Ah, I've been waiting for you to arrive! I have so much to share that I wrote up a handy dandy list. Myself and the rest of the Toon Council have decided that Toontown needs a spring cleaning of sorts, don't you agree?

When Toontown was built over a decade ago, we never dreamed just how far this place would come. Like any town, it needs a good amount of upkeep to truly shine. With our fine new holiday destination on the way, I think it's time to give the good ol' Toontown we've lived in for so long a touch of tender, loving care. My trusty Toon Troopers are on the case to give Toontown a 'Toon-Up' shall we say, heh! Now where did I put that list?

Remastered

First things first: bread. Hang on, that's my shopping list for later. How embarrassing! Ah, here's the list I was looking for. First things actually first, let me clarify what we're doing here! We plan to touch up all of Toontown, not replace it. While these changes will affect everyone, the Toon Council is keeping the spirit of Toontown alive. And some of our plans are already ready to go – dirt is being moved! So... without further ado! Let me give you Toons a rundown…

The very main purpose of this new lick of paint, the nitty-gritty if you'd like, is to give Toontown that fresh feel it's been longing for. Since I moved here waaaay back in '99, our beloved town has seen countless changes. And yet, we've never focused on improving Toontown's very foundations! So, the Toon Council is redefining and giving a new coat of paint to nearly all areas of Toontown – Playgrounds, streets, and building interiors alike.

From the Trolley games to ToonTasks, from your Shticker Book to the Cattlelog, from Make-a-Toon to the Speedway, we've got grand plans! Every Toon has heard the iconic music around town, a famous export of Minnie's Melodyland. Moe Zart has got some new tracks in the works; I heard that new musical numbers are coming to Cog battles!

If Resistance intel is to be believed, the Cogs are going through their own refurbishment. Apparently, the Sellbot Factory may start producing Sellbots with purple suits, their signature color, instead of brown, to give them a unique look from the Bossbots. Who knew Cogs cared about aesthetics? Not me!

Re-Imagined

That's not all, of course! Some areas of Toontown have aged less gracefully than others. Fluffy and I were up late one night looking at old blueprints, and it struck me that Toontown has had several ideas left on the cutting room floor. Some ideas don't deserve to be forgotten though… they can be re-imagined!

How many Toons does it take to move a life-sized blanket? The answer is surprisingly few! Donald's Dreamland is an icon of Toontown – always full of Toons between the Beanfest and the beautiful sights. As President, I'd be so bold as to claim that the Dreamland is the soul of our town… if second only to Toontown Central itself. That's why the Toon Council has settled on focusing our reconstruction efforts there first!

Our efforts in revitalizing the Dreamland aren't quite ready yet – but they will be sooner rather than later! Once we're done, we'll be moving onto other areas of Toontown over time. You may have spotted some work-in-progress construction photos to the right of this paragraph. While our work is almost done, there's still time to let the Toon Council know what you think! I know that change is scary, Toons. But despite being ever-changing, this is still Toontown as you know it!

Yeesh, is that the time?! Right, Toons, that's all from me! I was reminded this morning to pop by Clear Coasts' construction site to take a peek at the progress, and well, I'm still here. So I'll see ya later, bye for now!

Answering YOUR Questions!

So, what do you think? Today, Flippy's post is the next step in our Toontown Remastered efforts. Here's a (not so) quick run-down, based on YOUR questions!

"What is Toontown Remastered? Is it a new game?"

Toontown Remastered is a project to update the visuals, sounds, and back-end systems of Toontown Rewritten for the modern era. This is not a new game, and it's not in a new engine! Because of how much substance there is to Toontown Remastered, multiple parts are being worked on at once by several smaller teams.

"When is Toontown Remastered releasing?"

Remastered content will be released as it's finished, instead of all at once. For example, the Remastered Battle Menu has already been released as a part of the Sellbot Task Force (3.0.0) update and remastered upgrades to Cog HQs have already been released as a part of the Under New Management (4.0.0) update.

Our upgrades to Donald's Dreamland will be made available very soon – we're just putting in the finishing touches! Further areas of the game – from playgrounds to GUI to everything in between, is actively being worked on. We'll keep you updated on our progress as soon as we can!

"Is the look and feel of Toontown going to change? Can I keep the game the way it is now?"

The general brushing-up of Toontown will be achieved by updating textures, UVs, models and collisions. Most areas are getting a simple remaster, while a select few areas are getting small reimaginings. An example of a reimagining is our changes to the pillow in Donald's Dreamland!

Our approach to this has two steps: Remaster and Reimagine.

