Backstage - Techbots
Heya, Toons! With the launch of the new Techbot lineup, we wanted to take a moment to share our mindset behind these redesigns. After all, this marks their fifth total iteration. You may be wondering, why redesign them again? Weren’t the previous ones good enough? We understand that the community was very receptive to our previous version of Techbots. Hence, we as a team concluded it was best to give our reasoning for the change in creative direction as it is best to align the playerbase in our thought process.
Naming The Cogs
When thinking about the current Techbots, one of the first issues that came to mind was the names, especially in relation to the business or tech world. Cog names such as Shotgun Debugger and Keyboard Warrior, while being related to computers, didn’t have much of a place in the business world. What is a Shotgun Debugger in business? A Keyboard Warrior is simply a person who is angry on the internet. A Root User is a person with high access to a computer. There’s nothing relating these Cogs to the business world, nor do they fit the ideal naming standards of normal Cogs. The Installer Wizard is the best example of this problem. While the idea and premise behind this Cog was perfect, he suffered from being named after a computer program. To solve this, we originally were going to rename him to Tech Wizard. However, we thought that including the word “Tech” would be a bit too repetitive in the nametag. Hence, it was decided that Computer Wizard would be his final name. For naming these Cogs, it was important to ensure that these names were reflective of something you could hear in an office. Additionally, it was essential that any names chosen have been widely accepted into the business world, such as The Big Cheese and Money Bags. This rationale would lead to the inevitable demise of Voodoo Programmer.
The Replacements
The road to replacing these Cogs was long. When the idea was first pitched, a long discussion was started on what was feasible in terms of design. At first we assumed the first three Cogs in the lineup would remain during the revamp, leaving Shotgun Debugger, Keyboard Warrior, Python Charmer, and Root User to be replaced with the following:
Big Brother
Bright Spark
Data Broker
Fat Fingers
Hacktivist
Phisher
Power User
Root User
Sharp Cookie
Smart Cookie
Social Engineer
Trojan Horse
Wire Tapper
The top candidates for the lineup were Script Kiddie, Code Monkey, Voodoo Programmer, Social Engineer, Data Broker, White Hat, Tech Wizard, Big Brother or Power User.
Social Engineer was too on the nose. We wanted to avoid naming Cogs job specific names.
A similar rationale was used for Data Broker, which resulted in her being renamed to Data Hoarder.
White Hat was the original pitch for a long time, a white hat being someone who ethically tests the security of a company they are contracted for. We ended up deciding against using White Hat due to its position in the company, a Cog that high in the corporate ladder would be someone more against the toons than aiding the company in their security. We thought leaning on Black Hat would be a better alternative in the battle between the Toons and the Cogs.
The last in the lineup we wanted to figure out was the final tier, we were deciding between Power User and Big Brother. A power user being “someone who is very skilled in what they do alongside having a higher computer access level”, and Big Brother leaning into big-tech in that “they’re always watching”. Both of these ideas seemed practical, but couldn’t decide on which one would be better. We shifted our ideas and came to the conclusion on something better, Industry Titan. Once we had a lineup that made sense, we got right to work on the conceptualization and the implementation of the designs.
Cog Head Design
During the initial concept phase, we wanted to make sure the designs followed the design philosophies of already established Cogs. There were Cog heads that didn’t quite fit in. These heads were made many years ago and didn’t fit the current standards we as a team held ourselves to. We recognised a few issues like keeping the head geometry simplistic. For example: the Installer Wizard, Voodoo Programmer, Shotgun Debugger, and Script Kiddie. Most of them had an overly complicated design. Compare this to the Toontown Online Cogs and you’ll quickly see a difference. Things that stood out were the mask on the Script Kiddie, the cotton-hair on Voodoo Programmer, the hood on the Installer Wizard, and the tree on the Root User. Those aspects are 3D and goes against the design philosophies of Toontown Online. Every Cog would receive a redesign in some way in order to match the direction we were heading towards. The Industry Titan was the first to have a fully designed concept for the new lineup.
Industry Titan
When designing Industry Titan, we knew we wanted to lean into a Titan and Greek mythological feel. We had designed the Cog to look more god-like in nature and made his material out of what seemingly looks like marble. This is why if you look on the back of Industry Titan’s head, you can see a bit of “unpolished marble”.
