1 October, 2018
For my English 1101 class, we are observing any type of game and analyzing it. When I heard of the prompt, I could not think of game that I would want to observe. First I thought of PUBG, but I wondered if it any meaning to it. Then I thought of Fortnite and how popular it was. It couldn’t be just a game and it should have a back story. After I observed the game and wrote some notes, I did not want to do Fortnite anymore. I thought it was too boring and not creative enough. There might be another person analyzing Fortnite. I scrapped the whole idea. During my class discussions, we talked about games that involved going into several pathways. I thought of observing ToonTown. I know not a lot of people know about this game, so I’m going to write a paper about ToonTown.
I would have played ToonTown if I could, but I have to watch someone play and see what they would do. I asked one of my cousins to play it for me. After many scolding and begging, she finally caved and said yes. I had all ready downloaded the software onto my laptop, so I opened my laptop and clicked on it. I haven’t been on ToonTown for a while, so it had to re-update. It took an hour for it to stay on one file. I asked my cousin if she could download the software, so she could play. She pulled out her laptop and she downloaded the software. She clicked on it and I put in my username and password. I said to her I wasn’t going to talk to her or say anything.
We were on the homepage and she clicked on “Make A Toon”. She picked boy as her gender. At 11:00 A.M., she shuffles through animal and picks a duck. She goes through the colors and makes the duck yellow. At 11:01 A.M., she shuffles through the article of clothing. She makes her decision and ends up with a purple vest and white shorts. She picks her name, shuffles through the name selections and ends with her name as Professor Felix Flippergrin. Her character has been finished and she enters to ToonTown world. She goes through the tutorial with Tutorial Tom. She skims the directions of the game. At 11:02 A.M., she receives her first gag from Tutorial Tom. Tutorial Tom tells her to go outside and defeat some cogs. At 11:03 A.M., she leaves the door. She finds a cog and uses her gag for the first time. She defeats the cog. There is a message that tells her to go to Toon Headquarters. At 11:05 A.M., she walks to Toon Headquarters and talks to HQ Harry. She skims through his dialogue and walks out of Toon Headquarters. At 11:06 A.M., she meets Flippy, who teaches her how to use the chat button. She skims through his dialogue and continues. She walks around the playground; she explores everything and says hi to everyone. At 11:08 A.M., she discovers the Trolley and starts playing mini games. She avoids yet another tutorial. At 11:11 A.M., the game ends and a message pops up saying she needs to go to HQ Harry at Toon Headquarters. She goes to Toon Headquarters and meets HQ Harry. She disregards HQ Harry’s message and leaves Toon Headquarters. “Is that Loopy Lane? Where am I suppose to go?,” she said. At 11:12 A.M., she accidentally walks onto the dock. She discovers that you can fish in this lake. She gets distracted from her tasks and goes bingo fishing. “I don’t have any more thingys,” she said. This means that she doesn’t have any more jellybeans in her jar. At 11:13 A.M., she goes to the Trolley and plays more mini games. At 11:23 A.M., another message appears on the screen to remind her of her tasks. “This game is boring. I want more yogurt,” she said. She leaves the trolley and enters Loopy Lane. “Where do you have to go to kill someone. I want to kill someone, but that guy is too much, he’s too scary and fat,” she said. “Is that a girl?”, she said pointing at the Name Dropper, “He has a pretty big mouth.” At 11:25 A.M., she approaches a Bottom Feeder Level 2. “Why is his name Bottom Feeder?,” she said. He stamps her which makes her Laff Point decrease by 3. She attacks by pie and misses. Bottom Feeder attacks her and her Laff Points decrease by 5. She throws a pie and decreases the cogs Health Points by 4. This makes the cog erupt into parts. At 11:27 A.M., she goes up to another Bottom Feeder and throws a pie. This decreases the cog’s Health Point by 6. This makes another cog erupt into parts. Her throw and squirt levels increase. She receives another gag, Blueberry Pie. For thirty minutes, she plays more mini games in the Trolley.
Before the observation, I was expecting she would calmly go through the tutorial. She would read everything, follow the rules or play it fairly. During the observation, I was really surprised to see that she was skimming through the tutorials. She wasn’t even taking a backward glance on the directions. She did everything opposite of what the directions told her. “Has she all ready played before?” or “Is this game bad?” were wondering through my head.
-Felicia Tran
Toontown 