Go-Go Town! | PAX East 2023

Once upon a time, Go-Go Town! was hustling and bustling with plenty of residents, storefronts, and tourists. Although over time, the town has become rundown and its citizens need help restoring Go-Go Town! to its former glory.

What Is Go-Go Town!?

When arriving in Go-Go Town!, you’re the mayor with responsibilities ranging from gathering resources to managing businesses. Familiar tasks like chopping down trees, refining wood, and constructing buildings will get players started. However, Go-Go Town! is as much about creating a story as it is managing resources. The town’s citizens want to work and revitalize their town, but they have tasks that are roadblocks. Talk to citizens, learn about their story, help with their roadblocks, and gain their trust. After citizens trust the mayor, they’ll happily work in the forest chopping wood, at the ice cream shop serving scoops, or at the arcade making sure everyone has fun playing games.

A Fresh Approach

Similar style games usually have players micromanage more and more tasks as their responsibilities grow. Although, Go-Go-Town! takes a different approach by allowing players to hire NPCs. Jimmy can work in the forest, Holly works at the ice cream shop, or Billy manages the arcade. Hiring NPCs has a few positive side effects:

  • Eliminates the need to micromanage all aspects of the town
  • Enables players to take on new challenges
  • Creates a deeper connection between the player and the town’s citizens

To create the deeper connection, Go-Go Town! takes things a step further. Instead of representing an NPC’s stats with graphs and metrics, Go-Go Town! allows every step an NPC takes to easily be followed. For example:
Jimmy is hired to work in the forest. Jimmy can be seen cutting down trees, gathering the wood, and loading it onto a delivery truck. When Jimmy’s shift is over, he’ll walk home for the night.

It’s even possible to hop into buildings throughout Go-Go Town! to play at the arcade, or enjoy a hotdog. Go-Go Town! feels alive with excitement and activity. It’s clear that the mayor’s actions are rejuvenating the town.

Go-Go Town! also likes to celebrate the small wins. Whenever a challenge is completed, there’ll be a celebration. Once a building has been constructed, there is a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the grand opening!

Multiplayer

Prideful Sloth (developers of Go-Go Town!) have committed to multiplayer. However Go-Go Town! is still early in development, so the specifics have yet to be hammered out. However, some ideas were shared with us at PAX East:
You visit a friends town. If your friend is working on gathering supplies to construct a new building, they might need wood and stone. With multiplayer, it’ll be possible to split responsibilities. You can gather wood, while your friend gathers stone. Then all resources can be combined to start the construction.

While this is a really basic example, the goal of multiplayer in Go-Go Town! is to cooperate with friends and restore the town even faster.

Go-Go Town! How To Play

Go-Go Town! will be available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and PC (Steam) in late 2023.

Add Go-Go Town! to your Steam wishlist and signup for a chance to play the demo from PAX East 2023:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2195120/GoGo_Town

Developer: Prideful Sloth
Publisher: Prideful Sloth

Thanks to Cheryl for walking us through Go-Go Town! demo at PAX East 2023 🙏

Go-Go Town! Trailer

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Oscar Ventura

Oz plays Rocket League and is very bad at it, but at least he tries. As long as there are games to talk about, he's in his happy place.

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