There is a subgenre in simulation games that can be described as “store analogy”, in which you are in charge of a store or establishment, such as Papers, Try, Strange Gardening or Coffee Talk, about taking orders from customers and chatting with them.
Patattie Games’ new game Wax Heads falls into this category. Speaking to Gamereactor at IndieDevDay 2024, creators Rocío Tomé and Murray Somerwolff described it as “a cozy, punk, slice-of-life record store simulator.” There are a lot of narrative elements, but the focus is also on the puzzles: you have to decide which menu is best for each customer.
“Customers come in and you talk to them, but they never tell you exactly what they want,” Somerwolff explains. “So the your job is to figure it out from what they say, from the look in their eyes, from what you know of the world, to browse the record store and find out which record is best for the person that.”
Despite the puzzle elements, Tomé said that the game is not as strict as Papers Please and is more about “interacting with customers and understanding what they want.”
“Maybe they didn’t make the request directly, so you have to investigate, like a detective game. album, you know, the one with the cat on the cover? You have to look at all the information you have to figure out which one is the best and most suitable for that person.
Wax Heads will be full of informational material, but you won’t need any previous experience to enjoy it
Where did this idea come from? Murray admits he was a music geek who played in bands and bought records, “probably too much.” He believes that there are many games with music, games based on rhythm, but not many games that talk about music from a cultural point of view.
“So I was looking for ways to try and how to express that in the game? But, as Rocío says, the goal of the game is not to make the most money from a record store, but to explore to make people’s relationship with music.
The band will be fictional in the game, but will obviously be filled with Easter eggs and references. However, it is not necessary to have prior knowledge of music history, and the aim is to make the game feel realistic and believable, “where you can enjoy the banter between the bands, the stories they tell to tell,” said Tomé. .
Murray is the music geek (hidden nods to Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous, among others), and Rocío is at odds with making sure everyone can enjoy the game. “If we were all as geeky as me, it would be a disaster,” he joked. “We were like, if we climb too far, we’ll disappear.”
“So, we really want it to be approachable, and it’s good to keep that balance. We want to celebrate the music, and celebrate it. But in general, not everyone feels like, you know, you have to have the pedigree, Yes.
You can watch Gamereactor’s full interview with Rocío Tomé and Murray Somerwolff above, including local subtitle options. In the video, we also talk about how Tomé himself Diggy Doggo: Daylight Dungeon comes to the game as a full arcade console.