The festivities may be over at Momocon, but the fun never ends here at Toontown! With the conclusion ToonFest: Birthday Bash, it’s time for a full retrospective on all the stu-pie-fying things that happened throughout the weekend. Without any delays, let’s dive in! 

Day One: Welcome to ToonFest!

What better way to kick off this year’s ToonFest: Birthday Bash than wIth a panel welcoming you Toons to the party?! Even the Flunky made an appearance, who was surprisingly easy to convince… Maybe some Cogs DO enjoy play. Fans were also given Toontown Rewritten lanyards to kickstart the celebration!

Toons searched the Wild Wacky Web far and wide for knowledge on the lore and history of Toontown in order to compete in our Toontown Trivia Bash! The questions were tough, and so was the competition! Despite all the Toon-foolery, our competitors that rose victorious were Lexicon, Strato, and Jake Cheesymarble! Congratulations!

Our next and final panel of the evening introduced everyone to former developers for Toontown Online: Jesse Schell, Ellen Steuer, Mike Goslin, Shawn Patton, Bridget Konopka, Gyedo Jeon, Regine Weiner, and Joe Shochet TOONed in virtually to reminisce with fun stories, go over their experiences on the team, and even share information, such as the Toontown Online Design Document, which is something you ALL will be able to read soon! One thing you should know is that the Toontown Rewritten Team likes surprises, so there were several merchandise items given out throughout the weekend. The first poster was given away after the developers’ panel, where attendees could take home the official ToonFest 2020 poster.

Day Two: Plushies and Playtests and Playgrounds, oh my!

Day Two kicked off with Fish Bingo, a competition Toons could participate in to earn exclusive attendee code cards; new and old.

Arguably the most anticipated panel of the weekend was the “What’s Next for Toontown” panel. Everyone, whether you were in person or watching online was eager to hear new announcements and information. We like to lead with suspense; a video showcasing significant moments in the creation and development of Toontown Rewritten was shown before we answered the question, “what’s NEXT for Toontown?”

As this September marks our tenth anniversary, the Toontown Rewritten logo will have a makeover to celebrate “Toontown RewritTEN”. Increasing the silliness, a special appearance was made by none other than the Toon Council president, Flippy Doggenbottom! He told us personally that he’s honored to have been the inspiration for the Flippy Plush Toy, which was given away to audience members!

Keep an eye out, Toons! Toontown’s birthday weekend calls for celebration: there will be a Double XP Weekend from June 2nd-June 4th. There will also be a redeemable code giving players a special outfit commemorating Toontown’s 20th birthday!

Those Cogs can never quit! They interrupted our fun with a transmission of Cog TV: announcing their plans for… what’s that? Under New Management?! Keep your eyes (and bananas) peeled for facility restructuring, featuring brand new mini-bosses, such as The Office Clerk, and The Club President! There’s not much to be known yet regarding The Factory Foreman and The Auditor, the respective mini-bosses of the Sellbot Factory and Cashbot Mints, but perhaps the Toon Resistance will intercept another Cog Memo in the future. After going through the case files for each of the new mini-bosses, the final trading card in the ToonFest 2023 set was finally announced: it’s The Club President! That wasn’t the only surprise, however, as it was announced ToonFest: Birthday Bash attendees had the opportunity to playtest all of this new content!

This update will drastically change the Promotion grind for each boss, while also making the grind more entertaining in hopes to make facilities faster, more engaging, and less repetitive. Bye-bye, Back Nines! There will now be an easy-mode, a laid-back style of existing facilities, and a hard-mode, which will be high-risk while yielding high reward. 

As footage of the playtests circles the community, please share your feedback with us via email.

As Toontown turns 20 years old, some aspects of the game could use some tweaking. With the announcement of Toontown Remastered, those changes have become a reality! A retexturing of Toontown Rewritten is on the way, and that’s not all! The Toontown music you all know and love will be reorchestrated, bringing music with more character in HD. You may be able to find the first looks of Donald’s Dreamland “Remastered” in footage of our playtest!

We know these are big changes but worry not! These toggle-able retextures maintain the original vision for Toontown while also making a seamless transition for Content Pack Creators. Stay TOONed for more information regarding the retexturing and reorchestration of the game.

The Toontown Rewritten merchandise is amazing! I mean, have you seen those ToonFest 2019 pins? We recognize that our merchandise isn’t as accessible as it could be, thus we announced “Gags ‘n Gears For Good”, our non-profit project in which the community can purchase official Toontown Rewritten merchandise where 100% of the profit goes to charity. We are NOT making, nor handing money off of this project. Look out for more information in the upcoming days regarding this project, as we have asked the community to voice their thoughts on if we should move forward with this project! YOUR voices will determine if we make this project a reality or not!

The final project announced was WELL worth the wait. Starting with the Shticker Book, we flipped through the pages together to find out that the cloud covering a part of the map has disappeared, revealing the new playground: Clear Coasts! This “beach vacation” playground inspired by the Italian riviera is the perfect getaway from Cogs. Leaving off on Donald’s Dreamland, Clear Coasts will be an interactive playground with a unique and important storyline, so stay TOONed!

Leaving off from the previous panel, we jumped right into the swing of the next panel, “Some Assembly Required: Creating the Cogs”. The panelists, Hannah, Matt, and Roe, led us through the early development of the “Under New Management” projects, revealing the early concept art of the new mini-bosses. We also got a glance at their characteristics and battle mechanics. In the end, our panelists opened the floor for questions from attendees, who were eager for information regarding the newly announced content.

