''Toontown Online'', commonly known as ''Toontown'', was a 2003
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
(MMORPG) based on a
cartoon animal world
The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...
, developed by
Disney's Virtual Reality Studio and
Schell Games, and published by
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...
.
Players played as
anthropomorphized animals, known as Toons, to explore a cartoon world, complete
quests
A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. It serves as a Plot (narrative), plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult Travel, journey towards a goal, often symbolic or Allegory, allegorical. Tales of quests figure promine ...
("ToonTasks"), and engage in combat against the Cogs, robot businessmen who served as the game's antagonists. Players used weapons known as "Gags"—typically
slapstick comedy
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...
items, such as a
thrown cream pie—in combat.
Various servers hosting ''Toontown Online'' were shut down throughout the game's tenure; the primary U.S. servers and the game itself were ultimately closed in September 2013. Various
fan servers have since been created using most of the game's original assets; the most popular of these, ''Toontown Rewritten'', was created less than a week after ''Toontown Online''s closure.
Gameplay
Toons
Players' characters were called "Toons", anthropomorphized animals in the style of Disney cartoons. Players were able to customize their Toons in various shapes, colors, clothes, and sizes, as well as their species, with choices consisting of cats, dogs, ducks, mice, pigs, rabbits, bears, horses, and monkeys.
Combat
Cogs were the antagonists in-game, stylized to be corporate robots that wanted to take over the town to propagate
business culture
Organizational culture encompasses the shared norms, values, corporate language and behaviors - observed in schools, universities, not-for-profit groups, government agencies, and businesses - reflecting their core values and strategic direction. ...
. Cogs came in four types: brown-clad Bossbots, blue-clad Lawbots, green-clad Cashbots, and maroon-clad Sellbots, each with increasing levels throughout the game that increased their health and damage.
Toons began with basic 'Gags' and a 15-point 'Laff' meter and had a maximum of 137 point Laff meter at the end of the game. Gags, rooted in old cartoon
slapstick
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as ...
humor, were weapons used to destroy the Cogs in Cog battles. Each 'Gag track' had Gags with different properties that could be unlocked by completing 'ToonTasks' and each gag track would get progressively more powerful as Toons used their gags more. The Laff meter functioned as a
health meter
Health is a video game or tabletop game quality that determines the maximum amount of damage or fatigue something takes before leaving the main game. In role-playing games, this typically takes the form of hit points (HP), a numerical attribute ...
, representing how much damage Toons could take from the Cogs before going 'sad' – in-game defeat. Cogs were battled using a timed
turn-based combat system with up to four Toons in a battle. Cogs could be fought on the streets of the game, in 'Cog Buildings' or in their own designated 'Cog HQ', with each Cog HQ having a boss that could only be fought by obtaining a full set of the HQ's Cog disguise. These include the Senior V.P. (Vice President, Sellbot HQ), C.F.O. (Chief Financial Officer, Cashbot HQ) C.J. (Chief Justice, Lawbot HQ), and C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer, Bossbot HQ).
Non-combat activities
Playgrounds were the only areas of Toontown permanently safe from Cogs. In the playgrounds, Toons could regain lost Laff Points, receive or complete ToonTasks unique to each playground, purchase gags, play trolley games, go fishing, kart racing, or golfing. By completing ToonTasks, Toons would grow in strength through additional Laff Points or new Gags. Laff Point increases were also available through fishing, racing, and golfing challenges. There was a playground in each neighborhood of Toontown. Each playground featured one of Disney's classic animated characters as a non-player character. The main playgrounds were Toontown Central, Daisy Gardens, Donald's Dock, Minnie's Melodyland, The Brrrgh, and Donald's Dreamland, along with extra playgrounds such as Goofy Speedway and Chip 'n Dale's Acorn Acres.
Every ''Toontown Online'' account came with a player's estate. Each estate consisted of a fishing pond and six houses for each Toon on the player's account. Players could customize their Toon's appearance and home with objects ordered from the in-game catalog ('Clarabelle's Cattlelog') by using jellybeans, the in-game currency. Wardrobes and accessory trunks held clothing and accessories that were not currently being worn by the player's Toon. Other elements of estates included Doodles (pets), gardening, fishing, and the ability to purchase various types of in-game items from Clarabelle's Cattlelog.
