Go-Go Town is an upcoming game from indie developers Prideful Sloth. Pure Nintendo went hands on with the game at a special media event this week. We were lucky enough to try the game on Switch and Switch 2, as well as chat with the devs and fellow media and content creators about Go-Go Town and the gaming industry in general.
The setting: an office tower in Brisbane’s CBD.
The people: a talented group of five indie devs.
The outcome: a fun afternoon playing games and chatting about what it’s like to be an indie dev in 2026.
Meet Prideful Sloth
Let’s meet the team at Prideful Sloth.
Prideful Sloth comprises five dedicated gaming enthusiasts who strive to build player-driven narrative experiences. Founders Cheryl and Joel are joined by John to make up the three directors. Along the way, Adam (design) and Anthony (developer) joined the team, both of whom have now been there for many years.
Together, this award-winning team creates crafting games that capture players with charm and whimsy. If the name sounds familiar, you might know of their previous works: Yonder and Grow.
This makes Go-Go Town the third game for this group. Players might remember the lovely Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, a 2018 title that’s described as a relaxing open-world adventure game. It went on to win awards, and even has a physical release.
The team published Grow: Song of the Evertree in 2021. It focuses on growing your own worlds and bringing the Evertree back in a world-crafting sandbox with life management and adventure elements.
Since then the team has been busily putting together its latest entry, Go-Go Town. We first met the Prideful Sloth team back in 2023 at PAX Aus. The game was still in development, and we were privelaged enough to have hands-on time well before it was released for Steam Early Access. Things looked promising even then, and now we’ve come full circle by playing the latest version ahead of next week’s version 1.0 release.
Whst is Go-Go Town?
So, what can we expect from Go-Go Town? In the game, you step into the role of a truly hands-on mayor, building your town from the ground up. As you watch your town grow and flourish, you’ll need to keep everything running smoothly when it gets busy or messy; or when things go spectacularly sideways. To run your town, you’ll need roads, homes, and decorations. You’ll also need workers. Plus, you’ll want to attract tourists, recruit new townies, and customize every corner of your bustling town as it grows. Oh, and let’s not forget bins to keep things tidy, and horses to ride because, why not?
A few things impress with Go-Go Town. First up is the sheer amount of activities to do. You can create a world as big or as small as you like, and then fill it with almost anything. The team has worked hard to use Early Access feedback to tweak the game until it’s just right. Yet somehow they’ve even managed to create a dedicated Switch 2 version; yep, Go-Go Town isn’t just compatible with Switch 2, it’s optimized for it. It’s not something most indie devs can achieve, especially not at launch. But the Prideful Sloth team is nothing if not a dedicated bunch of people.
Another impressive feature is co-op. Go-Go Town on Switch and Switch 2 has a native split-screen mode that allows you to join a friend locally or online. Yes, that means couch co-op is very much alive and well, thank goodness. During my hands-on session, I was certainly guilty of trying to sabotage fellow players, block traffic, and generally cause mayhem. But, you can always play solo for total control.
There’s also a dedicated story mode for those who like to play that way. Talking to Joel, he groups people into three types of players. Firstly those who follow the prompts and do what they’re told until they “complete” the game. Then there are the creative sandbox types who just like to mess around with building and rebuilding. Finally, there are those who could be considered sim enthusiasts, creating efficiency in their virtual world. These are the players who lay everything out perfectly, for example creating multiple, maxed-out storage faciilities with one for each specific item type. It’s over the top. It’s organized. And it’s something some people just love to do.
Go-Go Town is designed to appeal to all three player types, providing the groundwork for an experience that’s unique to you.
Let’s get physical
Speaking of physical releases, the team would love to see Go-Go Town on a dedicated card. No download codes or key-cards for this team, thank you very much. Will that happen? Time will tell, and it is a costly exercise. Yet the team remains optimistic. We’ve all heard the recent news from Sony regarding the death of physical media, causing plenty of commotion among the gaming community, particularly those dedicated to collecting games physically.
While it seems all doom and gloom right now, Joel has a positive spin for the future. He hopes that a trend for first parties to move to digital-only releases will allow a more open-source approach to physcail media. Right now, if you want to print a card for your game, you have no choice but to go through Nintendo. It’s possible that loosening the reigns on this proprietary system could allow indie devs and publishers to print media more efficiently and, importantyl, more cheaply. Time will tell.
Let’s-a-go-go
Go-Go Town is available now in Steam Early Access, and version 1.0 is coming to Steam and Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 on July 16. There’s alos a demo on the way to help people get a feel for things before committing. Check out the release date trailer below, and be sure to wishlist the Switch or Switch 2 ahead of release.
