Been away from my PC for a couple weeks so haven't had time to play many Next Fest demos. Instead, I thought I would focus on the handful of indies with demos that I've had on my wishlist for a while and that I'm excited to play once they fully release.

Wax Heads:

Music goes with just about anything in my opinion - I love music! Seeing that Wax Heads lets you run your own record shop, making record suggestions to customers had me interested from the get go. A satisfying, 2D, cosey, narrative sim where you're a new start at a record shop, tasked with the general running of the place.

The level of polish being pulled off by an indie team of two developers is beautiful here. I like that straight away it's clear they've produced their own original soundtracks which fits perfectly, it's all very fitting for an indie record shop game and I like that they've covered a lot of different genres. The accessibility and difficulty features when starting a new game is neat too, allowing for an easier perfect playthrough if desired. If readability is a problem for people there's a dedicated button to help display simple text on plain backgrounds when reading tutorials.

What distinguishes this from similar sim games like Papers Please is that you have to get out from behind your desk and explore the shop in order to find the perfect record. It doesn't get bogged down in the sim aspects either, it's a breeze to get around and reminded me a lot of the old flash and web based games. I have such fond memories of exploring music shops throughout my life and part of the joy is seeing the album art smattered throughout the shop, posters, tshirts, vinyl, CDs, maybe cassette if you're lucky, and samples of the music playing in the background or headphones available for you to listen to some of the samples. It's all tangible, real stuff, and this game gets that feeling of discovery across beautifully. In the best possible way, it feels like Wax Heads has been smacked around the face with a big dollop of art and creativity, which is all you can really wish for really.

There's more to the game than just making recommendations; you design flyers for bands, organise the notice boards, read reviews in the local music newsletter, open up the shop in the mornings, customise receipts... there's just tons of heart and soul here and I'm all for it. There was a time where I might have looked at a 2D narrative sim and thought "eh, not for me" but if there's a game that could shake that preconception up and turn it on its head, it's this. I can't wait to play the full release!

Wax Heads is releasing May 5th on all current platforms. It's being developed by a team of only two people here in the UK at Patattie Games. Show em' some love!