Students Blog

Why would a child playing this videogame want to clean up or decorate their room when that is the very thing they are supposed to be escaping by playing the game? The answer is that by buying more items for your house, your happiness points increase. When happiness points increase, you can fight more cogs. To fight more cogs you need jelly beans. So after exploring downtown Toon Town in a few avenues of robot comics I made my goal to collect jelly beans to buy gags and furniture by playing games or fishing. The games are fun, but they take time. And, they don't get you as many jelly beans as fishing. I didn't think I’d like fishing, but because there is some skill and hitting a fish, I was able to collect jelly beans much faster. Oddly, I felt like I was in a rush even though there's no clock or timer except in the games or fishing. While the web site for Toon Town says that I must play immediately to stop the invading robot cogs, they did not appear to have a threat of immediacy. My major complaint was that you could not increase the speed of the gameplay or fight in real time. Beating more cogs also increased my happiness points and my ability to wield more gags.

I transformed from being an explorer to being an achiever as time became an issue. In fact I became so motivated to collect jelly beans that when other players would say hi to me I was worried they would stop me and try to chat. I really did not have time for it. When Mickey talked about how he wanted to go fishing later in the day, I worried that I’d have to fish with him and wait for him to get his catch. (I also had no desire to make a well decorated room, but this is partially because I think that making my room is secondary to achieving currency in real life as well). Also, in the real world if I want to achieve something and someone else comes along and distracts me from that goal, for example reading an interesting nonfiction book, I might also try to avoid that person. I was fortunate enough not to run into any killers even though I'm not sure that option is available in Toon Town.

Finally I admire how the Disney animation team has a constant theme of attacking corporate Dilbert-style managers. For example, Cold calling sales robots wag their finger, put you on hold, erase you with their pencil and choke you with a clip on tie.