Development:Disney's Toontown Online/Design Document for On-Line Toon Town Multi-Player Game

This is a sub-page of Development:Disney's Toontown Online.

Design Document for On-Line Toon Town Multi-Player Game was the very first design document created for development of the game, showing basic ideas.

The earliest design document for Toontown Online, dated January 7, 2000, which shows the basic ideas of the game in a very primitive state in the span of 13 pages. It can be read here.

General

• The original plot of the game was that Suits are taking over Toontown to turn it into a black-and-white metropolis of skyscrapers and businesses.
  • The CEO, VP and CFO were considered as antagonists at that point, where they would interestingly be added as antagonists later in the game's lifespan.
  • "Cartoon" villains other than Suits were planned, which were of Weasels and "Bruto type" characters.
• There was originally a "Mickey Welcome Video" planned when they start Toontown.
• The Ritz Karl Toon Hotel was planned at this point, where players originally had their own "room" that could also be accessed from the book. There were also NPCs in the hotel.
• Out of the main Disney characters that would appear, Daisy is not mentioned.
• "Town Staff" characters were planned, such as those that would appear in the "Hotel", "Factory" and "City Hall".
  • A Training Area was considered, where Toons could practice their skills.
• Goals and Objectives and Timing was not written out in the document as of that time.

Locations

• There were three different areas planned at that stage, the Safe Zone (which would be the playground), the Hazard Zone (which would be streets) and the Suit Zone (which would be Cog Headquarters).
  • The Suit Zone appears to borrow from the earliest map draft, mentioning a school and a neighborhood. "dungeons for advance game play" are also mentioned, which would likely be an early concept for Factories, Mints, D.A. Offices and Cog Golf Courses.
• It was mentioned that not all buildings can be entered; it would stay that way up to the beta stages.
• The main hub, Toontown originally had locations that would be drastically changed or removed in the final;
  • There was a Gag Factory, where no info was written there but would likely be reworked into Goofy's Gag Shop.
  • The Library was originally a more interactive place, where Toons could play "word games", like Mad Libs and Puzzle Games.
  • There was a City Hall location, where Mickey was originally the mayor before Flippy would occupy the place, and would be renamed "Toon Hall".
  • A Movie House location was where "Advance(sic) Toons" could make movies or where "events of the day" are played.
  • The semi-infamous Funny Farm location was originally a place where Toons are "carted off to" after they lose all their health in battle. They would have to battle the "guys in the white coat" while using up their resources to escape under the time limit. The difficulty would change on the Toon's skill level, and if they lose all their resources, they're booted out.
• There was also originally a hospital where Toons could get "repaired" after battling Suits, as in according to the next sentence, being flattened where they can be "pumped up" again.

Minigames

• The Trolley was not implemented at this point, so basic ideas for minigames are there.
• There were originally five times of minigames planned, Beginner Training Games, Solo Games, Mini Games, Group Games and Complex Games. The final would simply have two types of Minigames in the Trolley.
  • Beginner Training Games originally focused on interactive elements such as Pie-throwing and using Bananas, but the scrapped "re-painting" feature is also mentioned. Interactive pie-throwing would loosely be reused for the post-launch Vice President battle.
  • Solo Games had simplistic ideas like "Mad Libs", "Puzzle Games" and "Word Games".
  • Mini Games had ideas like "Cubicle Maze", "Toon Raider" and a game where the Toon runs through the bakery to grab as many pies as they can. Though Cubicle Maze would be similar to the Maze Game and the "pie-collecting" minigame would be similar to Toon Escape. It's not known how "Toon Raider" would work, but the name appears to be a pun on the Tomb Raider franchise.
  • Group Games had ideas like "Kick the can", "Capture the flag", "Trampoline Tag" and "Ink and Paint Ball", none of them that would make it to the final. There was also a "Town repairing" minigame where they could also personalize it.
  • Complex Games are likely regular gameplay elements, where Suits could take over Toon buildings and they turn black-and-white.

Customization

• Toons could originally have their eyes and nose customized, being available in two sizes for each species. They could also have their eyes customized in brown, orange and white.
• Toons could also have their head shape customized, in "round" and "elongated" shapes.
• Dog Toons could have their ears customized in short and long sizes.
• Horse Toons weren't present on the document.
• Like in a piece of concept art from around this time, Toons could originally wear Suites(sic), Dresses, Coats, Long Coat and Pants, and simply shorts. The Shorts and Shirt combo that appear in the final is also considered there.
  • Later in that section is the Sailor Suit, placed at the end of the "Large Toon Size" option. It likely further shows that the clothing concepts is dated after this document, due to that clothing being made in other sizes.
• Each clothing options were available in three color choices.
• Accessories were originally planned for the base game, where customization options were available in hats, shoes, bow ties and jewelry. They would not be available all the way until 2011, being the final major content update.
  • There were only three types of shoes; Big floppy shoes, "Minnie Mouse"-type heels and Floppy "Mickey"-type shoes.
  • Bow Ties for the head were considered at that point which would appear in the final, but bow ties for the neck would not appear.
  • All of the hats listed, except for the Goofy Hat, Pillbox and Matador would appear.
  • Jewelry was marked as "TBD" in the document, implying it did not get far.

