TL;DR: Toontown: The Grindworks is no longer my main focus project. I’ve still got bugs to fix and ideas I’d like to see through, but releasing a major expansion to the game every few months is definitely not a realistic goal to keep up with.

(Kinda used “me” and “the team” a little interchangeably here, but I can’t speak authoritatively for everyone on the project. Above all, this is just a reflection of my current feelings towards being the lead developer of a fan project I never thought would get this far.)

So, I wouldn’t call Grindworks dead by any means. But I do hope folks understand that going forward, I and many others on the team will be seeing it as a side project. Something to work on here and there while we focus more on our other endeavors.

But I am acknowledging that Toontown can’t be my home forever. I’m very proud of myself and the team’s work on the game, but it’s not a project I think we need to update and maintain forever. Making the project open source was an intentional decision to allow the game to continue through anyone.

To quell any fears this isn’t a “Grindworks is over” thread. Just a bunch of my jumbled thoughts on Toontown development in the admittedly limited time I’ve been doing it (depending on what “counts” to you, either 2 years or 7 months).

Toontown is very fun to work on with the right conditions and people around you. Though by nature of it being a fan project driven solely by passion with no way to earn a living off of it, eventually you’ll have to leave the nest and do the scary thing of making an original video game.

The disclosure mentions that there are AI generated assets that were modified or even just “chosen” deliberately by humans. So there are AI generated assets in the game.

Well, I certainly can't speak for TTR as a whole, but I can say I know plenty of people on the team who would be very against them pursuing AI generated assets. So hopefully those people are great enough in numbers to dissuade them from ever trying it, assuming anyone over there actually *wants* AI.

Some folks get caught up in the notion that AI is the future. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t have to be. Seeing the company behind Toontown fall into this mindset is nothing short of depressing, honestly.