The Resurrection of Toontown
Toontown Online was a massive multiplayer online videogame developed by Disney Interactive and Walt Disney. The beta version, released in 2001, was a kicking off point for the game before it officially launched in the United States in 2003, later releasing worldwide in 2007.
In the game, players started out selecting from a range of characters they wanted to be, including a dog, mouse, cat, rabbit, horse, duck, bear, and, eventually, monkey. To level up, players worked their way through playgrounds fighting cogs, otherwise known as business-minded robots, and completing Toon tasks that brought them closer to the ‘gag’ – the game’s parlance for weapons – of their choosing. Throw, squirt, drop, lure, trap and such like were all gags toons could use to destroy cogs. Riddled with mini-games that were fun for the whole family, Toontown was coded with fun for kids and had a plot line adults could respect: to remain positive in the face of adversity.
And then it was gone. Toontown shut down on August 20th 2013.
Loved by many, the loss of Toontown to the internet void created a hole in the community that had built around it. It certainly wasn’t shuttered because of the critical response to it. Considered “remarkably polished for being one of the first family friendly MMORPG games of its time,” Toontown was vibrant, exciting, and something everyone could enjoy. After ten years of being online, a good handful of people had made communities within Toontown forums online and, at news of its death, many felt it was an end to their childhood.
At least, for a little while.
Toontown Rewritten
Joey Ziolkowski, a frequent Toontown player, noticed updates were slowing down on the game prior to its demise. Feeling Disney might end the game soon, he put feelers out on Reddit trying to connect with a small group of people similarly feeling panic at losing something they loved at the time. Despite charging an annual fee to pay, income from Toontown Original had dried up towards the end of its lifespan. Disney stopped channeling funding into the game when mobile apps soared in popularity, and with the eventual loss of the game came a further sense of loss in the community. That’s when Ziolkowski wrangled a small team together via word of mouth in one of the big Toontown forums, MMO central.
“My friend Jeremy and I were faced with the reality that this game we and thousands of people loved was closing in a month. It put us into this panic mode,” Ziolkowski told me. “We said ‘what if we did find a way to bring it back online?’ which led us to getting in touch with this group on Reddit trying to figure out how to.”
Ziolkowski and a few others brainstormed ideas on how to make their own version. Having created Toonbook with a friend, a place where players could chat outside of the game akin to Facebook, Ziolkowski already had a bit of knowledge creating sites. Yet the colossal undertaking of recreating an MMO from scratch seemed like a lot to him.
“I was 15 at the time so my knowledge on how to do anything on the scale of that, like creating an MMO or reverse engineering an MMO, was practically nonexistent,” says Ziolkowski. “I knew my way around making websites and finding my way a little around the Toontown code base, but it wouldn’t have been possible with me alone.”
Thankfully though, others joined in, and Toontown Rewritten was born. The final restoration of it wouldn’t hit the internet until 2017, but the beta phase made waves in the community during its release in 2013, eliciting thousands of emails from former players wondering when they could play, too. However, recoding an entire MMO from scratch took time.
Considering the original was created during the dial-up internet era, the download size of the game was kept as small as possible. By reverse engineering the game from public archives, the group could download the client to their computer to access models, textures, and animations from the game. After that, the team would write code from the server side detailing every movement a toon made. If a toon took a step forward, they would look at what the client was saying to the server and reverse engineer that. Even now, there’s hundreds of different calls being sent back and forth of people fishing, walking, and fighting cogs. Most of that was written from scratch.
“Sam Edwards was the architect of the online theme park server that we open sourced,” explains Ziolkowski. “He was one of the masterminds behind figuring out exactly how Toontown works and being able to set up the technical side of things, while myself and others were setting up our team and community.”
Disney’s legal department left the game alone.
Remarkably, Disney never sued nor shut Toontown Rewritten down. Subsisting on the hard work of volunteers, the site has remained afloat thanks to people working around the world to keep it alive. Like competitors Toontown Clash and Toontown Desert Storm, Toontown Rewritten simply exists to bring joy and happiness to past generations of toons. But that might be as far as it goes. The creators recognise taking donations, and marketing akin to Disney’s original setup, may be the demise of Toontown as we know it.
“There have been some people who try to see if they can make a version of Toontown to try to make money or get ads and the community is quick to shut it down,” says Ziolkowski. “We make it very clear to people that we believe it takes one mistake in the Toontown community and the game could be shut down forever, as with Club Penguin where Disney shut down all private servers.”
As the game grew, so did the community. In 2015, Ziolkowski and his team looked at bringing back Toonfest, a yearly summer event where people could meet each other in person. At a convention called OMG con, a small group of toons met to mingle in life. This sense of community, and the long lifespan Toontown enjoys because of its love across generations, is the exact reason Joey recoded the game in the first place.
“It gave us so much either as kids and we want to make sure it’s available for people to play all over the world,” says Ziolkowski. “It’s rare to find games that attract a wide variety of people in the way kids can enjoy the game as much as adults.”
The project’s website has grown for nostalgic and new players alike. Becoming home to a slew of people during COVID, Toontown Rewritten provides a safe space for those who want to be vocal about certain political issues. Finding likeminded people during a pandemic can be impossible at times, but now that the restoration of Toontown Rewritten is complete, the game has nestled its way into the heart of over two million people. Across countries, people connect as server’s ping amicable conversations back and forth, providing a bridge to a different life.
Disney may have provided a church for those growing up, but Toontown Rewritten has created a cathedral. You can find the game here.
