Romance is the name of the game system which runs Tootsville, and which could, in future, be adapted to run other games as well.
The name “Romance” has a similar meaning to its usage in ``Romance Languages,'' i.e. it means made of Romans, not “romantic.” The original software modules of which Romance was made, and into which it will be subdivided again for purposes of modularity in the 2.0 series, are each named after a famous Roman.
Romance has a few technological goals. It is intended to be comprehensive and flexible enough to handle a variety of game worlds, although it necessarily has deep ties to Tootsville. Romance also is based on a model in which peer-to-peer communications are used for real time activities, while the central servers are reserved for persisting the world's state while it is quiescent.