Video Game / Toontown Rewritten

Still toony, all rewritten.

Toontown Rewritten is a private free-to-play server of the defunct game Toontown Online.

Like its predecessor, it's an MMORPG featuring colorful cartoon characters living in an equally cartoony world who have fun and play games with fellow cartoons alike. But it isn't all seltzer and slapstick in Toontown: corporate robots called the Cogs have invaded with the mission of ruining and destroying the Toons' fun and turning the town into a dull, gray corporation. The Toons fight back with an arsenal of gags and jokes to take back the town.

The most recognizable and long-running of all the private servers (reaching ten years), Rewritten builds upon Online's system and gives it a facelift or overhauls it in general. For instance, while the task line and battle system work mostly the same as before, there are new elements such as Silly Surges and revamped Field Offices that add to the experience, as well as a long-running ARG to explain the game's backstory.

Much like the other private servers like Toontown: Corporate Clash, Rewritten is completely free to play on its website and built entirely out of the developers' pockets. Also, since it builds upon Online's story, many of the tropes there also fit here.

This game provides examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The Sellbot Task Force questline is completely new to the base game and features all-new mechanics, battles, areas, and storyline.
  • The Crocodile and Deer species were added to the game via election, bringing the total Toon species count to 11.
  • The new playground Clear Coasts was announced at Toonfest 2023, with Donald's Dreamland getting a new street, Snooze Square, to connect the lands.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In Toontown Online, the old Sellbot Field Offices took over street buildings, and the shopkeepers inside those buildings were caged up and needed to be rescued. With the new Field Offices that take over Toon HQs, those same rescued shopkeepers are now members of the Toon Resistance that help guide Toons through the Offices.
  • Toonfest 2023 gave the facility managers and facilities themselves an upgrade, turning the Factory Foreman, Mint Auditor, Office Clerk and Club President into Supervisor minibosses with distinctive appearances and powers.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
  • As opposed to normal Cog Buildings that take over street shops, the Sellbot Field Offices take over the Toon HQs on each street. Also unlike regular Buildings, Field Offices affect the HQ across all districts, not just one.
  • Getting far enough into the game reveals the locked-down district of Kaboomberg, where the Cogs successfully invade Daisy Gardens and turn the entire playground into a hazardous Cog-filled area.
• Alternate Reality Game: While you can play through Rewritten without being aware of it, the game's backstory was revealed in an ARG discovered through tidbits given in the game's news releases.
• Arc Words: Undo mistakes, not fate.
• Arc Number: Weird and important things tend to happen on the 26th.
• Ascended Extra: Dr. Surlee, a minor character that was part of Loony Labs in the original TTO game, is responsible for many of the Toon innovations in TTR, including the Portable Hole (the creation of which was originally attributed to Gyro Gearloose on a TTO trading card) and the Silly Meter. Dr. Surlee is the "rewritten" form of Gyro Gearloose, making him even MORE of an ascended extra as Gyro's only TTO appearances were in the TTO beta intro, which TTR ignores the retcon of in the full game, and TTO trading cards. This time around, he's crucial to the ENTIRE backstory!
• Balance Buff:
  • In Version 3.0.0, the Trap gag was given a major buff. The capacity of how many trap gags can be carried was increased to be on par with the other gags (i.e. 3 TNTs instead of 2, 7 Trapdoors instead of 5, etc.) Trapdoors now deal up to 85 damage (or 93 when organic) instead of 75, and Railroads deal 200 damage instead of 195, which is enough to destroy a Level 12 Cog, and does not need to be organic to work.
  • One for the Cogs — Version 2.0 Cogs were updated to not only ignore carryover damage,^note prior to this, any damage done to a V2.0's outer shell that would bring it over the kill range was transferred to its Skelecog second form but their outer shell also received Reinforced Plating which would ignore a flat amount of damage for every attack used against it equivalent to 1.5 times its level.
• The Bus Came Back: Remember the original intro cutscene from the Toontown Beta where the whole Cog mess got started due to Gyro Gearloose inventing them and Scrooge McDuck accidentally turning them on? So did the TTR team. The TTR storyline follows from that version of the story, retconning Disney's retcon.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Half of the fun of news updates is to see what Sir Max has gotten up to.
