Introduction
Greetings, Toons! The Toontown - Operation: Dessert Storm team speaking with a message about the future content that is inbound. We've been hard at work since INTERFACE & INFRASTRUCTURE and are ready to give you the latest scoop on that, plus the future updates we have on the horizon! Let’s jump right into it, starting with…
Latest updates
The Interface & Infrastructure update has brought new life to the overall look and feel of the current state of Toontown: ODS. As a team, we wanted to bring more life to what players see most: the User Interface. The Chat, Friends List and Clarabelle UI were the first to receive changes as these were the most viewed but also the easiest to tackle.
With this UI overhaul, we decided to also revamp our Settings. We aimed to give the user more control over relevant options for a better user experience.
Along with this, we completely overhauled the Cog Building interiors. The Boiler Room floor, Cubicle floor, and the Boss floor have been completely redesigned to fit our current bar of quality for the game. We have received tons of positive reception on this update, some even saying it makes doing Cog building tasks actually fun to complete, which we are very happy to hear!
Sometime after Interface and Infrastructure, we continued to push out smaller updates to the game. One of our more recent updates was a brand new update to our fishing interface, specifically the menu while the main fishing interface is set to be properly updated soon. When speaking to a Fisherman, you will be greeted with a much nicer menu full of options to choose from, such as repairing your fishing rod, buying fish baits, all with brand new distinguishable designs related to each fish, and more.
We also implemented real-time reflection shaders to the game, specifically in Lawbot Headquarters areas and Cog Buildings. Looks like the Cogs hired some janitors!
Lastly, after much needed beauty sleep, Deer with a brand new look suddenly appeared in Toontown as well! Though… their voices are the same as before… they should probably get that checked out! We are happy to have our reimagined Deer models in-game nonetheless.
The end of the Polishing Period
This may come as a shock, but the Polishing Period has now been officially concluded... or well, it HAS been for awhile internally. While the live game of Toontown: ODS may receive smaller updates, such as small tweaks or bug fixes, we are cutting down on production with updating the live game. We have been headstrong in development of the BAT update, otherwise known as Back In Action (BIA) for some time now.
We still have various features that we want to go over and make sure they meet the standard we’ve been striving for, but with the significant progress we’ve made on the polishing period and the kickstart on completely overhauling the game for Back In Action, we thought it best to move some of these projects to the Back In Action project.
Rebrand
Let’s talk rebrand. We have been pretty open that a rebrand is imminent. This new identity will better suit the trajectory we are striving for, as we want to ditch the Operation: Dessert Storm identity for numerous reasons. We do not have an estimated date for when we’re going through with the rebrand, but we want to ensure that the new website and logo encapsulates what you expect from us in terms of quality before there is a full name reveal. We are moving forward with rebranding our website and social media to reflect the new name sooner than the game itself, as the rebrand will be launched with the Back In Action update.
Thankfully, a great amount of the backend of our new website has been completed, and the logo design has entered the final stages of conceptualization. Now we await the necessary assets from our Creative Team to finish the job!
Toontown Central Playtest
Some time ago, there was a reveal of the newly constructed Toontown Central. Now that the Polishing Period is over, the plan for this is to now have players from the community participate in a QA test of the Back In Action update, featuring the new combat, the entire Toontown Central taskline, bosses, and new reimagined areas, so that we can work out any wrenches that may be in our gears for the full release of Back In Action. This QA test will first begin with the team selecting community members we believe are fit for the task of playing Back In Action behind closed doors to give us necessary feedback and criticism on the new combat and the execution of the new taskline experience. We want to make sure these are absolutely perfect before we open the test up to the public.
That’s right, after private QA testing, we will be allowing everyone to play this brand new Toontown experience. Keep in mind that, while you will only be able to experience Toontown Central’s taskline, you will have full access to the brand new combat system, featuring skill trees, Cog Power Moves, and other surprises we shall reveal before the release. We are very excited for this to come out, and every department of our team has been hard at work.
With the Back In Action update, we have changed a lot with the game. For some time we have been deliberating what to do with the Toons, and to what extent we might consider resetting the Toons. We have decided it would be best as this would be an entirely new game to wipe the database. This means you will have to start from the beginning again, do not worry though, as we promise it will be worth it. We do not have an official date for when this will happen, but just know we have our hard hats on ensuring that we construct a positive experience for the playerbase.
Our Older Projects
We’ve been talking about various updates into the game by now, new Toon species, 3D Cog buildings, revamped Toons, and more. A lot of these projects unfortunately still need more time in the oven due to either roadblocks or how large the projects are for our team. Some of these projects will be in the Back In Action/Rebrand project we are working towards, and of course, if you’d like to help us get these projects out faster, we are always looking for other new faces to help us out!
What’s Next?
We want to keep the community aware of the progress we make on Back In Action, and what goes into major updates such as Project Keyscore and Interface & Infrastructure, we’re planning on keeping you updated with the progress we make on future updates! We want to give you a behind the scenes look at what we do as a team and what’s going into all the work we’ve been doing. Here’s a first look at our brand new game:
That’s all for this blog post. We’ll see you soon with even more exciting news!
