Toontown 2.0
| Toontown 2.0 is not an actual subject, meaning it is not in the actual version of Toontown and/or was scrapped. |
The project best known as Toontown 2.0 (also referred to as Toontown 2) was a tech demo within Disney Interactive for a possible conversion of Disney's Toontown Online to the Unity engine. The development of Toontown 2.0 began sometime in or after 2010, but was canceled and its team dismantled by 2011.[1]
The prototype made for Toontown 2.0 can be found to play here.
Gameplay (Toontropolis Prototype)
The game starts at a title screen with the Toontown logo. Blinking eyes are seen along with a Doodle walking on a spinning gear. Text on the bottom of the screen says "Click to play". Clicking on the text brings you to a loading screen that says "Toontropolis is Loading now". When the game loads, a sparkle noise plays as the game begins.
Using the arrow keys or WASD moves the Toon around. Toontropolis is a new expansion of the original Toontown Central ( inspired by Toontown from Who Framed Roger Rabbit ). As you walk out of the starting place, you can find a new Goofy's Gag Shop design, a music building, the ice cream shop, the pet shop, and the clothing store. Right next to Goofy's Gag Shop, you can find a bike horn, a dummy cog from Cog-O-War, and a target. Stepping on the target released an anvil on a string hitting the dummy cog. Touching the bike horn honks a horn on a big hand at the dummy cog.
The music shop has three rows of piano steps in which is interactable. The first row plays duck sounds, the second plays piano sounds, and the third one doesn't play anything. Clicking and dragging your cursor around can also move the toon to play on the steps. Cymbals around the shop can be played, playing different sounds such as monkeys, guitars, anvils, and cymbals.
Going around to the Electric Plant at the hill has a big switch that can be flicked on and off. Flicking the switch turns Toontropolis dark and makes a moon appear in the sky. All the buildings start to sleep until the switch is turned back on to the Daytime.
The Toon hall, Library, and Bank can all be seen in the last section of Toontropolis. The Toon hall can be seen with a huge new design, some of the inspiration coming from the Mickey's Toontown Toon hall, with the whistles, cannons, and bell taken for the design. Backing up from the Toon hall onto the path to the Electric Plant will reveal the Cogdominium. Which will make the Library and the Bank shake in fear.
The Cogdominum will drop on the Toon hall as it looks around with a menacing look, playing evil music in the background. The elevator doors on the building will open to reveal the Cogs, in which 4 Flunkies and a Big Cheese comes out and wander the town. These cogs and the building cannot be interacted with.
History
Disney's Toontown Online runs on the Panda3D game engine. While Panda3D (as an open-source game engine) remains in active development even after Toontown's closure, Disney had considered "remaking" Toontown in a new engine to have more versatility for things like multiple fluid animations.[2]
David Rose, a software engineer at Walt Disney Imagineering,[3] created a "basic version" of Toontown's functionality within Unity.[2] Felipe Lara, a former art/creative director at Disney, was responsible for creating concept art in the general creative direction of what Toontown 2.0 could look like. His work included modeling levels[4] and characters; notably, Toons were fully animated including mouths, eyelids, eyebrows, and more all being independently animated.[1]
Unfortunately, Toontown's development team realized that it would require a lot of effort to recreate all of the resources from Toontown in the Unity engine.[2] Disney was not looking to make such a massive investment into Toontown at that time,[2] regardless of the efforts of its developers in trying to revive the project,[1] resulting in the project being scrapped.[1][2][4]
Trivia
- With the game being unfinished, several bugs can be found when playing.
- Although some buildings are seen bouncing and being alive, the ice cream shop and the electric plant are not seen alive.
- None of the buildings are enterable.
- Pressing the "M" key brings up a menu for more controls.
- Some buildings are seen as decorations, yet they are using default wall textures.
- The Cogdominium seems to have Field office eyes.
- Some buildings in the game aren't finished yet. (Such as the Kaboomery, the Oodles of Doodles, and the Water Planet use their concept art.
- A Rocketship behind the Oodles of Doodles building can be seen, and was the way to play the Escape from planet doodle game.
- Some promotional material like the silly-meter signs from the commercial can be seen.
- The updated cog suits and heads can also be seen.
Gallery
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