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Details
Publisher Curve Games
Developer Patattie Games
Release date 5 May
Format Xbox Series X/S, (reviewed), PS5, Nintendo Switch, Mac, PC (Steam)
Platform Godot Engine
A customer starts describing a band they love, except they don’t really describe it, they misremember it, they know the sleeve has a cloud, or maybe a shape like a cloud, and they want me to find that album amongst the stacks of vinyl in Wax Heads’ cluttered record store. Because in this game, you’re not just picking a record off a shelf, you’re solving a problem, decoding a person, and if you’ve ever spent too long in a record shop pretending you know exactly what you’re after, it lands with a kind of uncomfortable accuracy. That’s the hook for this observation puzzle game, and it’s a good one.
The game is at its best when tapping into this passion for music – two ageing metalheads still going at it over a review neither can quite remember. A big brother trying to steer his sister towards ‘good taste’ while she’s just looking for something that can be hers alone. Customers drift in, each one a little bundle of opinions and contradictions, snooty, passionate, awkward, excited, annoying, and very recognisable. And every new face, every little interaction, makes me smile, or wince, or both.
Wax Heads’ zine design
The game’s art direction leans into a zine aesthetic, with rough edges, expressive lines, and little visual gags tucked into corners, and it never feels overdesigned or too much. It feels like a place people actually hang out (we’ve all been in stores like this) and not a set dressing for the game’s puzzles. The store itself is cluttered, warm and chaotic, with record sleeves stacked high and flyers peeling off the walls in the back room, and it tells a story in the same way as every new customer that walks through the door.
It all matters because, at its core, Wax Heads is a puzzle and deduction game, not a management sim. Customers come in, they describe what they’re after (badly, usually), and you go digging into the store. You need to read sleeve notes, scan band histories, note the vibe, the genre, the subtext, then bring something back to the counter and hope it clicks with the customer. Early on, it’s straightforward, but later customers demand more and say less. You need to look at what they’re wearing, their badges and tattoos, what they’re carrying, the way they talk, and piece together a better record recommendation. It’s simple and clean, and it fits the setting perfectly because, of course, people don’t know what they want until you put it in their hands.
It’s also, if I’m being honest, a lean idea. The loop doesn’t dramatically evolve, and there are stretches where you can feel the repetition creeping in, and the right record is already in mind before they’ve finished their speech.
It’s a vibe
What kept me playing, though, was the writing and art around each puzzle, as every record tells a story, and every band feels like it exists in a tangible way – and it helps that the music itself is as well observed as the band descriptions. There’s a running thread about a metal band with a habit of murdering their drummers (or do they, let’s re-read those song titles). Another storyline follows a legacy act splitting, the singer going solo, a replacement pulled in from elsewhere, and suddenly, you’re watching a war for fans play out through album releases on the store’s shelf.
This writing matters because when the main puzzle loop starts to feel familiar, and it does, even when Wax Heads throws in variations, the world-building keeps it all together. Because those variations are slight, such as tidying a band’s kit chest instead of a chaotic noticeboard or applying your observation skills to pick a drink for a friend, the goal is to find something he likes that won’t end in a gig disaster. Because these are small shifts, and not much is really changing, the writing around the puzzles, and the art to sell the band lore, needs to hold it all together more than ever.
Running underneath everything in Wax Heads is a bigger story, about a band’s famous split, about the survival of the shop, about your friends trying to make something of their lives or just get through the week and listen to something new. And that’s where Wax Heads either clicks for you or it doesn’t. Because the puzzles, on their own, are fairly simple, even routine. If you’re not invested in these people, in their tastes and their little dramas, you might drift, start to see the repetition more than the charm.
But if it does click, if those characters start living in your head a bit, if you find yourself caring about what record someone walks out with, then it becomes something else entirely, something easy to sink into, like putting on an album you’ve heard a hundred times and still finding something new in it. Wax Heads is a cosy, easy-listening one, sure, but with depth if you’re willing to stay with it.