A Rubber Journey - Tire Boy | PAX East 2025

What is a Tire Person? Are they more person than tire or are they more tire than person? These were the questions we had when Zeb and I got to play GameTeam6 Studios new game Tire Boy at PAX East.

Tire Boy is a game where we get to play as a tire person who can roll up into their tire and roll around the changing world, which has multiple biomes and a dynamic weather system to make the world feel lively. As we rolled and grinded our way around the map, we explored the area and completed quests. 

I was also surprised I was able to pick up weapons while exploring. For a good chunk of my run, I was attacking bears with a katana while also dodging attacks inside my rubber “Crabitat”. I was also given items when defeating enemies where I could bring them to a town to sell to a merchant for new items, weapons or food.

We were able to chat with some of the developers of Tire Boy quickly while playing their game and a big inspiration for them when making the game was a mix of Breath of the Wild and Sonic. We could definitely see the inspiration while playing the game. The traversal and the fluid motions of the game were very akin to sonic and the exploration of the map and even the almost cell shaded art style definitely reminded me of Breath of the Wild.

Another big inspiration for Tire Boy was the real world memes on the internet of people going into tires and trying to roll around in them like some sort of Looney Tunes style hijinx. I think the only thing that was ever achieved from that was maybe some scrapes and bruises and possibly a light concussion. Thankfully you don't have to worry about that in the game and can roll around easily, if it were like second nature to Tire Boy.

I did get hung up on the question of what a Tire Person is, GameTeam6 Studios did say they want to keep that open to the player to figure out but that Tire Boy isn't the only Tire Person. I hope that we can understand more about the Tire People and where they came from when the game comes out in the future. For now though, I guess all we can do is question the anthropology of a Tire Person and follow GameTeam6 Studios on social media or Wishlist on Steam, to keep up to date on their new game.