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Managing a vinyl record store with style - Patattie Games IndieDevDay Interview
Rocío Tomé and Murray Somerwolff were at hand in Barcelona to tell us all about their funky adventure & simulation game in which you deal with customers and their stories in a record store. When the interview gets as tactile as the game we also take a look at their physical vinyls and at the real arcade cabinet for Diggy Doggo: Daylight Dungeon.
Audio transcription
"Hi guys, I'm here in Barcelona for the IndieDevDay 2024, and I came here to see quirky, weird, interesting, alternative indie games.
First and foremost, and one of these games is Waxheads, so thank you so much for joining us, Murray and Rocío.
This is an interesting story, both in terms of how you guys met and started developing this, and also, the game itself is quite unique."
"So let's start with the game. What is this about? This is a narrative game, you guys have some vinyl here.
Yeah.
So it's a cozy, punk, slice-of-life record store sim. So essentially, you work in a record store, and you're the new kids, and the whole idea is that you're solving puzzles to deduce which record you give to the right customer."
"Solving puzzles, as in?
I think store sims have become quite a thing, like Strange Horticulture or Papers, Please.
People come to you, they have a narrative element, so customers come in, you'll talk to them, but then they will never tell you exactly what they want.
So it's your job to work out from what they say, from what they look, from what you know about the world, to look through the record store and figure out what is actually the right record for that person."
"If I might add, it's not like the regular simulator, like Papers, Please, in the terms of you have a set of rules and you have to follow them.
Instead, it's more about engaging with the customers, understanding what they want.
Maybe they are not really direct with the request, so you need to investigate, like a detective game.
Each of the bands, like their story or even the art of the cover, because maybe someone arrives and is like, do you remember this pink record, you know, like the one with the cat in the cover?
And you have to look at all the information you already have to guess which one is the best record, like the best fit for that person."
"How did that concept come up? Because it's really nice.
I mean, I guess vinyl got trendy not as of late, perhaps 10 years ago than recently.
All over again, people are buying vinyl and you get these fancy editions.
And was that the reason? Was that because you guys collect records as well?
He's the record nerd."
"So I definitely have advice. I definitely buy records, probably too many.
But so I'm like a music geek in like, I used to play in bands, I go to gigs.
And I don't know, I'm interested in the idea of music in games.
We have lots of games, we perform music, you know, like rhythm based things."
"But there's not a lot of music culturally, you know, talked about in games.
So I've been looking at ways to try and how you could, how could that be expressed in a game?
And the record store felt like the perfect conduit, like I collect records.
And then also like to what Rocío was saying about the idea of like, it's not a sim in the sense of we're not motivated by, like, it's not about how much money can I make?
But really, what I'm really interested in is people's relationship to music."
"Like, you know, when people say, oh, I love this song.
Or, you know, what was that album called?
Like, it's something which I think everyone can relate to.
And I don't know when the idea kind of like I was playing Wormwood's Warehouse, which is not adjacent to this game."
"But that's where it started. Like I was playing in all the little squares.
I was like, imagine if these are records and I got the brain spinning.
And I just think it's music, something which we all share, you know, that relationship with.
So I think that's what was the main catalyst for it."
"I mean, the references you make within the game are those real bands that we can relate to?
Or you also created a bunch of fictional bands that we are going to learn about?
Well, most of them, like all the bands in the game are fictional, like not real bands.
But you can totally, even if you, for example, I'm not like the music nerd of the group."
"OK, I'm more like...
We kick you out of this interview right now. You don't make any sense here.
I'm sorry, like I'm not like a huge music nerd, but I do love the game.
And this is like a really cool thing because it's a game that can be enjoyed by people that are not like really music nerd."
"Because you don't need any previous knowledge of music, like really weird specific genres or stuff like that.
You can just like enjoy the band, the gossip between the bands, what happened, the story they are telling.
And I think my input in this, even if I'm not like directly really, really into music, it's knowing that someone that is not a lot into music can also enjoy the game."
"And it's also about the culture surrounding all this.
So you meet the customers, they are hyped about music.
But do you kind of make any sort of hidden reference, like paying tribute or homage?
For example, can I see a nod to the Chili Peppers?
Specifically Chili Peppers?
Then we stop this interview, OK? Thank you so much for joining us."
"My sister was- I mean, I like the old Chili Peppers, I do.