Elements

• A money system was not implemented at that time.
• The Shticker Book, known as a "Comic Book" had features that were planned;
  • It could originally be personalized with "stamps", "collections" and "portals". Collections could refer to post-launch updates like Fishing and Gardening for example, while Portals could be an early concept for the teleportation system. The Stamp feature did not seem to make it to the final.
  • The player could originally teleport to a location whenever it is visited, but in the final it's restricted to a ToonTask unlock.
  • There was also originally had a page dedicated to the player's room where they could comically "jump" into the page and customize it. They could originally get that unlock from the Ritz Karl Toon Hotel, allowing the Toon to "teleport" to it, and getting into an elevator to the Town Square for quick access.
  • A page of completed Quests was also considered but was reduced to the Quests simply being displayed in the page, rather than a backlog.
  • There was originally a page dedicated to the Levels the Player reached, such as experience from "pie-throwing" and "banana-throwing".
  • The "Opponents Battled" page would appear as the Cog Gallery page in the final, but behaves slightly differently; the "Opponent" is filled in rather than the border changing color.
  • There was a page dedicated to items that are collected, which could originally be traded.
  • It was stated that the book would take "20 hours" to complete, but the final doesn't have any specific requirement to fully "complete" a Shticker Book.
• A "repainting" element was also considered, where according to other points in the document, Toons have to restore color to Toontown by taking back Suit Buildings which are distinguished from other buildings in black-and-white. There was also an apparent customization option where the player could design buildings.
• ToonTasks were known as Quests in this document, where they were presented with more interactive tasks like "Collecting Bananas" for Beginner Quests and "gathering ingredients to make pies" for Advanced Quests.

Battle

• Like with the Suit battle concept, the player had to use Gags to make the opponent laugh.
• Gags weren't categorized at this time, and were just general ideas. "Eye pokes", "Foot Stomps", "Tying shoelaces together", "pinch cheeks", "tweak nose", "noogies", "raspberries" and "rubber" mallets would not make it past this stage.
• Suit Attacks were mostly the same, except for the "straight jacket", "boxed in" and "stopwatch attacks" would not appear. It was also stated that there will be a "variety of penalties" on what the Suit had done to the Toon; the next sentences imply that a form of status aliments were planned, where they could apparently only be healed at the scrapped Hospital location.
  • Throwing Books would "squash" the Toon, appearing in a flattened state.
  • The Red Tape attack would tie up the toon, not allowing them to move.
  • The big eraser would "erase" a part of the Toon, where they must go to the Hospital to be "repaired".
  • The "Boxed in" attack would trap the Toon inside planks of boards, making them unable to escape. Though there is an opportunity for the Toon to be rescued.
  • The "nagging at avatar" attack would shrink them.
  • The stop watch "freezes" the avatar, though it's unknown if it behaved similarly to the red tape attack.
  • The Straight Jacket attack appeared to have been used at the end of battle after Toons lose all their health.
• Battles are turn-based, like in the final.
• Different Levels of Suits were considered at this point.
• Toons originally had an experience points system in order to get higher-level Gags and to face higher-level Suits. The experience point system would be retooled for Levelling up Gags in the final.
• Opponents originally had "counter-moves" to avoid gags.
• Suits originally floated up into the air rather than shrinking into small clowns.
• The Toon's "life-meter" was tentatively referred to as "Humor mo-jo".
• When a Toon loses all their health in battle, they would be put in a straight-jacket and taken to the Funny Farm. They would have to find a way to get out of the location but the task would depend on experience and resources.

Later Notes (circa Spring/Summer 2000?)

The following notes were written in between pages 11 and 12, which appear to be slightly later from that date. The following ideas are transcribed, and the ones marked with a tick would be considered at that point.

Rewards	Activites
Collecting Wuneset Gain New Abilities Access new Territory Resources Story Reward Prestige (Scoreboard/Sticker Book) Customizaion of Avatar Larger Laff Meter	Fighting Suits ✓ Puzzles Quests ✓ Chat ✓ Minigames Training ✓ Gathering Resources Team Sports Repairing/Clean Ups Avatar Customization Interior Decoration Making Movies Music Games Funny Farm

• Toons would access new locations when progressing through the game, but those locations are available via default.
• The health system is now called "Laff Meter" at that point.

(Source: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10ekTuWPoWMipgXd0E3dHBrwxEqwit6sn/view)