Toontown Online was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, developed by Disney Interactive and published by the Walt Disney Company.
The Toontown Online online servers were shut down and/or merged over the years, with the final server to close being the United States (then merged with the United Kingdom) on September 19, 2013. A month before the closure, Disney released a statement that the company would be 'shifting its focus to other online and mobile play experiences, such as Club Penguin and a growing selection of mobile apps.
Contents
Gameplay
Players could create characters called "Toons". 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. 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. Gags, rooted in old cartoon slapstick 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 health meter, representing how much damage toons could take from the Cogs before going 'sad' – in-game death. 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'.
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. These playgrounds consisted of the following: Toontown Central, Daisy Gardens, Donald's Dock, Minnie's Melodyland, The Brrrgh, Donald's Dreamland, Goofy's Speedway, and Chip & Dale's Acorn Acres.
Every Toontown Online account came with a player's estate. Each estate consisted of six houses for each Toon on the player's account. Players could customize their Toon's appearance and house with objects ordered from the in-game catalog in exchange for jellybeans, the in-game currency. Wardrobes held clothing and accessories that were not being worn. Other elements of estates included Doodles (pets), gardening, fishing, cannons.
Online safety features
Toontown Online was marketed towards and developed towards all ages. Therefore, a chat restriction was placed on the game. Players could 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 jellybeans. "SpeedChat Plus" and "True Friends" were introduced some time 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 own messages against a word filter developed by Disney; if a word was not allowed, it was replaced with an onomatopoeia 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.
Sound Effects Used
- Sound Ideas, ZIP, CARTOON - BIG WHISTLE ZING OUT,
- Sound Ideas, TAKE, CARTOON - WHISTLE TAKE,
- Sound Ideas, WHINE, CARTOON - SHELL SCREAMING WHINE DOWN, (Heard in long form each time a cog building falls from the sky)
- Hollywoodedge, Horses 1 High Pitched TE016301
- Hollywoodedge, Sharp Quick Snap Rev CRT017603 (Heard in the "Match Minnie" mini-game.)
- Sound Ideas, XYLOPHONE - XYLOPHONE: LONG GLISS UP, CARTOON, MUSIC, PERCUSSION (Used in "Race Game")