Brainiac
This was the Social Engineer’s replacement. It was a NO-BRAINER that this Cog would have an enlarged head. We couldn’t decide if we wanted to make this Cog have a reddish tint due to a bit of frustration caused by the Toons. It was eventually decided to keep the signature Techbot purple on Brainiac. You are able to still see a bit of red highlighting around the edges of Brainiac's head.
Data Hoarder
The original idea for this Cog was to lean into a more Micromanager-esc design. This did not fit what we believed Data Hoarder could be capable of design wise. We took inspiration from the Number Cruncher, giving her numbers that she would be eating and storing in her cheeks. This new design was more masculine, with her boasting a buzz cut. We ended up deciding that making her feminine by giving her Micromanager-ese hair and lipstick would make this Cog feel complete, while also adding some much needed balance to the masculine Techbot line.
White Hat/Black Hat
This design didn’t go through several iterations besides the color of the hat. The idea was nailed pretty quickly as its primary focal point is the hat that it’s wearing. At one point we did consider turning this Cog into a design closer to a Telemarketer, but it was later decided to do a more unique approach.
Computer Wizard
The Computer Wizard has been notorious for giving us problems with designing a Cog that feels just as stylish as Cogs of his tier, whilst maintaining a wizardly feel. When redesigning him, we had taken inspiration from his previous incarnations. With that settled, we could not justify keeping a head accessory as all ideas would not fit the direction of typical Cog designs. We could not figure out a way to make it work, much like the previous Techbot iterations that had a wizard hat on them.
Code Monkey
Code Monkey did not need much of a touch-up. We did remove the glasses as they were unnecessary and did a small amount of simplifying to its geometry. The ears of the Cog had more detail added as the previous incarnation had little to no detail in the ears.That ended up being the entirety of the redesign for the Cog. The redesign allowed for Code Monkey to fit flawlessly amongst the newer additions to the Techbots.
Script Kiddie
At first, we weren’t considering changing much about this Cog. After a bit of consideration, we thought his design was overly complex for a Cog of his caliber, and decided to remove the mask. However, with what was left, we came to the conclusion that the design did not feel enough like a Toontown Online Cog, and generally felt out of place with the other revamped Techbots. Hence, we simplified his design and matched his midtones to the rest of the lineup.
Voodoo Programmer/Poindexter
As a team, we tried our best to come up with ideas on how Voodoo Programmer could look in the Toontown Online art-style but to no avail. The name “Voodoo Programmer” does not fit within the world of business, so we went the route of designing a new Cog entirely. Originally “Phisher” was an idea that we had in terms of replacing Voodoo Programmer. After careful deliberation we had settled on Poindexter, who ultimately was designed as a “know-it-all” nerd which took inspiration from famous nerds in media such as “Sidney Poindexter” from Danny Phantom.
The Techbot Building
When discussing the agenda for the Project Keyscore, this was the least of our priorities, but nonetheless we managed to include them. For a long time, we’ve talked about removing the old version of the Techbot buildings because they did not fit our modern standards. They had outdated textures, and overall looked too different from the rest of the Cog buildings. This process began in early 2024 when we decided to redo the emblem. We had wanted to redo the Techbots signature emblem to something that would fit in with the deceitful practices of business, so we figured we’d go with a download button, typically seen on websites that house malware and spyware. After we had settled on a texture we were comfortable with, we had aligned our building designs with the original Toontown Online building designs, incorporating the download symbol within the building.
Cog Attacks
Coming up with new Cog attacks wasn’t easy. We had a general idea of some attacks we wanted to do, but not how to execute them in the game. We ended up coming up with eleven Techbot attacks, and decided ten was suitable for usage.
Denial-of-Service
One of the ideas behind Denial Of Service was a Cog hand would fly out of the toon, this was changed for a stop sign. Within a DDOS attack, a botnet is used to end errant traffic to a users system causing the system to be overwhelmed and causing the system to lose connection to the internet.
Crash
Similar to its name, you start flying and crash into the ground. We felt that reusing Paradigm Shift as a base was the right feel for this attack. Instead of shaking the Toon left-to-right, the player is shooken up and down. The vortex that lifts you up to throw you back down uses slightly bigger red particles instead of yellow. The particles that would start the attack were removed since this was a single target attack instead of a group attack.
Bounce Rate
This was supposed to be a Bounce Check reuse, however the texture didn’t work out of the box so there were some slight modifications.
