In Henry Halfhead, you play as a disembodied head (well, half of one, to be precise) that can amble around and possess the objects around it. It’s a simple mechanic which, combined with a cozy sandbox sim and guileless voice over, ends up resulting in a surprisingly entertaining movie-length experience that’s as moving as it is silly.
I’m not a mark for sentimental games with affected emotional arcs, which is why I was relieved to discover that Henry Halfhead isn’t one. The twee presentation and surface-level puzzles don’t don’t mask a game that’s trying to be more than it is. Instead, they compliment a rewardingly concise exercise in showing how playful reassessments of the mundane building blocks of our lives can shake us loose from their otherwise zombifying power. It’s a rebellion against min-maxing wrapped up in a poignant animated movie about not letting life turn you into a boring jerk.
Out this week for PlayStation, Switch, and PC, the latest indie release from the Zurich-based Lululu Entertainment begins at birth with you controlling Henry the first time they brake out of their crib at bedtime. It’s the first of many rogue acts as they make messes and cause chaos in pursuit of each new story-based objective. Henry can become other things—a toy, book, calendar, cake knife, child-proof gate—to explore their surroundings and move things along.
Lululu Entertainment
This setup encourages one small act of discovery after another, rewarding you with both the delight of seeing how each new object in the sandbox reacts to your powers as well as the absurdity of the situations that come from them. I was supposed to help set up for my birthday party at one point but ended up throwing everything on the floor by accident as I struggled with the simplest tasks. My first day of school was a special one as I figured out how to turn my worksheet into a paper airplane that could fly up to reach a friend’s confiscated toy, only for the bell to ring and the teacher to effectively tell me I was a failure with dwindling prospects.
This familiar tale of “growing up” at the expense of “feeling alive” hits a climax at Henry’s workplace where they’re responsible for sorting packages in a mail room. The parcels pile up quickly. The initial fun of exploring the new environment is cut short by the arbitrary urgency with which productivity must ramp up. Play is replaced with work, both narratively and in the gameplay: the once cozy sandbox transforms into a drab, transactional checklist. It’s the story of so many lives and so many games. Henry Halfhead hit hard when I was least expecting it to.
Emotional epiphanies wrapped up in gameplay often ring as true to me as the words inside a fortune cookie, but Henry Halfhead does not force its way into your heart or hit you over the head with a book report. It shows instead of tells, with a co-op mode that instantly won my kids over the first time they tried it. The fight to stop the world from grinding us to dust is never-ending. For a few hours at least, Henry Halfhead makes it more fun and colorful, and leaves behind the nagging reminder that I could be living the rest of my life with more of the little halfhead’s spark.