Online safety features
''Toontown Online'' was marketed and developed for players of all ages, which is why a chat restriction was placed on the game. Players could initially only chat using "SpeedChat", a list of pre-approved phrases set by Disney that the player could select. It included general English phrases, in-game strategy phrases, and, occasionally, seasonal phrases. Players could purchase more SpeedChat phrases using, most of the time, 100 jellybeans. "SpeedChat Plus" and "Secret Friends", later renamed to "True Friends", were introduced sometime after the game's release, which had to be enabled using a parental account if the player was under 13 years of age. SpeedChat Plus allowed the player to type their messages against a word filter developed by Disney; if a word was not allowed, it was replaced with an
onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...
of that player's Toon's species. True Friends allowed players to chat with a less restrictive filter with certain friends who have shared a "True Friend code" with each other.
Parties
Parties were hostable, plannable, and customizable events by Toons. Toons would use their stored jellybeans in their bank to customize and add content to their parties, such as fireworks, minigames (Tug-O-War, etc.), trampolines, party cannons, etc. To plan a party, Toons would go to a Toon Party Planner. Toons could also customize their invitations to these parties.
Distribution
CD-ROM
Platform Publishing, a subsidiary company of
Sony Online Entertainment
Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in ...
that publishes games for third-party developers, acquired rights to publish a
CD version of ''Toontown Online'' in August 2005 for the
PC and their intention to bring the game to online game consoles.
''Toontown Online'' became available on CD for the PC on October 3 of the same year.
This allowed players to play the game without downloading it onto their storage devices. This version came in a box set with two months of subscription, a poster, a game manual, and an in-game bonus. ''Toontown Online'' chose to create a CD that could be purchased in stores, due to customer insecurity when downloading and buying things online that they could not physically hold.
Closure
After ten years of operation, ''Toontown Online'' was shut down permanently on September 19, 2013.
After the announcement, every player was given membership for the remaining time of the game. Seasonal and holiday celebrations and special in-game events took place in the time remaining. Recurring paid memberships were automatically canceled. Memberships could no longer be purchased, and accounts could no longer be created after the fact.
The website was also updated with a closing FAQ.
After the game's closure, ''Toontown''s website was updated with a new FAQ to help with billing support and inform users about the game's closure.
''Toontown'' site, toontown.go.com, now redirects to Disney's main site,
disney.com
disney.com is a website operated by Disney Digital Network, a division of The Walt Disney Company, that promotes various Disney properties such as films, television shows, and theme park resorts, and offers entertainment content intended for ch ...
.
In response to the closure, former players have created multiple private servers of ''Toontown Online'' that are free-to-play and not monetized. The most popular server, ''Toontown Rewritten'', is described by its developers as a fan-made revival of Disney's ''Toontown Online'', created using publicly available downloads and information made freely available to the general public in September 2014.
Jesse Schell, the former Creative Director of the Walt Disney Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio, hinted that ''Toontown Online'' closed due to becoming unsustainable in its business model (subscription-based downloadable RPG).
Schell confirmed that Disney wanted to port the game to mobile devices but was waiting for a working business model for self-sustaining, constantly-updating mobile RPGs. Schell also stated that the company has hosted internal meetings discussing the future of the game, taking the popularity of mobile games, and the payment options available on that platform into consideration for planning the next step for the ''Toontown'' license.
A solution has yet to be agreed upon, but according to Schell these internal meetings continued into 2016.
In June 2021, seven years after the game's closure, an unofficial archive of ''Toontown Online'' titled the "Toontown Preservation Project" was released by ''Toontown Rewritten''. The archive, hosted on Toontown Rewritten's Notion board, showcases original design documents and artwork donated by the game's developers, along with promotional materials including digital downloads, merchandise, newsletters, trading cards, and websites.
ToonFest
Disney organized two real-life gatherings for ''Toontown'' fans called ToonFest. These included themed activities and games, trivia and costume contests, previews of upcoming features for the game, and developer Q&A panels.
The first gathering, ToonFest 2006, was held at the
Walt Disney Studios complex in
Burbank, California
Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank had a Census-estimated population of 102,755 as of 2023. The city was ...
.
The second gathering, ToonFest 2007, was held at
Walt Disney World
The Walt Disney World Resort is an destination resort, entertainment resort complex located about southwest of Orlando, Florida, United States. Opened on October 1, 1971, the resort is operated by Disney Experiences, a division of the Wa ...
in
Orlando, Florida
Orlando ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Orange County, Florida, United States. The city proper had a population of 307,573 at the 2020 census, making it the fourth-most populous city in Florida behind Jacksonville, Florida, Jacksonville ...
.
Reception
Awards and nominations
References
External links
* {{moby game, id=/toontown-online/, name=''Toontown Online''
2003 video games
Disney video games
Inactive massively multiplayer online games
Inactive multiplayer online games
MacOS games
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Multiplayer online games
Products and services discontinued in 2013
Video games about animals
Video games developed in the United States
Windows games
Video games about robots