One of the bright spots of a miserably grey Summer Game Fest 2026 was Mr. Records, a mashup of rhythm-action autorunner and casual vinyl shop management by music game specialists Glee-Cheese Studio. I’ve since played a demo – which you can now try yourself on Steam – and was pleased by the apparent confirmation that it can induce that head-nodding, foot-tapping thing that rhythm games should. Big fan, usually, of games that force me into involuntary body movements.

Mr. Records follows George, a crusty but friendly old music aficionado in the process of establishing his own records boutique. Before putting a new song on the shelves, George insists on giving it a private listen, which sinks him into fantasy platforming sequences where successful jumps, slides, and throws are exclusively made on the beat. The next morning, punters show up asking for help finding a specific record, a task to which George – head still swollen with last night’s melodic discoveries – can apply his newfound knowledge.

Of this double A-side approach, I found the rhythm component the better bop. Its 2D button-tapping keeps it simpler than a Hi-Fi Rush or Metal: Hellsinger, but the mixing-up of jumps and slides and kicks quickly establishes the action as the kind where a momentary lapse in concentration can irreparably muck up your timing. Hence, head-nodding and foot-tapping.

George’s daydreams also have their own, colourful charm, scrolling along like the Yellow Submarine video by way of Thank Goodness You’re Here. Environments take inspiration from the song they accompany, so a breezy pop number might lead you through fields of dancing pastel flowers, while a fuzzy electronic track is all purple and pulsing. Well, maybe not all, as transitions between sections of a song may have a corresponding visual or mechanical shift that lasts only for that section – potentially including George’s movement orientation being flipped sideways or upside down. Which is as disorienting as trying to play a guitar back to front, but also a good sign that Glee-Cheese have engineered every step of George’s wanderings to lock in with the flow of the music.

The songs in question are also entirely original, composed and recorded in-house. They’re a diverse bunch, the tracks I played through spanning psychedelic pop, classic rock and R&B-inspired rap (among others), and most have a lyrical whimsy to them that pairs well with the cartoon visuals. There’s some decently catchy earworms in there too, though the one song that lodged itself deepest within my head was also the one I most wanted rid of: a sausage-themed comedy tune whose chestless, too-close-to-the-mic crooning was and remains the stuff of nightmares. Thankfully, the rest of the soundtrack seems to be inoffensive at worst and jolly good fun at best, and the breadth of genres bodes well for George’s dreamscape variety.

The shop management/social puzzling side, I imagine, needs more time to show its stuff. It’s based around recommending the right record based on customers’ vague, partial descriptions, but in the early stages I played, the challenge of digging up the correct vinyl was undermined by a lack of stock. George’s grand opening makes all of two records available, a business plan that would probably kill Claude from The Apprentice on the spot, and it looks like you’ll only be adding one or two records per night.

Also, and this is for sure a limitation of the demo/preview format, I could only see the shoots of the shopkeeping’s relationship-building aspect. Despite the lack of choice, it seems George does pick up some repeat customers, and it sounds like cultivating friendships with the regulars may prove more important than the shop’s balance sheet.

I’m interested to see where that goes, mind, as I am for George’s own story. A greyed puffin whose primary companion is a nap-happy dog, he has the air of someone to whom life hasn’t always been kind, even as he continues to appreciate and find solace in its artistic pleasures. Fortunately, this love of music is clearly shared by the game as a whole, which is exactly what you want when half of it is spent hitting buttons to an imaginary metronome.