Henry Halfhead

Amid the madness that is the autumn, it's easy to overlook some of the quirkier and smaller indie games that make their arrival. Admittedly, this can be due to lack of available time, as any free space is eaten up by AAA behemoths and similar. It's because of this that Lululu Entertainment's Henry Halfhead may be worth keeping an eye on, as this is an unusual, short, and simple indie title that is perfect for anyone looking to wind down and just generally chill out with a game that asks very little from its players.

The idea of Henry Halfhead is actually very simple. It's a life-spanning story that follows a character who is literally half a head but who possesses a remarkable ability to inhabit any object he wants. So with this in mind, the story begins in Henry's infancy, where as a baby his inquisitive nature sees him becoming his floating mobile, making lovely tunes on a xylophone, building towers by stacking blocks, and so forth. There isn't really an inherent goal to the gameplay, it's more just about being creative and messing around in the sandbox, testing what can be done and what cannot, all leading to a game that is about as wholesome as it gets.

And this idea is captured for the entirety of Henry Halfhead. After infancy, we move to childhood, seeing how Henry fits into school and how his inquisitive nature ultimately causes him to be a bit of a nuisance. This is important to note because it's a precursor to how the rest of the story evolves and how Henry is steadily sculpted to be more and more mature, less and less childish, and over time loses his inquisitive spark in favour of being dependable. We see what happens when work becomes Henry's life and how his identity collapses as the uniformity and routine overwhelms everything else, all before Henry decides to make a change, embraces his inquisitive nature once more, and finds joy and appreciation in the little things in life.

This wave of changes throughout Henry's life, stretching from infancy to old age, is the entire idea of this game, and it's presented as such in the gameplay too, where when Henry is most inquisitive you find the more extravagant and broad sandboxes with all kinds of unique and fun activities to complete entirely if you want to. Similarly, at the height of middle-age where Henry is inseparable from his job, there's practically no sandbox and it's a fascinating and simple satire of life in general, one that is immediately easy to recognise.

So the premise and even the lovely narrated story works, especially for the couple of hours that Henry Halfhead lasts if you stretch it out. The question is whether the gameplay matches it. Simply put, it works well enough for such a short game, but any longer and as a player you would be searching for more. The idea of being able to inhabit various items is fun and unique, but typically there isn't much depth to many of the items, and when it comes to a more complex goal - for example, making spaghetti bolognese - the mechanics and the control suite is a bit of a nuisance to master. Again, it's just simple enough to work, but anything slightly more challenging or a marginally longer game, and there would be noticeable cracks in the armour that Lululu has forged.

But looking at Henry Halfhead as it is, as a game that you can snag for considerably less than you can rent a new film at home for, there's plenty to appreciate here. It's simple, sweet, adorable, unique, and wholesome, and sometimes amid the chaos and noise of action games, RPGs, and first-person shooters we often see in the autumn, something delightful and easy is all you need.