If you aren't aware, I am a Lead Assistant Game Developer for the project Toontown: Event Horizon. Considering this has been a big part of my life being on this team, I figured it would be good to write down a bit about how it was to join the team
Now picture this. Its 2022 and its been a good ol` time within the Toontown community. Really, I was more a moth on the wall to most proceedings, not getting up to much. Que when I spotted somebody posting about a new up-and-coming server called Toontown: Event Horizon. I had at that point... "theoretical" game dev experience. With Corporate Clash and Rewritten at the time being most people's picks, seeing a server that was experimenting with not just new tracks, but new concepts of battle entirely was exciting.
I decided to throw my application written with my two moth paws. I hoped that having at least some experience with game development work would net me a look at, luckily that was just what happened as I was tested on my abilities to see if I was a good fit.
Follow with 3 tasks given, and completed, well before the deadline in a feverish excitement. Lo and behold I did good enough to get accepted onto the team. It was daunting, but ultimately it has been extremely positive for me. People are friendly, exciting, and really shows how experience, ideas, and skills can come together to work on something amazing.
I cannot compare my experience to other similar volunteer projects. However, I will say working in Toontown: Event Horizon for the past... 3-ish years, at time of writing, has been wonderful. I work with some great, and passionate people that contribute lots to the game's progress. Seeing the game transform from what amounted to a proof of concept in most people's eyes, to really showing off this will be a whole new experience was a huge milestone. There is a level of flexibility to the team structure that meant people were allowed to mix and mingle with other departments, which has helped in making sure departments worked well together, and even had people picking up new positions based on their performance!
If I went more into detail with my experiences this "blog post" will be more aligned with a "blog essay". Some day I may go into detail (when it also won't break my NDA). Until then, really do check out Toontown: Event Horizon.
In fact, go check out all the cool Toontown projects that have been exploding in the past years! Toontown: Rewritten got some new bosses, Corporate Clash is a fresh take on the formula, and Toontown: The Grindworks is the start of what is hopefully the start of new kinds of single-player fan projects.
For those out there with abilities that you may think would help out, remember that almost every community has a place for you. There are always fan projects needing more volunteers, wikis to be maintained, and even creating art are all ways a person can contribute to keeping their community alive. Try it! You will meet some very cool people in the process.