Our last event of the day was the Toontown Trolley Championship, where ToonFest attendees logged on via our play stations in order to compete against one another. Those games were no easy feat, but four Toons climbed to the top. The crowned Trolley Champions of this year’s ToonFest: Birthday Bash are Lime, Super Snorkelton, Smirky Bumberpop, and Zeku! Congratulations to the winners!

Day Three: And the Toony goes to...

Fish Bingo made a second appearance on Saturday, giving participants an opportunity to win exclusive ToonFest 2017 & 2018 attendee code cards.

Picking up the pace with a panel, our panelists, Hannah and Daniel took us through the art and design process for Clear Coasts, Toontown’s newest playground! Leading us through the process of concept and 3D art, our panelists showed their references for inspiration for the design process for the playground and its architecture. This “beach vacation’ playground, inspired by the Italian Riviera, uses vibrant colors and playful themes to bring that Toony feel that we all know and love. We caught a glimpse of the Clear Coasts’ Toon HQ, which is looking stylish! Finally, our panelists answered some burning questions from the community.

After so much information regarding such exciting content, the Toons of the world were able to submit questions for the “Q&A with the Toontown Rewritten Team” panel led by Danny, Ashley, Joey, Maya, and Rush. Questions on a variety of topics came in regarding the newly announced projects, Under New Management, Toontown Remastered, Gags ‘n Gears for Good, and Clear Coasts. Whether you were physically in attendance or watching on the livestream, many community questions were answered in this Q&A! Wrapping up the panel, attendees were given the official ToonFest 2023 poster, which celebrates Toontown’s birthday in a parade-like style!

Another highly anticipated event was the TOONY Awards, which has finally returned to ToonFest. One of the best parts of ToonFest was seeing all of the amazing submissions, whether they were online or in person! The Toontown community is full of talent; seeing all of yours has been such a treat! This year, there were 7 categories: artwork, costumes (virtual), videos, limericks, costumes (in-person), accessories, and a cake-decorating contest, which made its exclusive debut here at ToonFest: Birthday Bash! All of the judges struggled with the task of picking a winner for each category. Below is a list of the winners and the runner-ups of each category!

Artwork

Winner: Katie

First Runner-Up: Queen Jackie

Second Runner-Up: McFry

Costumes (virtual)

Winner: Princess Hulagadget

First Runner-Up: Bernice

Second Runner-Up: Lavender

Videos

Winner: Alani

First Runner-Up: Felix

Second Runner-Up: Eggi Teggi

Limericks

Winner: Lexicon

First Runner-Up: Ladie Rosie Crinkleboom

Second Runner-Up: Carter

Cake Decorating

Winner: Princess McZilla

First Runner-Up: Captain Honeygloop

Second Runner-Up: Allure and Gato

Costumes (in-person)

Winners: Amber and Ashley

First Runner-Up: Hare U. Doing

Second Runner-Up: E.J.

Accessories

Winner: Weird Octavian

First Runner-Up: Spencer

Second Runner-Up: Crox

Note: Weird Octavian’s design, a Doodle Backpack, will become an accessory in-game! Keep a close eye on Clarabelle’s Cattlelog in the future.

The last panel of Saturday evening was titled “Mischievous Fun: Designing Toontown”, where our game design panelists, Joey and Ashley, led viewers through original Toontown Online documents that are over 20 years old. From the gameplay loop and how it leads you through the experience of the game to how it influenced Toontown Rewritten’s content as design pillars, audience members and viewers got to see the impact these documents have on the procession of the game, and how it presents in each new project that was announced at this year’s ToonFest. Some of these documents can be found in the Toontown Preservation Project.

Day Four: The Finale

On the final day of ToonFest: Birthday Bash, Fish Bingo made its third and final appearance on Sunday morning, giving participants an opportunity to win exclusive ToonFest attendee code cards.

The Toontown Preservation Project has been a big topic of discussion this ToonFest, and it even had its own panel! In “Toon Time Machine: Hidden Gems of the Toontown Archive”, the panelists, Brie and Joey, brought us through transitional periods of Toontown Online, showcasing concept art, and scrapped ideas. With revamps in Toontown Online, other design documents highlighted accessory and clothing concept art and even personalization for doodles. A special thanks to Bridget and Gyedo, who shared these documents. Rumored content, such as Funny Farms, was briefly recognized and explored and, as a conclusion to the final panel of this year’s ToonFest, the panelists opened the floor for questions from the community about the design document.

In true Toontown fashion, we let the pies fly at The Great Toontown Pie Toss. Attendees got the chance to throw pies at Joey, Danny, Daniel, and Ashley, who were covered from head-to-toe with Whole Cream Pie filling. We are happy to report that no Toons were harmed in the food fight – but that Flunky ran away shaking in his boots!

Whew, after all of this, one thing’s crystal clear: This year’s ToonFest was one for the Shticker Books! If you missed out on any of the excitement, you can find all the funny business on our YouTube channel.

ToonFest: Birthday Bash was a huge success, and that’s entirely thanks to YOU! None of this would have been possible without your continued support and love for this game, and we hope to continue to grow this amazing community. Toons of the world, UNITE!