In Henry Halfhead, you play by way of the lifetime of an individual named Henry. However there are a pair twists. Henry is simply half of a head — simply eyes, ears, nostril, and the highest of their head — which means they transfer round by sliding on the ground and leaping up and down. Additionally, Henry can possess on a regular basis objects. It’s a wierd idea, however the builders at Lululu Leisure use the goofy concepts to inform a poignant story and have a lot of enjoyable alongside the way in which.
The sport begins with Henry as a child of their nursery, bouncing across the room to wreak havoc. As you play, you’ll progress to totally different rooms and age up by way of totally different phases of Henry’s life, and the flexibility to own mainly each object you possibly can see enables you to get into all kinds of bother at all ages. I significantly favored a sequence the place I needed to try to set candles on a birthday cake to have a good time my very own third birthday. As a school-aged child, I helped Henry make a multitude within the classroom.
The objects are all positioned in such a option to invite you to tinker with them and deal with every little thing like an enormous digital playroom. Regardless of my tendency to interrupt plates or scatter objects round haphazardly, I by no means bumped into any option to “lose,” which actually inspired me to experiment with issues and never fear about something “unhealthy” taking place.
The brilliant graphics, goofy sounds (particularly Henry’s “yips” when hopping from place to put), and an omniscient British narrator all added to the charming and alluring setting. If the managed whimsy all sounds somewhat bit like Katamari Damacy, it’s a transparent inspiration; at one level, I discovered a radio on a shelf that appears simply Katamari’s iconic inexperienced protagonist, and one part of Henry Halfhead had Henry rolling round as a laundry-collecting ball.
As you may need guessed a few recreation chronicling someone’s whole life, Henry Halfhead can get somewhat actual. With out entering into the main points, chunk of the sport takes place throughout Henry’s soul-crushing grownup job, and the ultimate chapter of the sport stars an aged Henry. You may in all probability guess what occurs earlier than the credit roll.
However the broader message of the entire recreation is all about being inventive, attempting new issues, and celebrating pleasure the place you possibly can. On the finish of my two-hour playthrough, I used to be somewhat emotional that my journey with Henry was over, however I’m impressed to channel Henry’s silliness into my very own life.
Henry Halfhead is offered now on PC, PS5, and Nintendo Change.