Not sure I would really count Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman! As a cartoon. It’s a PBS edu-game show hosted by a cartoon dog, the majority of the show is following the contestants doing science challenges, there’s maybe 5 minutes of cartoon storyline per episode.
I think the thing everyone is forgetting is that valve isn’t stupid, there’s no way they didn’t realize you could work around accepting the (legally unenforcable) NDA, and it’s open invite.
Valve 100% knows that keeping it “secret” is good for hype and was expecting this to happen at any time, and the nominal ban was expected, but nobody is gonna get sued either.
More people are talking about Valve’s “secret” new game because of this than would be if they openly announced it.