• Counter-Attack: The Boiler's "Stamp Of Disapproval" attack. He only uses it in his Defensive Phase, and only if someone attacks him, but if he uses it, the offending Toon will take 50 damage — and that's only how strong it is in a one-star Field Office!
• Damage Over Time: The Boiler's Slow Burn will deal damage to Toons at the end of every turn, ranging from 10 damage with the weakest Boiler to 22 at its absolute strongest. Kaboomberg's Boiler, upon entering Meltdown, will inflict an automatic damage-over-time effect that starts at 12 damage and increases by three damage every turn, slowly getting stronger.
• Damage Reduction:
  • The Boiler's Market Research can apply a percent-based damage reduction to every Cog in battle, ranging from a 10% resistance when used by a One-Star Boiler to a 25% resistance at its strongest.
  • Version 2.0 Cogs have Reinforced Plating, being able to resist damage from every individual attack equivalent to 1.5 times their level. For example, a Level 12 Version 2.0 Cog would resist 18 damage against every individual gag, meaning a Birthday Cake would go from 100 damage to 82 damage, and four Foghorns would go from 200 total damage to a mere 128.^note 154 after the same-Gag bonus — still well short of the kill range.
• Darker and Edgier: Not in the game itself, but rather the backstory and supplementary material involving Loony Labs, which involves a Cosmic Retcon after The Bad Guy Wins, a character undergoing Ret-Gone, and otherwise.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • In Toontown Rewritten, during the Doomsday event, if you tracked down a cowering Alec Tinn behind the Bank, he'd think you're one of the Cogs.
    Alec: Don't hurt me!! Oh, phew, it's only you.
  • The Cogs say different lines in Toontown Rewritten when you use the New Friend command on them.
    [The Mingler] [Adjusts its tie nonchalantly] and [said 'is friendship legally binding?']
  • Back in the Disney days, the signature attack of the Legal Eagle, "Legalese", sometimes began with the Cog saying, "The opinions expressed in this attack are not those of Disney's Toontown Online." With the game under new management, the end of the Legal Eagle's line was appropriately changed to "Toontown Rewritten" instead.
• Experience Booster: The Silly Meter contains Silly Teams which double the experience gained for each gag track.
• Giftedly Bad: Toons go well out of their way to avoid Fat McStink's attempts at theater and improv.
• Global Currency Exception: The Cartoonival prizes are bought with chocolate tokens instead of jellybeans, which are awarded through carnival activities.
• Halloween Trickery:
  • Every year for Halloween, Jack O' Kazam "curses" Toontown to become Spooktown with Halloween decorations, and offers Toontasks to earn jellybeans and a temporary pumpkin head.
  • To celebrate Friday the 13th falling in October 2023, Baron von Booregarde used their Halloween magic to turn every Toon, including NPCs like Riggy Marole, into Black Cats for a day, and on the day itself Toons can permanently become Black Cats if they so wish.
• It's Raining Men: Doomsday had a variant of this, with hundreds of Cogs flying down straight into Toontown Central's playground.
• Joke Weapon: In the Winter Holidays, Toons can throw snowballs at Cogs that do 1 damage and go last after every other gag track, even Drop. Their only benefit is that they don't break Cogs out of Lure status, but the damage is so pitiful it's not worth it.
• Mind-Control Device: The Remote Controls, earned as a reward from defeating the Boiler, allow Toons to control Cogs during battle, forcing them to tell a joke and damage other Cogs or to do a little dance and heal your allies.
• Money Multiplier: The "Double Jellybeans" Silly Meter reward doubles the jellybeans received from all activities, while "Double Racing Tickets" doubles the number of tickets received from Goofy Speedway races.
• Nerf: In Version 3.0.0, the Toon-Up Gag track had received some nerfs. Pixie Dust restored up to 60 health instead of 70, and Juggling Cubes could now only heal up to 35 Laff for 3 Toons (or 105 Laff on one Toon)
• Our Time Travel Is Different: Dr. Surlee's pocketwatch is a device that, instead of sending a single person back in time, rewinds the entire world around it. Dr. Surlee nèe Gearloose uses it to set the world ten years back in time to stop the Cogs from taking over Toontown.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: At the end of every Field Office, the Boiler gives a twist of the classic end-of-building phrase, stomping with each word.
  The Boiler: I'M
  The Boiler: THE
  The Boiler: BOSS.
• Put on a Bus: To avoid legal trouble with Disney, the Mickey Mouse characters are no longer seen roaming around the playgrounds. However, the playgrounds remain named after them, their portraits still appear on all the signs, and again, Match Minnie still remains on the trolley games.
