this next challenge a bit more...

The Ticket Challenge 

With the Summer Carnival approaching us quickly, you might wanna think about this challenge all about maximizing your sense of accomplishment as you work for prizes.

If there was a way to exchange tickets for gems, I'd tell you to do that first, but you can't so never mind XD

– Earn your tickets from games instead of buying them with gems. If you have the time, it's way more fun!

– If you wanna up the ante, only play games that don't give you many tickets. I'm awful at Candy Catch, so I'll be doing that this summer XD

....Aaaand, that's all there is to it. You can try any challenge you want, do multiple, or don't do any if you're not interested! I'd love to hear what you think either way.

It's 11:20 PM right now.

I have to get up early tomorrow.

Maybe this was a mistake...

Uuuuuhhh....

Ah well, I'm happy I managed to post on a Monday anyway. I hope it was interesting!

I'm gonna go to sleep now... peace out guyz

~DoomyPanda

Rediscovering Jamaa: The Juice Hut

Hey Jammers!! Wassup? B)

If you're reading this post, you've probably noticed that I've changed this blog's background. The reason being that as it's getting warmer in the Northern Hemisphere (where I live), I thought that looking at some warmer shades of green would be the most fitting. :)

What do you guys think? I personally wish it was leafier. Being super picky, sometimes I feel like just painting my own backgrounds XD

Anyways, onto the main subject of this post: appreciating the under-appreciated rooms of Jamaa.

Aside from the rooms I've already talked about (the Hot Cocoa Hut, The Flag Shop, and Epic Wonders), the Juice Hut has received the most votes as you guys' favorite underrated room. Meaning, this post is all about the Juice Hut!

Keep voting on that poll if you want me to explore your favorite AJ room next. :)

Above the fish of Crystal Reef lies Crystal Sands, and on the shoreline of Crystal Sands lies Captain Melville's Juice Hut. Built mostly out of driftwood and shaded beneath a cacao tree, this refuge from the sun has been around since beta testing– of course, in a few different forms. 

I joined AJ in 2012, some time after the design change. While the beta Juice Hut is definitely more detailed and natural looking, I've only ever been familiar with the new Juice Hut. I think they both look cool in their own ways. :)

However, while the design of the Juice Hut's exterior has changed, the interior has always looked the same. Let's look inside:

So many people in here!!!

I took this screenshot today, and I wasn't even on a populated server! I guess the Juice Hut isn't so underrated after all ^_^

Let's just take some time to appreciate the aesthetic of this place:

The wall is tiger-striped green– something I only noticed recently. It's kinda similar to the wallpaper in Gabby Wild's Animal Hospital!

There are fun glowing lights strung everywhere, crossing over an even more fun chalkboard detailing in unreadable text the smoothies offered.

This little window makes me really happy. It just looks so bright and sunny outside!

The fruit hanging in baskets is similar to the fruit outside of the beta Juice Hut. It looks like these tropical fruits are guava, durian, and papaya! 

There are a couple fruit baskets by The Claw, too. It looks like... cherimoya and lychee! Yum P:

Being a Juice Hut, there's fruit everywhere. At the counter (which is a cool swirly blue/green) there are raspberries, oranges, pineapples, strawberries, starfruit and blueberries. 

You can only make smoothies out of four fruits, but because it all comes out looking like colored juice, I guess you can just pretend what kinda juice it is lol

I wonder why it's called the Juice Hut when all you can get are smoothies that look like juice. Maybe the smoothies were originally called juice, but because smoothies are generally healthier, AJHQ changed it. o_o

Overall, the Juice Hut is a really fun room. I'm super happy that I found it full of Jammers today! :D

Maybe we can fill up some more under-appreciated rooms by appreciating them ^-^

See you in Jamaa,

All the Videos in Jamaa

Hey guys! For the longest time, I haven't ever done an update post on the day of the update, during a school week. I swear it might have been years!

But, here I am. Defying the odds XD

And I come with some special news...

I was right!!!!

Dire wolves are not yet available, but they are confirmed! :D

Next up is some good news. However, it mislead me and many other Jammers into thinking it was the best news.

I'll show you what I mean:

New videos? An image of a bunch of animals watching something that's obviously the Geckos video!? HAVE MY PRAYERS BEEN ANSWERED!?!?

TIME TO HEAD OVER TO SAREPIA TO FIND OU–

Oh.

Nothing changed.

You see, even though AJHQ didn't mention Sarepia Theater in that page of the Jamaa Journal, I saw the word "videos" and I saw the Gecko and immediately I jumped to the conclusion that they brought back Geckos and all the other deleted videos.

That's not what they meant, but I swear it was intentional. I think this is the first instance of clickbait in the Jamaa Journal, except instead of trying to get YouTube views AJHQ was trying to get me to suffer. XD

However, don't think that this page is bad news. There are literally a ton of videos now available from Brady Barr, Tierney Thys, Gabby Wild, and Wild Explorers!

There are probably more videos here than there have ever been before. Also, you may notice that most if not all of the videos have covered up the Nat Geo logo on Brady Barr. Dunno if that's a coincidence or not.

Because the Jamaa Journal said that all of the videos are now there, there is a possibility that no new ones will come out anymore. Which is hopefully untrue, because the "Ask --- A Question" button is still at the bottom of each group of videos. 

Hopefully "all of the videos" means all the videos that were removed or went on "clearance"

Moving on, here's an update to the whole Conservation Museum thing:

I had come up with a bunch of hypotheses why the hats had all gone on clearance... and all of them might have been wrong, because most are back now!

I wonder what this means. Maybe it was a glitch that they all went on clearance.

As you might have already guessed, I don't review the whole Jamaa Journal– just the parts that I think you'll find interesting. Here is another thing I think you'll wanna see:

The Trials of Zios has a Hard Mode now– meaning, more prizes.

I probably shouldn't have told you, because I don't actually know the prizes as of yet. XD

However, I'll get back to you soon with them!!!

Before I go, here's an update on my experience with the Gem Challenge:

As you've probably seen from my Museum Shop screenshot, I have maintained a nice 31 gems all this week. Yay me!

I don't like having too many items beyond what I care about, so I decided to start cleaning out my mess of unseasonal items. However, when thinking up the Gem Challenge, I hadn't considered the fortune you can make just by recycling items.

So I didn't recycle my items. I gave them away.

Surprisingly, someone wanted my garbage! I called out the message above and almost immediately a bunny came up saying EGG. The lag was killing me, so I had to refresh, but I memorized their username and successfully traded back at their den.

It was a good day ^____^

See you in Jamaa, guys!

Secret Idea + The Gem Challenge

Hey Jammers! Although I still need to do some bigger things with this blog, this will be a shorter and less organized post because I've made this Sunday yet another homework day for all my classes. Yikes /).(\

However, that doesn't mean I don't have some interesting stuff to tell y'all.

To start, here's a cool item I found while flipping through the Jam Mart Clothing catalog:

I know it's old news, but I just love Mech Angel stuff and I'm happy to see AJHQ has not forgotten it. :')

Next up is something weird I found at the Conservation Museum.

All the animal hats that were in the shop went on clearance. The shop is empty and the gem count is glitched.

Why?

There are a few possible explanations.

1. The shop might be stocking its own unique items next update. Keep in mind that all the animal hats were sold in Jam Mart Clothing before replacing the topiaries and animal banners sold in the Museum. 

2. The shop might be leaving altogether. If that happens, the Conservation Museum might also be leaving. However, I don't think that's likely– there's just no point I can see to removing it.

3. This is a small possibility, but because these are not the only head items that were removed, all of them might be rereleased some point in the future as part of a "Hatapalooza", which is a small event that happens on AJ when nothing else is going on. 

I think the first explanation is the most likely. 

At this point, AJ probably knows how hysterical some Jammers have been about educational content being removed*cough*me*cough*, so they hopefully won't just go ahead and remove something needlessly.

Moving on, I noticed a couple other things in in Conservation Museum that may be worth looking at:

I dunno how recent these are, but they're cool.

And...

The characters on this sign repeat in some places, so there's a chance that this may be an example of a made-up language on AJ.

We already know about Tiger Script. I wonder when we will learn to decode another...

Maybe there's even a Panda Script! :D

Moving onto another area in Jamaa: The Chamber of Knowledge/Basement of Secrets.

The Basement of Secrets is obviously meant to be positioned directly under the trap door in the Chamber of Knowledge.

However, it is only accessible through clicking a hidden patch on the map.

I had a thought today:

What if lighting all the candles on the first floor of the Chamber of Knowledge would unlock the trap door?

That way, the Basement of Secrets would stay secret, but it would be more fun to open!

What do you guys think?

To conclude this post, here's a little something different:

Do you ever think about how easy it is to get gems in Jamaa?

You don't even have to play games. Through the Daily Spin alone I accumulate thousands of gems.

Stuff is more expensive now, but it's just so easy to buy anything you want. There is none of the struggle to collect gems that there used to be...

...and consequently, not as much of a feeling of accomplishment when you have enough to buy something.

So I thought of something to make Animal Jam a little more interesting:

The Gem Challenge

This challenge is a bit like a Hard Mode for Animal Jam– or a kind of simulation of the Beta Days. Allow me to explain:

To start off, get rid of your hundreds of excess gems by donating them in the Conservation Museum. 

You can only donate up to 5,000 at once, so if you have more than that, just keep repeatedly donating as much as you can until you are unable to donate any more.

For the rest of this challenge, here's what you're gonna do to add an extra level to your AJ experience:

Whenever you log in, skip the Daily Spin. Just click the blue X on the upper right corner.

As you play games, only play ones that yield less than 100 gems per play. 

Some examples are Gem Ball, Wind Rider, Long Shot, Twister, Double Up, Swoopy Eagle, and almost all of the buddy games.

You can still play any adventure you want for this challenge– as long as you avoid gem bags and gem chests.

All of this is to maximize the sense of accomplishment you will feel when you finally have enough gems to buy an item you want!

I'm gonna dedicate myself to this challenge and tell y'all how it goes. If you're interested, you can join me! :D

See you in Jamaa,