I was one of those millennials who grew up around a large vinyl collection. My mother was an ardent collector of music before and after children, though the vinyl that sat in various shelves where we lived was mostly a stamp on who my mother was before she gave birth to me. We were a family that then moved on to cassettes (especially in the car) and then on to CDs. This was all before my teens arrived and MP3s, Winamp, and my burgeoning sense of wanting to figure out my own musical tastes made me constantly try out the new musical technology.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, my boyfriend and I picked up a vinyl habit. We were trying to figure out new activities to engage with at home, and the act of replacing and flipping vinyl, collecting it, etc. seemed as fine a pursuit as anything else.

So when I saw Wax Heads for the first time I was intrigued largely because I’ve become one of those regulars who haunts their local vinyl store. It’s a game that functions as part visual novel, part shop sim. Instead of worrying about inventory or prices, however, it’s about connecting with the person in front of you, listening to what they do and don’t say, and then figuring out the clues based on a thankfully small selection for you to choose from. All of this is buttressed by magazine articles, blog posts, and social media posts that feed the player further information about the music industry of this world.

The protagonist is nameless and faceless, so it’s an easy self-insert, or whatever type of idealized character you want for the setting. The narrative surrounding the shop is the typical woes of being a shop that is on the brink of failure, but this time followed quickly by what it means to sell out (naturally) and how that ties into AI (the game firmly stands against AI in music). Nothing groundbreaking, but a game that both put a smile on my face and made me start to carefully curate the soundtrack I wanted in the store on any given day.

Because exploring and becoming familiar with the shop is as much part of the game as anything else. Repetition and time gave me the ability to quickly navigate the store, beelining for where I was sure the recommendation I was going to give lived. Each morning in the game I’d do a quick tour to see what had shifted (inventory is absolutely not a function of this game), while singing along to a soundtrack I did genuinely come to love by the end of my time with it.

It’s also incredibly queer. One of the customers on the first day is an older gentleman who has lost his husband. This is followed quickly by a disaster of a dog-wrangler trying to get something for his boyfriend. And the meet-cute you help instigate! Not surprisingly, given the setting, the focus becomes on community, found family, and what we engage with when we share our musical tastes and experiences with others.

The plot was one where I kept nodding, seeing most twists coming. I was comfortable in knowing what the outcome would be, because I was enjoying the journey with the strong cast of characters that surrounded me. All while learning the lyrics to some pop ditty or punkish growls. I haven’t worked retail in over a decade at this point, but the memories of that time and how those work relationships formed rang true to me here.

Fairly banal information, but possibly useful to some: I finished the game in 7 hours, having played entirely on my Steam Deck. Of note, when you are selecting vinyl, there are also small interactive elements on the screen that I could only manage to finagle with my touch screen on the Deck. None were essential, but they were cute (Tamagotchi-esque devices, a chocolate bar, drinks, etc.).