Animal Jam / YMMV - TV Tropes

Awesome Art: Some of the in-game art is quite gorgeous with bright colors, sharp simple shapes, and oddly-attractive cel shading, not to mention the promotional artwork with those too. The ability to share art as a den item has led some artists to create top-notch, near-realistic art with the simple-looking Art Studio tool. See for yourself.
Awesome Music:
- The driving and mystical Sky High theme manages to capture the essence of rising up to the skies
- "Winter's Dance" is rather a funky and groovy electronic tune. It gets better when the drums and eventually the piano arrive.
- Captain Melville's Juice Hut theme sounds tropical and contemporary at the same time, with the guitar sounds and such.
- "Mystical Morning/Sapphire Symphony", also known as the Diamond Shop/Sapphire Shop theme, is appropriately mystical, dreamy, and calming.
- The Kimbara Outback theme maintains the quiet and mysterious nature of a desert and the drums again...
Broken Base: Members vs. non members in Animal Jam Classic. Since this is pretty common among allegedly free Freemium games, this is pretty much self-explanatory.
- Some animals have been subject to this:
  - Pandas. Many players find them unattractive and awkward-looking in the game's art style, but others think they're cute and deserve more popularity. It doesn't help that Pandas are purchased through sapphires in Animal Jam.
  - Sloths. Some players think they're adorable in-game, but others find them creepy and despise the way they look. A third party thinks that they're Creepy Cute and loves them because of their strange appearance and narmy actions.
  - In Animal Jam Classic, Pigs have gotten this treatment, with some finding them cute, as well as praising them for being the first diamond animal that's available to non-members, while others find them unflattering.
  - Sheep, sheep, sheep. Some players think they're adorable, others find them clunky, ugly, and completely unfitting in the AJ world. The fact that they're members only in Animal Jam Classic doesn't help either.
  - Continuing the cycle in Animal Jam Classic with new animals as of late, cougars have gotten this reaction from some. A popular complaint from their detractors is that they're "just snow leopards with lynx heads pasted on", while other players enjoy their house cat-like design and cute actions.
  - Throughout February to September 2021, Animal Jam Play Wild added domesticated cats^note and dogs^note to the game in order for players to learn about rescue pets. This comes off as this as on a small side, as many think the domestic dogs and cats look cute on their own. However, others think the designs look terrible. It doesn't help that the pattern involving domesticated cats and dogs annoyed the majority of the players as they wanted to see wild animals. Thankfully the pattern broken off when tarantulas were released in October.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Greely is the most popular Alpha, undoubtedly because of his cool design, aloof personality and the rather mysterious role that he plays in the game's story.
- Among the playable animal avatars themselves, the arctic wolves are easily the most popular and some of the most commonly-used animals in Jamaa, to the point where they're the main reason for wanting/buying a membership to some players. AJHQ is more than aware of this and several variants of them have been released, such as Snowflake, Spooky, "Lightside" and "Darkside" arctic wolves. To a lesser extent, the "regular" wolves are also well-liked with the added bonus of being available to non-members.
- Coyotes are also one of the few 2017 animals to be well-liked among the fandom.
Fandom Rivalry: In the past, the Animal Jam fandom with the Club Penguin fandom, as those were the top children's Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games at that time. Ever since the latter shut down, the rivalry has cooled down.
Game-Breaker: Animal Jam Classic has this problem.
- Flying animals in Animal Jam Classic. All of the seasonal adventures, such as Lucky Clovers and Special Delivery, have areas in them that require the players to work together in order to progress (i.e. in the former, some clovers are found on top of hills that can't be reached unless four players stand at the base and dance to make steps appear); flying animals can simply fly over blockades like these, effectively saving time. They are also the only animals that have access to The Forgotten Desert, an adventure that sometimes rewards retired, rare and otherwise unobtainable items (top hats, spiked collars, den betas, etc.) for completing it.
- As of 2017, Members now have access to a special Daily Spin that only rewards diamonds (and occasionally rare clothing items), whereas the regular Daily Spin wheel only has an extremely slim chance of doing so.
Good Bad Bugs:
- In March 2016, the Lucky Clovers adventure featured a glitch where rapidly clicking on the symbol to harvest a clover could allow the player to collect 2-5 of them in one go, making the adventure much quicker and easier to complete. This only lasted for about a day or so, however, before AJHQ caught on and quickly fixed the bug.
- There is an exploit that allows a player whose membership has just expired to continue playing as one of their would-be locked off animals while they're a non-member.
- A minor glitch on one of the color customization palettes allowed players to paint their animals a pale blue-purple color that was otherwise unobtainable. However, this bug was fixed some time in 2016.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
- Some players have criticized the fact that some premium animals and items are previous animals and items but with a Palette Swap. An example would be the Spring animals.
- Arctic foxes, cougars, coyotes, and Clysdale horses, while there are already foxes, snow leopards, wolves, and horses.
Loot Drama: One of the more notorious aspects of Animal Jam. Obtaining rare and coveted items in both versions of the game, such as Spiked Collars, New Year's Party Hats, Headdresses, Founder Hats and more, can range from challenging to downright impossible thanks to a combination of factors — chief among them being the fickle Player-Generated Economy. Players scamming one another using the trade system and other tactics is a well-known shadow of the game's culture, and hacking and looting is also not unheard of, which Animal Jam HQ will usually not compensate the victims for^note unless they are a high profile player. There have even been cases of players attempting to sell these items online for real life currency, which is explicitly against the game's rules. While these issues have been widespread enough to warrant AJHQ implementing additional account security measures and making changes to the way the trade system works, little else has actually been done to quell the underlying problems with item rarity and availability.
Moe: Pretty much all of the animals, especially the pets and small animals.
Periphery Demographic: Despite primarily being aimed at young children, a surprising amount of Animal Jam players are teens and young adults. This may be due to the social aspect of the game, which is a staple in teens' lives, and the animals (see below).
- Popular with Furries: Many of the periphery demographic are furries, particularly feral fans, and animal lovers, thanks to the fact that the game is about animals.
Recurring Fanon Character: fman122 was a supposed player originating from an Urban Legend of Zelda who hacked naive players by sending "gifts" by Jam-a-grams to random victims. He was said to have a dark red wolf avatar. While he probably never existed, he became popular due to fear of these rumors.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The beginning of the Cloud Party music is nearly beat-for-beat to "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" by The Four Tops.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In its early years, the game was called out and declared not for kids by parents and Moral Guardians, because of moderation not watching for inappropriate behavior (such as players attempting to simulate sex with their avatars), cyberbullying, and con artists scamming others for rares. Fortunately, moderation has approved and this has since been relaxed.

YMMV / Animal Jam

Edit Locked