If you haven't played Animal Jam before or don't care about it, you're going to find this post really boring, so you can leave now.
I wanted to take this idea and shave it down so it's more consistent and could be considered an actual challenge rather than a game.
Basically, if you've played Animal Jam before, you know one of the motivating goals of the game is getting "rare" items that look cool on your avatar. There's usually a substantial amount of these items in circulation, but people tend to hold onto items that look better, so the demand tends to outstep the supply.
The goal of your Hard Mode challenge is to create a new account and work your way up to something that you really want- whether it be a full item set, something from 2012, or even just a group of buyable items that haven't come back into stores yet.
Whatever your goal may be, there are a set of rules that you must follow to make the task difficult. The most basic rules are as follows, but there are a set of optional rules that I'll cover later.
1. You may not buy any items from the store.
Everything that you earn in Hard Mode must be obtained through minigames, trading, or playing Adventures. If gems are in any way involved in the transaction of obtaining an item, you must recycle it.
2. You cannot trade with an account you own or you have any major relationships with, unless you are playing in a group.
All this means is that you cannot trade items from your regular account to your new one, and close friends cannot help you unless the friend doesn't know you're doing a challenge or said friend is co-opping with you.
3. You cannot accept gifts.
Just in case you happen to be playing on a Member account, you cannot accept gifts from friends, fans, or followers until your challenge is over. You also cannot accept gifts from the Journey Book, as no trading or minigame effort goes into that specific item set. (You can, however, trade for those items easily.)
4. Cooperative play is encouraged, but not required.
Meloetta3890, the pioneer of this game/challenge/facedesk explains how you can play this in a group of close friends. Basically, you can play with a round of 2-4 other people you trust and trade them your good items, expecting them to do the same. She talks about this in more detail on her post.
That's it. If you're feeling especially adventurous, you can add a few other restrictions, including:
1. Adventures are prohibited.
2. You can only gain one item from a minigame, and you must work from there.
3. Every time you get a [RARE] item, you must recycle two of your items without a rare tag.
Basically, you can make it as obscene as you'd like. I'll be doing it with the normal ruleset under the username Nuzlocke, so be sure to send me a buddy request or whatever :P
Good luck.
