Below, our own Nintendo Pow Block’s Eddie V. took some time to interview Thomas Tobin, part of GameTeam6 Studios, while playing a demo of their game, Tire Boy, at PAX East 2025.
Ed: Hello, everybody. This is Eddie V. from Boss Rush Network (and host of Nintendo Pow Block). I’m here at Team6 Game Studios, and I am about to play the demo of Tire Boy. I’m here with Thomas Tobin. Hello! Can you introduce yourself, and what is your position in the creation of the game, Tire Boy?
Thomas: Hi, I’m Thomas Tobin. I do all the art and make art tools.
Ed: Awesome! So, Thomas, I want to ask you, how did you get into gaming?
Thomas: We’ve all been in games for almost ten years now. I was at Ubisoft, where I was working on large AAA games. Yep. We all met at Unity. We were on the same team. After Unity, we thought, “let’s make a game together. We’re making tools. We’re making games for other people. Let’s do it.” It’s the dream game of what we want to do ourselves.
Ed: How did the idea of Tire Boy come up?
Thomas: There are quite a few versions depending on who you ask in our team. My version is, there are quite a few YouTube videos and TikTok’s of real people in tires. They physically crawl inside a tire, and they hobble around and roll. We saw these two people dueling inside two different tires. We saw it about a year ago, and we thought, “This is the silliest thing ever. Let’s make this into a full game.”
Ed: So the game is running on Unity. Correct?
Thomas: Yes.
Ed: Is it because you guys were more familiar with it?
Thomas: We all worked at Unity, so we’re very familiar. We do use Unreal for other projects, but for a small team, Unity is the main engine you should choose. It’s just easy to develop and quick to prototype. We have a very large world; I think it’s 10 kilometers by 10 kilometers. Most people do very small experiments in Unity, and we thought, “let’s go big and make this happen!”
Ed: I have to ask, what is the story for Tire Boy?
Thomas: Sure. So, the story is kind of changing. Originally, you were on a boat with a bunch of tire people. The boat is sailing, a storm hits, and the boat crashes. As a baby, you fall off. And you start floating away. Neswick, the owl at the start of the game, flies overhead, sees you as a little object, picks you up, and brings you into his nest, saving you. We don’t comment on whether all of the tire people were wiped out in the storm. Just know you might be the only tire person on this island. There are fishmen, and they are now your friends. There are a bunch of different animals on the island, so you should explore and try to meet them.
Throughout the game, there’s a transmitter, almost like a big cell phone. You realize you can repair it and find parts for it. Throughout the game, you’re finding parts and you can use them to connect to the fishmen. There are different towns throughout the world, so you can visit them and interact with the townsfolk.
Ed: Were you guys inspired by The Legend of Zelda series?
Thomas: Totally. I think Breath of the Wild and other Zelda titles have made a big impact. We looked at Breath of the Wild and decided to create a very small scale of what that game has. We’re a small team, so we’re able to pull off that size of an experience. So, it’s how much of what are our favorite parts and what can we encapsulate within it.
Ed: What other games inspired you to help create this one?
Thomas: Definitely Sonic. I mean, we want the rolling to be as permissive as possible. As you’re rolling, you can jump and fly. You see that rail in the distance? If you go to the left, there’s a big rail. If you keep going straight out of this area, you’re gunna follow the path. You can ride that rail to get around the various areas in the game.
Ed: Oh, wow!
Thomas: Also, there’s gonna be huge tire routes that you could ride throughout the world. I’m struggling to think of another game off the top of my head, but definitely, Sonic and Breath of the Wild are huge inspirations for us.
Ed: It almost seems to have some Tony Hawk influences.
Thomas: Yes. There is also some Shadow of Colossus influence in some parts, too. I think one of our long-term big goals is having big bosses that you fight and challenge. We have these rails that you could ride up on, and as you’re moving on them, you will battle them.
Ed: I love the fact that it’s automatic. So I just got on the rail, and there’s this torch line. Is that something that you guys thought about? Making sure that the player visualizes how it feels going on the rail and that you’re locked on it?
Thomas: Totally! We have a dynamic camera system that automatically frames what is the best view of what the player is doing. So, if you’re on a rail, it tries to pull back and gives you a bigger view and aims you in the direction. A lot of this was for inclusiveness. A lot of people, my parents included, really struggle to use both at the same time, so having the camera by default just chooses a good direction as you’re rolling, it makes the player experience a lot better. If you want, you can override what the camera view is. We’re making sure that it feels as smooth as possible without fighting to look around as you’re rolling, because you move quite fast.
