#10 - Button City and the Power of Friendship

If you only go in from the outset of Button City thinking its core theme is being a love letter to games, you wouldn’t be that far off. Subliminal Gaming co-founders Ryan and Shandiin Woodward certainly helped shape Button City with that motif in mind. But there’s another aspect too that feels instrumental to what Button City is about at its core: friendship.

“A lot of their tactics to try to save the arcade just don’t fully help, honestly,” says Ryan Woodward. “I think that was something that we kind of wanted to be like, ‘Hey, sometimes, things are a little bit bigger than just you, you know’. But I think it’s really more about the friends you made along the way or something like that.”

Adds Shandiin Woodward: “I hope people are able to see the characters and find characters that they resonate with. We tried to really make a very colourful, diverse cast. People with different family structures, characters with disabilities, characters with different personalities and dynamics. And I hope people find someone that they can relate to or latch on to.”

Several years after development began, next week, Button City will release into the world. Here, the Woodwards go into detail about how it was shaped, its themes of friendship, the slice of life influences and more and how the power of friendship shines through the game.

[NOTE: This is a change in a previously-advertised episode on Skatebird. That will, however, arrive next month just before the game launches]

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