Animal Party

Did you know that Animal Jam, long ago, had a predecessor named Animal Party? Yes. You see, Animal Jam started off as a game called Animal Party, released around the 90s' and 80s'. The game started out bouncy enough, but eventually, the game dissolved into a cauldron of madness, gore, and slaughter. Let me tell you about my personal experience with this twisted counterpart to the game we all know and love.

It was a cold, Winter morning when my mom ordered the title. I remember how it looked exactly; it was a dark navy blue floppy disk with the words "Animal Party" scribbled on it. This game was a game I had been awaiting for a long time. I had been seeing adds for the game for a long while. The adds were very colorful, bubbly, and cute, and they attracted my young mind to the game, and I had wanted it for quite a few months. At this point, I had no idea of how secretly dark the game was, and neither did my mother, so she bought it for me. Popping open a can of Surge, I inserted the Animal Party floppy disk into my computer and started up the game.

Like the "new" version of the game, this game started with the pick an animal menu. The animals you could pick in this version were much different then the ones you could pick in the new version. The animals you could pick were cats, dogs, birds, bunnies, wolves, foxes, and bears. The animal I picked was the dog. The game then moved on to the naming process. Instead of picking from three words to put together to make your animal's name, in this game, you'd type it into a bar and press a green button labeled "Ok" when you were satisfied with it. The name I gave my dog was "Doggy." Yeah, I wasn't very creative. After pressing the ok button, the game begun.

Your animal spawned in a lush grassland, filled with grass as far as the eye could see. In front of you was a lion NPC named Leo. Leo had deep crimson fur with a charcoal black mane and green eyes. He was like the tutorial of this game. Leo would explain that you were going to a place called "Animalia", which was basically the original Jamaa. He then quickly summed up each feature of the games; besides the graphic features. You could buy clothes for yourself, you could buy items for your "home" (which was what your den was called at the time), explore several different lands, and go on adventures, which back then, were known as quests. He would then give you a chest full of treasure, which would give you 100 Paws when you clicked on it. (Paws were the original currency.) Leo would then tell you goodbye and you'd be teleported into "Animalia."

You'd spawn in Jamaa Township, or as it was called back then, Animalia Village. It was a lush field with a long dirt path running through it. On the sides of the path were three houses. A house with a yellow roof, which was the clothing shop, a house with a blue roof, which was the den shop, and a house with a red roof, which was your den, or "home." At the end of the road was a marble statue of a roaring lion, which seemed to be the inspiration for the Mira statue. At the roaring lion statue, Leo sat, and you could ask him questions, and he'd answer them.

(W.I.P.)