Toontown Online

Players could create characters called "Toons". Players were able to customize their Toons in various shapes, colors, clothes, and sizes, as well as their species, with choices consisting of cats, dogs, ducks, mice, pigs, rabbits, bears, horses, and monkeys.[7]

Cogs were the antagonists in-game, stylized to be corporate robots that wanted to take over the town to propagate business culture. Cogs came in four types: brown-clad Bossbots, blue-clad Lawbots, green-clad Cashbots, and maroon-clad Sellbots, each with increasing levels throughout the game that increased their health and damage.[8]

Toons began with basic 'Gags' and a 15-point 'Laff' meter and had a maximum of 137 point Laff meter at the end of the game. Gags, rooted in old cartoon slapstick humor, were weapons used to destroy the Cogs in Cog battles. Each 'Gag track' had Gags with different properties that could be unlocked by completing 'ToonTasks' and each gag track would get progressively more powerful as Toons used their gags more.[9][10] The Laff meter functioned as a health meter, representing how much damage Toons could take from the Cogs before going 'sad' – in-game defeat.[11] Cogs were battled using a timed turn-based combat system with up to four Toons in a battle. Cogs could be fought on the streets of the game, in 'Cog Buildings' or in their own designated 'Cog HQ', with each Cog HQ having a boss that could only be fought by obtaining a full set of the HQ's Cog disguise. These include the Senior V.P. (Vice President, Sellbot HQ), C.F.O. (Chief Financial Officer, Cashbot HQ) C.J. (Chief Justice, Lawbot HQ), and C.E.O. (Chief Executive Officer, Bossbot HQ).[12]

A Toon in Toontown Central, the first playground available in-game.

Playgrounds were the only areas of Toontown permanently safe from Cogs. In the playgrounds, Toons could regain lost Laff Points, receive or complete ToonTasks unique to each playground, purchase gags, play trolley games, go fishing, kart racing, or golfing. By completing ToonTasks, Toons would grow in strength through additional Laff Points or new Gags. Laff Point increases were also available through fishing, racing, and golfing challenges. There was a playground in each neighborhood of Toontown. Each playground featured one of Disney's classic animated characters as a non-player character. The main playgrounds were Toontown Central, Daisy Gardens, Donald's Dock, Minnie's Melodyland, The Brrrgh, and Donald's Dreamland, along with extra playgrounds such as Goofy Speedway and Chip 'n Dale's Acorn Acres.[13]

Every Toontown Online account came with a player's estate. Each estate consisted of a fishing pond and six houses for each Toon on the player's account. Players could customize their Toon's appearance and home with objects ordered from the in-game catalog ('Clarabelle's Cattlelog') by using jellybeans, the in-game currency. Wardrobes and accessory trunks held clothing and accessories that were not currently being worn by the player's Toon. Other elements of estates included Doodles (pets), gardening, fishing, and the ability to purchase various types of in-game items from Clarabelle's Cattlelog.[14]

Toontown Online was marketed and developed for players of all ages, which is why a chat restriction was placed on the game. Players could initially only chat using "SpeedChat", a list of pre-approved phrases set by Disney that the player could select. It included general English phrases, in-game strategy phrases, and, occasionally, seasonal phrases. Players could purchase more SpeedChat phrases using, most of the time, 100 jellybeans. "SpeedChat Plus" and "Secret Friends", later renamed to "True Friends", were introduced sometime after the game's release, which had to be enabled using a parental account if the player was under 13 years of age. SpeedChat Plus allowed the player to type their messages against a word filter developed by Disney; if a word was not allowed, it was replaced with an onomatopoeia of that player's Toon's species. True Friends allowed players to chat with a less restrictive filter with certain friends who have shared a "True Friend code" with each other.[15]

Parties were hostable, plannable, and customizable events by Toons. Toons would use their stored jellybeans in their bank to customize and add content to their parties, such as fireworks, minigames (Tug-O-War, etc.), trampolines, party cannons, etc. To plan a party, Toons would go to a Toon Party Planner. Toons could also customize their invitations to these parties.

Platform Publishing, a subsidiary company of Sony Online Entertainment that publishes games for third-party developers, acquired rights to publish a CD version of Toontown Online in August 2005 for the PC and their intention to bring the game to online game consoles.[16][17][18][19] Toontown Online became available on CD for the PC on October 3, 2005.[20] This allowed players to play the game without downloading it onto their storage devices. This version came in a box set with two months of subscription, a poster, a game manual, and an in-game bonus.[21] Toontown Online chose to create a CD that could be purchased in stores, due to customer insecurity when downloading and buying things online that they could not physically hold.[22]