• Random Drop Booster: The "Decreased Fish Rarity" Silly Meter reward made rare fish easier to obtain, before fish spawns were reworked in January 2023 and it was replaced with "Teeming Fish Waters", which instead makes fish shadows bigger, adds a shadow, and adds a pier to every pond.
• Reactor Boss: Boilers are huge Cog furnaces that inhabit/power the annexes of Sellbot Field Offices. Take one down, and its annex is finished. Of special note is the story-exclusive Kaboomberg Four-star Boiler. It is, so far, the only Boiler you will face in a Playground, helped by the fact it was either flooded with Toon teams or you struck a key annex. Whatever the case, once it's doused, those numbers drop fast, from the 200s all the way down to cleared.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Dr. Surlee can still remember his original identity as Gyro Gearloose despite going back in time.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Dr. Surlee went back in time to stop the Cogs from ever being created, but ended up escalating the progress the Cogs had made in the new timeline.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Cold Caller Cubicles in Sellbot Field Offices. The Cold Callers keep the place as frozen as possible, to the point where the elevator doors to the rest of the Annex are frozen shut, requiring the players to skate around turn up the thermostats scattered around the office to melt the ice and open the doors.
• Status Effects: Added in Version 3.0.0 were several status modifiers, most of them centered around the new Boiler boss battle. These included a Damage Over Time effect, Damage Reduction, Repair Over Time, and a Cog-exclusive variant of Accuracy Up. In addition, many old status-like effects were reworked into full status effects, including Lure and the Cogs Miss and Toons Hit SOS cards.
• The Stoic: Much like what was mentioned in TTO's Toon News You Can Use, Dr. Surlee has never been seen smiling. This time around, he has a good reason for it. He does, however, crack the occasional joke. He is a Toon, after all.
• Tragic Time Traveler: Dr. Surlee/Gyro Gearloose went back in time to stop the Cogs from taking over, but only accelerated their progress.
• Turns Red: The Four-Star Boiler in Kaboomberg has a Meltdown upon reaching its final bar of health. During Meltdown, it summons new Cogs at the end of every turn like in Defensive Strategy, powers up all attacks like in Fired Up, uses two attacks every turn (one from its offensive pool and one from its defensive pool), and applies a permanent Damage Over Time effect that only gets stronger with every turn — in essence, once this Boiler turns red, it is literally do-or-die.
• Wham Episode: The finale of the Toontown Elections, "Doomsday", which marks the start of the war between the Toons and the Cogs. Before the election, the Cogs were simply robots programmed to provide non-lethal opposition in Trolley Games. But during the election, as Slappy celebrated his victory, a Level 3 Yesman arrived unexpectedly. Before Slappy could greet it, the Yesman made Slappy sad and kidnapped him, but was quickly taken out by Flippy and a nearby cream pie. The most shocking moment, however, was when an army of Cogs landed right in the middle of the playground. Playgrounds are intended to be a Cog-free area, so you can only imagine the reactions when the sky went grey and players had to deal with several waves of Cogs including the first TTR Skelecog invasion and the first Level 50 Cog, the Director of Ambush Marketing... who is revealed to be second-in-rank to The Chairman.
• Wham Line: "My name◊ is Gyro Gearloose, and today my story is rewritten."
• What the Hell, Hero?: Attempting to issue a Cog Summons in Kaboomberg has the game chastise you, saying the district is already invaded and you'd make the problem worse.
• "YEAH!" Shot: Both when Doomsday was finished and Kaboomberg was saved, and both punctuated by the same inspiring words...
  Toons of The World... UNITE!
• You Can't Fight Fate:
  • Another recurring theme. The events of the past will still occur, but changes are made in the Toontown timeline that either lessen the effects of past events or escalate them.
  • For example, in the Toontown Elections, many players voted for Slappy thinking that it would lead to a difference from the original game where Flippy was always the mayor, but Slappy ended up kidnapped with Flippy becoming the Mayor when "Doomsday" hit. This was intentional; in the TTR storyline, Slappy being kidnapped and Flippy becoming mayor is also seen as being canon to TTO even though TTO players never saw it happen.
    joey19982: By voting for Slappy people thought they would change the future of Toontown, however they chose the exact same path that the Toons before them chose. You changed the wrong variables. If Flippy had won, though... The outcome may not have been much, much worse.

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