Version Control
We had a very simple idea for Version Control: an attack that would mess around with the Toon’s joints. From there, we decided the best way to approach this prompt was to make a Downsize/Head Shrink style of attack. Meaning that particles fly out of the Cog’s hands in an arc formation and hit the Toon, causing something wacky to happen to it. In this case, the particles were made purple instead of the usual yellow. And as for the wacky bit, we thought it would be appropriate for the Toon’s head, arms, and legs to spin around in different formations.
Data Breach
When a Cog uses Data Breach, malicious particles fly out of the Cog’s hands and hit the Toon. We felt that green, square particles would help convey this feel, while keeping it unique from other attack particles. Then 0s and 1s fly out of the Toon and towards the Cog. The reason why we use these numbers is because they represent bits of data, and are the backbone of all computation in software.
Encrypt
Encrypt is one of our favorites out of the bunch as the attack involves a very expressive folder that consumes the Toon and spits it back out. Originally this attack was going to just consume the Toon’s head, but we thought that it didn’t feel right. So we tried another idea: the folder bites the Toon’s body a few times. However, that also felt weird and we didn’t like how the folder was clipping through the Toon. After that attempt, we quickly settled on the Encrypt that we know and love today.
Breakthrough
Finding a signature attack for the Brainiac was no easy task. But then the idea hit us. Eureka! Breakthrough was born. This attack wasn’t always called Breakthrough however. Originally we were gonna call it “Innovation”, but we felt that Breakthrough sounded more powerful and intimidating. From the start, we knew that this attack would involve a lightbulb being thrown at the Toon. But how? Would the Cog command the lightbulb be thrown at the Toon, or would he grab the lightbulb and fling at it the Toon? We settled on the latter because we figured it would look cooler and make the attack feel more intense. Like with Encrypt, this is also one of our favorites as it is very silly, yet captures Brainiac's fantasy of being this super intelligent know-it-all.
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Overload
Overload was very difficult to capture right. We wanted this attack to be another “speak” attack where the Cogs throw words at the Toon, but we didn’t know how it would stand out from the others. Time passes by and we figure that we also wanted this attack to be able to make the Toon’s head bigger upon the words hitting the Toon - similar, yet different behavior to Head Shrink. However, at this point, we still did not know how the words would fly towards the Toon.
At the very last minute, about 4 days before the release of Project Keyscore, we figured out the right feel for this attack: the words would form a wall and then 1 by 1, and fly at the Toon. Upon each word hitting the Toon, the Toon’s head would increase in size. We felt this would make the individual words have a big, impactful effect on the Toon. The feeling we were trying to capture was: wow, there’s so much information flying at me, it’s too much for me! And we did manage to pull off just that.
Then at the end of the attack, the Toon’s head would decrease back to normal. Originally, this was a flat decrease, but this ending to the attack felt anticlimactic. So we decided to add onto this flat decrease, and added an effect where the Toon’s head would quickly bounce up and down in size for a little bit once the size was back to normal, which created a smooth transition from what is a hugely sized head to a normal sized head, thus creating a well-deserved ending for Overload.
Key Punch
Here’s an interesting fun fact: this attack was conceptualized much later than the others. We were working on teasers for the Techbots which included displaying the types of attacks they would have, and felt that we did not have enough attacks for various Cogs. So we very easily came up with a new attack: Key Punch. This attack was very simple. The Cog would whip out either a calculator or a laptop, and a bunch of letters, numbers, and symbols would fly at the Toon. We didn’t know if we had the resources available to make the laptop happen, so that’s why we were considering making this an Audit/Calculate/Tabulate reskin. But because we were motivated, we were able to successfully include a unique animation and laptop model for this attack. We are extremely happy that this attack was able to turn out very well.
Solid State
The Industry Titan is a Cog made out of marble material based on mythological Greek titans, so we thought nothing more but to give it a powerful signature attack with a mythical feel that turns the Toon into marble. Originally we were going to call this attack “Solidify”, but felt that Solid State was better for a Techbot Cog considering that it is an appropriate term to refer to various electronic devices. Early on, this attack would turn you into the gray stone found in the Toon Estates when planting a statue, but felt this was not the right idea considering the Industry Titan was made out of well… marble! So we decided to make a unique marble texture, thus making the attack feel more right at home.
For those wondering “What’s next?”, there are many great things to look forward to. We will be continuing our work on the polishing period, and make our UI much more user friendly. The team will be hard at work to continue communicating what we are bringing to the table via the Discord server and blog posts.
Stay TOONED for what's next!