Remastered will still feel like the original game! While we can't include both the upgraded art and original art in the game for technical reasons, we've adjusted our art direction towards an enhanced version of the original vision, rather than going for a different style. We're looking into the best ways of re-imagining building interiors. Nothing to share yet, but it's on our minds!

Additionally, 3D assets will replace 2D assets in some places around Toontown! These will be toggleable on and off in the Options Menu depending on which look you prefer.

"Are there any gameplay changes in Remastered?"

Nope! Remastered is primarily focused on the art of Toontown.

"How has progress been going so far?"

Progress has been mostly smooth! Most of our collective efforts have been on getting Under New Management (4.0.0) released, and we're now able to place more focus on Toontown Remastered. We had to re-evaluate for a while to re-think our plans based on community feedback. Hopefully, you're all as excited by what we've shown this time around as we are!

"Are any changes being made to Toontown's Audio? What techniques does the audio team use?"

The music of Toontown Remastered is a reorchestration of the existing music. We plan to compose new tracks to fill gaps in the soundtrack (e.g. writing more trolley game music so multiple games don't use the same track), but all of the music you know and love will stick around in Toontown Remastered! Where possible, we reference TTO's original MIDI files to ensure a faithful Remastered experience.

Toons will be able to choose between the classic and Remastered style of music, based on their preference. Going forward, all new music will recieve classic and Remastered style variants!

"What changes are being made to Toons?"

We're working on ToonRig 3.0, which aims to achieve performance improvements with Toons — notably for larger crowds, like Beanfests! ToonRig 3.0 will also make creating new Toon animations even easier for us. In addition, it'll separate individual Toon parts into separate texture files so content pack creators can design their content packs much more smoothly.

Toons are also getting small visual upgrades where it counts. This includes both player Toons and the various NPCs around Toontown. Expect lower-quality clothes from Toontown Online to get upgraded!

Even further ToonDNA Upgrades are coming to the back-end! Essentially, this means that we can enable more Toon customizations. Much of this work is already complete and released during 2023's Cartoonival event. There's still more to do though!

"What changes are being made to Cogs? Will Sellbots be purple now?"

We're also working on CogRig 3.0, updating Cogs yet again for greater animation flexibility and addressing community feedback from previous changes. Based on both community feedback and Toontown Online design concepts, we're looking to give Sellbots a distinctive purple suit. This will better differentiate Sellbots visually from Bossbots as well. We also plan to increase the texture quality of Cogs across the game!

Almost ready-to-release is Quests 2.0, a major behind-the-scenes overhaul to how we handle ToonTasks. This will enable our game designers to create more varied and interesting ToonTasks in the future. Alongside Quests 2.0 we plan to roll out some brand-new Just for Fun! ToonTasks to showcase new possibilities. This upgrade also reduces the difficulty of creating new ToonTasks for us. Archaic systems no more! If all goes to plan, you won't even notice anything when we release this. Wish us luck!

"How is the team handling collisions in Remastered areas?"

The goal for collisions in Toontown Remastered should come down to this phrase: "If you feel like you should be able to stand on it, you can! On the technical end, not much should be different as collisions are essentially still implemented the same way. It's just a matter of changing how they're implemented on the model end, which will allow for more dynamic intractability with the world!

"What's been the easiest and hardest parts of the project?"

Easy… hm. Nope! Can't think of anything.

Updating Donald's Dreamland

As Flippy previously mentioned, Donald's Dreamland is going to be the first area of Toontown to receive a freshening up! Collisions will be refined and blurry textures will be reduced, alongside some other, more notable changes...

The Blanket & Pillow Redesign

Since the Toons need a way of heading to their favorite new vacay spot, we've added a tunnel that is currently under construction, to the pillow! Rather than adding stairs, or letting the pillow be accessed from the sides, we've decided to lower the pillow and have the blanket wrap over it, creating a nifty ramp. We have found that this opens up the playground, and getting from point A to point B is even more straightforward! We think it's pretty sweet.

Redesigning ToonTasks

What's that? We're redesigning how ToonTasks work?! You heard us right, friends! We're rewriting the ToonTask system from the ground up so our team can effectively make, test and balance tasks! What's even more is that we can now design new sorts of ToonTasks, such as catching certain species of fish, collecting playground treasures, defeating Cog building floors, and more!

Join the Team!

If this Toontown Remastered sounds exciting to you, we need YOUR help! We are always looking for new volunteers to join the team. You can take a look at our openings here! We are always looking for new faces to help Toontown be the best it can be.