Ed: When you’re in your tire formation, it’s very smooth when you’re on the go. You also have the slow walk when you come out of the tire. How did the team balance the transition from walking to rolling?
Thomas: One of the concepts we liked was called glass cannon. You’re very vulnerable, but you do a lot of damage. We took that in the same way; you can only attack when you’re out of your tire. You can move fast in your tire, but you can’t attack. If you’re moving, you wanna be fast. If you’re in combat, you’re thoughtful, you’re slow, you can block. A lot of the world’s design links to that. So, almost everything is smooth. It’s a soft and enjoyable experience as you move around.
Ed: Now, I see that your health bar consists of hearts, which is typical for video games. When you go out and explore, do you have to find certain pieces of containers like Legend of Zelda style?
Thomas: No pieces or anything. We’re taking a little more extreme stance right. Right now, the whole game has four hearts. There are no upgrades. Progressively, as the bosses get harder, you still have four hearts. It’s player balance. Am I eating my food? Can I fight this boss? You have four hearts, and that’s it. It will progressively get harder. Whether we have the upgrade option of getting more hearts fighting them, I don’t know.
Ed: Are you guys planning for any other areas like a winter environment, a volcano, or a platformer layout design?
Thomas: Yes. We took a theme park design. It’s very sectioned into different biomes. So, you’re in the forest biome right now. If you follow the path, it’s quite long. It’s about a twenty-five-minute ride. There’s a winter biome along the way. There’s a forest kingdom with massive flower trees. There’s a port town. So, we want it to feel like you go into a new area. Most of the foliage all changes. It feels unique, and the weather conditions change.
Ed: Are there going to be any towns or secret places that you can go into?
Thomas: Yes! Definitely. So the flower kingdom will be one of them, and it’s where the fishermen are celebrated. So it’s they’re all gardeners. They’re crafters. We have huge statues of the fishermen around. There’s a port town. There’s going to be a mushroom town, and they will be scattered throughout this map. Hopefully, we’ll do future maps and different designs.
Ed: I just got a two-tone baseball bat. I believe that’s a new weapon?
Thomas: Yeah!
Ed: Could you find new weapons around in your adventures?
Thomas: Totally. So, you might find a little kitchenette scattered. Maybe someone is cooking at the kitchenette. He’ll just give you his spatula, and that’s a weapon you can use. One of the weapons in the game is a skull weapon. If you grab it, enemies just constantly swarm you. The best thing about the weapons in the game is that they don’t ever break. If you find a weapon you love, use it forever. You do have these special weapons that either summon enemies or deal more damage.
Ed: I was wondering, are there ramps that will allow the player to roll up a wall or jump off?
Thomas: There will be ramps everywhere! A lot of the fun is jumping from one rail to the next rail. Linking those together will feel like a blast.
Ed: What about the music? What style is the team going for– a more ambient kind of music?
Thomas: The music is all done in-house by Corey Martin. A lot of the style makes the game very cozy, very relaxed. When you transition into the boss area, the music becomes very intense, very dramatic.
Ed: I just got two more questions. I’m writing an article on games or franchises that have earned their stripes. Is there a game or a franchise you feel has earned its stripes?
Thomas: Wow. I mean, my favorite game all time is probably Runescape. A game that still has players from the original twenty years on. I still go back every year and play for maybe a month. It’s a classic.
Ed: My last question is, what is your go-to snack?
Thomas: I would say a maple cookie. We’re Canadian. Maple cookies are really good.
Ed: I truly enjoyed this demo. I’m looking forward to this game. Are you guys planning for a release next year? Is it going to be on PC and consoles?
Thomas: So we plan to have a wishlist available sometime this summer. Release sometime next year. We hope to have more information to share at a later time.
Ed: Do you hope this gets chosen to be on Nintendo Switch 2? Can you see this game in an Indie World Direct or even a regular Nintendo Direct?
Thomas: That would be a dream.
Ed: Thank you, Thomas, for spending time with me about Tire Boy. Where can people find more information about the game and the team?
Thomas: We are on blusky at tireboygames.com.
If you enjoyed this interview, check out this teaser trailer below and stay tuned for more updates on Tire Boy!
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