Toontown MMO Back: Toontown Rewritten

By Bixyl Shuftan


Some readers may remember when the Newser wrote about the Disney multiplayer online game "Toontown" in September 2013. The overall plot was the cartoon town's inhabitants fighting using jokes and gags against corporate robots trying to take over their home. The article was done as something of a farewell salute as the comany had decided to shut down the game that month. But as cartoon fans would tell you, the cancellation of a show isn't necessarily the end. Fans of the MMO have created private servers of the game. The most popular of which is "Toontown Rewritten."

The FAQ page of the game's website states that the development of the game was announced the day the original Toontown was closed, "for the past month, a band of players known as the 'Toontown Rewritten Team' had been working on the possibility to keep Toontown alive." By the end of October, the game was ready for a small number of alpha testers. At first, the game was just a shadow of the original. But over time, the development team worked on it.  In a few ways, it's gone beyond the original, notably the addition of two more species of cartoon animals, deer and gators.

So how can a game exist when someone else owns the copyright? The game is completely free to play, all expenses paid for by the development team, as well as their time contributed done so for free. This way they avoid cease-and-desist orders. The team says they won't even accept donations. They did say there are several ways to help them out, such as joining online Toontown communities, attending their real-life ToonFest convention, or just playing the game.

So what would happen to them if Disney changed it's mind and brought back the original Toontown? The Toontown Rewritten team states that's their ultimate goal, "Toontown deserves a team of full-time employees who can give the game the love it deserves, and we absolutely want that to happen!"

I've had no experience with the original game, but playing the fan made version, it ran smoothly. A few of the other players had rather generic names such as "Green Dog," but it was still fun clobbering the bots, and doing little games to earn jellybeans, the game currency, to buy more squirt flowers and pies as ammo, and within an hour had gotten a player-owned house and a crack at the fishing game.

Currently, the game boasts over 1,400,000 registered players. For those wanting to play, head to https://www.toontownrewritten.com , register an account, agree to the terms of service, download the launcher, create a character, then step into Toontown and join their deziens as they fight the cogs with a pie in the face and try to have a little fun.

Sources: Wikipedia, toontownrewritten.com

Bixyl Shuftan