They're not one of my personal favorites, but no, no, no, no shade.
But there is like, so this is very personal in the sense of like, and so there's a band called Sparklehorse."
"So there's a very direct reference to the singer Mark Linkous, who's unfortunately passed.
But, you know, he's a, there's a more like, we've got this one environment at the moment, I haven't seen it yet, but it's got like an actual mural of him and stuff.
So there is direct references."
"But tying back to what Rocío was saying and what you were asking about, whether or not the references are real bands or not, we want the world to feel authentic and real.
So a lot of it comes from personal places where the fictional bands come out."
"But the direct references are like, they're like Easter eggs.
If you know, you know, like the record store in the game is called Repeater Records, which is a reference to Fugazi's album Repeater.
You don't need to know that. Like, you don't need to know that."
"Oh, Repeater Records sounds cool. That's great.
But if you do get it, and if it gives you that little extra, like, you know, hey, that's cool, that makes me happy. But we definitely like it.
And it's true, because me being the music geek, if we were both as geeky as me, it would be a disaster. It'd be like, you know, we'd just be like, getting so far up ourselves that we'd just be gone."
"So it's great to have that balance of we really want it to be approachable.
We want to celebrate music and celebrate that.
But in a broad sense, not everyone feels like, you know, you have to have a pedigree or like, yeah."
"That's good. That's a nice approach.
And also, I think this goes for you as well.
It's not just about the adventure and the way you talk and decide how to deal with records and customers, but also there is an arcade cabinet in the game that you guys brought here physically."
"So what can you tell us about that?
Yeah, it's fun because when we met, I only had made a single Godot game.
The game is developed using Godot Engine.
And I only had developed one game that was Diggy Doggo: Daylight Dungeon."
"And people really loved that game.
It was really like arcade-y fun to play.
It was a participation in Game Jam, in the Spain Jam.
Indeed, it got an award as the best solo dev project."
"And then another game, another award later.
Like, people love it.
And he also loved it.
And he was like, OK, crazy, maybe, I don't know, but why don't we put the full Diggy Doggo into the game?
And he decided on a cool cabinet inside the game with the Diggy Doggo."
"And then a friend of ours, Javi, built it handmade, built an actual Diggy Doggo cabinet so you can play the game within the game and in the game in reality.
Javi, it's your minute of fun and fame."
"You just got mentioned.
You're famous now.
Also, talking about physical stuff, I found it lovely.
I mean, perhaps I'm old."
"Perhaps you guys seeing this don't know what this is.
I'm proud of being born analog.
You know, coming from cassettes, records, VHS, et cetera.
Can you show what you guys brought here?
How many grams is that?
Good quality."
"Yeah, I spent way more time and money than I'm willing to admit into doing this, but I did all the 15 records that are actually in the demo.
And all of them are like..."
"I even bought like stickers that actually fit exactly the center of the record.
They are not like the actual music of the game.
They are just like all weird bands that I bought in the UK for like three of them, one pound or something like that."
"I even put like the small cards with the Spanish and English so we could bring them to conferences.
And it's really cool because it's a really like detective kind of game."
"Sometimes when there is someone playing, there is another person on the same, like the other chair, just like looking up all the information to help the person that is actually playing.
Like, oh, this was the singer of this other band, you know, and they are comparing it."
"So it's really, really cool because we really wanted to make a really tactile game that you can play around, you can just like poke everything.
Can you scratch?
Yeah, well, maybe in the future."
"You said tactile.
So, yeah, this is like a reinforce of that feeling we already want to give that is some stuff that you can actually push, touch and play with."
"Nice, nice.
Closing one.
What's the status of the project?
Do you guys have a publisher?
Something you can tell me?
It's positive is what we can say."
"Positive.
I don't know that publisher.
Positive Games.
Imagine there is a Positive Games.
We have to register that."
"We've been negotiating, but we're very close and it feels very, yeah, we're feeling very optimistic.
So we can't say anything just yet, but we hopefully will be able to say something announced very soon, yeah."
"I will keep hitting your email.
And if there is an update, we will write it down here because I can feel, I can smell something's going to happen in the next few days or weeks."
"The sooner the better for us, so yeah.
Fingers crossed.
Yeah, good luck with the project.
I think it looks pretty unique, pretty amazing."
"Thank you so much for your time.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks."
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