OFFICIAL SITE

Animal Jam

Genre Type: F2P MMO Simulator
Platform Accessibility: Web Browser
Development By: National Geographic & WildWorks

Developed in collaboration with National Geographic, Animal Jam offers an interactive playground world for kids where they can make friends, play games and learn about a variety of different animals and the natural world through educational tools and insights from scientific experts within different fields. Players lead an online virtual life playing as their Animal avatar in this browser-based MMO. The game is completely free to play and has its own in game currency that players can acquire as well as a Membership subscription option accessible by parents that will give users a variety of benefits and unlock all the in game content.

Players begin the game by creating their own online character, with a selection of animals available from tigers, bears, penguins, wolves, rabbits and many more these are the characters that players will be identified as in the game (though players can have a number of different characters). The games naming conventions allow children to create their name from a combination of preapproved words that can lead to some goofy and funny sounding names. This naming system combined with the in game chat filters will help to protect children from those that would try to abuse the system.

Once in the game animals can be further customised with a variety of accessories and purchasable clothing that can be found in the games stores and boutiques, everything from eye patches, floral headwear, moustaches, hats and more. Players are also able to fully customise the look of their character, changing them from a natural looking animal into wild and crazy creatures of different colours with unique patterns and eye shapes to create their own unique look.

There is a huge amount of features and content in the game that can be discovered as players explore various environments and regions within the game, from beaches, jungles, snowy mountains to sprawling animal run cities. Players will uncover a number of interactive elements and mini games that they can play, either with their friends or on their own, and if successful these games will reward players with Gems currency. Gems can be spent to purchase clothes, virtual pets, a host of different accessories, furniture and decorations for their own personal Den/home and other things that they will discover in their adventure.

As well as providing children with a fun interactive environment Animal Jam is also an educational tool with numerous videos embedded into the game that players can watch to learn about Animal Conservation, technology and engineering used in finding out more about animals, as well as various printable fact sheets and pictures to colour in when off-line. On their journey players will add information to their in game journey books to look back over information they have discovered.

Animal Jam is extremely conscious of protecting its young players and so has a number of features in game such as word filters, in game moderators, rules of conduct that are emphasised to players throughout the game and other nonintrusive security systems for parents peace of mind.

Animal Jam screenshot: