Today's Document
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Game of Thrones Daily
d e v o n
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Peter Solarz
Xuebing Du
izzy's playlists!
occasionally subtle
★
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"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
sheepfilms
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
taylor price
titsay
shark vs the universe
cherry valley forever
art blog(derogatory)
trying on a metaphor
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@iammactastic
Instead of commissioning artists to create high definition copies of each room from the Virtual Magic Kingdom for about $1000 per room, maybe the use of artificial intelligence can assist. With modern day upscaling techniques, any image can be upscaled with little to no impact on quality. It isn't perfect - the detail of any sign with text in a room is lost more than I'd like it to be. The text on a lot of the signs would have to be corrected manually.
This is a continuation of the new user interface that I've been working on. Players are now able to add friends with their username. You can also get a partial look of what friends look like. Next up is the inventory and shopping user interface.
This is what I feel like a new logo for a direct sequel to Virtual Magic Kingdom would look like. The game would be similar to Club Penguin Island, but the game would be free-to-play with micro-transactions.
History of VMK & More
I've been doing some more digging into the development of the game we've come to know and love called VMK. What I've come across is very interesting. As you may already know, there was a video game called Virtual Magic Kingdom being developed from Summer 1996 to Fall 1998. Disney Interactive Studios, what you now know as Disney Interactive, spent millions of dollars on the project, had over 50 people working on it, and it was canceled or so we thought. Now I'm going to move forward to the early 2000s - management at Disney Interactive Studios had it in their minds that virtual worlds were going to be very popular and an important asset for the Disney brand, so they started to develop Toontown Online. To their surprise, it was released in June 2003 with extraordinary sucess. Sometime later, the people at Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, a subsidirary of Disney, were introduced to a virtual world called Habbo Hotel, created by Sulake and wanted to create a similar game to help increase relevancy of the Disney Parks brand with tweens and teens. In December 2003, a multi-million-dollar, multi-year contract was signed between Walt Disney Parks and Resorts and Sulake. Sulake would provide the technology to build and operate the Virtual Magic Kingdom. They would also provide Community Support, which are the Moderators and Hosts of VMK. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts managed the game and most if not all of the artists were employees of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. While the game was operating, they were collecting metrics (analytical data) to show their bosses how well the game was performing. If you didn't notice, they were always up-to-date with the latest news from Disney Parks on the official website. Operations ceased in 2008 and became an important part of Disney history.
Additional Notes:
Moderators and Hosts of VMK had a college education with varying degrees that have something to do with business, computers, family or society.
A lot of the Moderators and Hosts of VMK moved to moderating Habbo Hotel for about a year or so, then moved onto something else.
Artists used Photoshop, Illustrator and Maya to create assets for VMK. Clothing, furniture, and NPCs were initially 3D models. Due to technical limitations, they were converted into 2D images to be used in the game. If they were rigged and animated, then an image was created for each frame of the animation.
From what I've seen, the artists, most of the moderators and hosts and even some of the programmers didn't move up the ladder. Some aren't even employeed or are freelance artists, which is sad. I thought the artists would continue to make art, but I am unable to find anything substantial. Usually artists would have a large portfolio on Behance or ArtStation.
Disney Interactive was working on a new virtual world called ImagiNation for about a year in 2011/2012, but the project was canceled.
Unfortunately, the art director for the game died in 2015. He was responsible for reviewing all art assets for quality and continuity with vision from producers and creative directors.
No, I won't provide personal information of the people that worked on the game and please don't contact them.
As you can see by the amount of virtual worlds that have been discontinued by Disney and other studios, virtual worlds are no longer relevant. With the amount of active players and/or paying subscribers for various IPs, it had gotten to a point where it became economically infeasible to operate and maintain these IPs.
I would like to create a new virtual world in 2020 or later, but I don't see a viable business model in sight - a business model that is economically feasible.
What work did you do for Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom?
I worked as part of the team that developed a product for Disney called Disney Mobile. As part of that, we developed a concept for how we would create a monile version of the game which we pitched to the VMK people. Sadly Disney Mobile was shut down shortly after launch because the iPhone was launched and completely changed the product landscape. We actually shared our office space with the VMK development team.
I never knew Disney had developed a concept for a mobile version of the game before the iPhone was released. Players would have played it on a Nokia smartphone.
This is a continuation of instant messaging. You’ll be able to message your friends whether they are online or offline and view previous messages even after you log out. If you’re familiar with the Messages application on iOS or Android, then this isn’t that different.
I’ve been really busy, but I am back. Say Hello to instant messaging! You’ll be able to message your friends whether they are online or offline and view previous messages even after you log out. If you’re familiar with the Messages application on iOS or Android, then this isn’t that different.
This is another peice of artwork that I recreated from the Virtual Magic Kingdom. This was a pamphlet inside the initial release of the Herbie Fully Loaded DVD, which was released in 2005.
This is the happy emoticon. I want to recreate the full collection of emoticons and create new emoticons to go along with them, but I don’t have the time.
I recreated another peice of artwork from the Virtual Magic Kingdom. This is based on marketing material for an Alpha build of the game. It is missing some avatars and items because I am unable to locate them.
This is a continuation of my vision for the new client. I’ve been adding new UI elements to represent new features. This is a time consuming project and I’m busy, so it will take some time to complete.
This is the animation for a Toon model that was exported from the Toontown 2.0 prototype. The animation is of the Toon running in place, but if it were playable, the Toon would be moving while running in a playground or a street.
This is an early commission of the Castle Gardens room featured on VMK. It is based on the exterior of the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Paris.
As part of my vision for the new client, I have recreated the VMK toolbar. The font has been replaced with Verdana. The Camera icon was redesigned to more accurately resemble a Camera.
This is a recreation of most of the objects shown on the arcade cabinets that were once at Disney Parks. Players could go to a Disney Park and play VMK on an arcade cabient.
The logo is beautifully designed. It's a responsive logo. This means that there are multiple ways of displaying the logo, which is one of the reasons that I like it so much. Credit goes to the artist/s that designed it.
This was the font used for the Virtual Magic Kingdom logo and it can be seen in the game's user interface. It's a proprietary font - proprietary fonts are made to be used for a product, service or brand. It is an important part of the game's visual identity. Credit goes to the artist/s that designed it.
