On its head, Henry Halfhead is game with wacky physics interactions and funny moments. But once you spend more than a few minutes with it, you’ll find that it desires to explore the human condition. Part sandbox, part story, Henry Halfhead is all heart. Henry Halfhead is a fun and lighthearted in its execution of the story it wants to tell, but if you listen close, you’ll find a game that has emotional weight.
The game starts at the start with Henry’s birth. Each level is also a different stage in his life, going from childhood to school age to starting work to more adult experiences, and eventually old age, complete with blurry vision and muffled hearing. There’s a narrator that guides you throughout Henry’s life, and he also lets you know when you deviate from the ideal path that Henry should be on.
The main gameplay mechanic in Henry Halfhead is the fact that Henry can inhabit inanimate objects to move, jump, or do a specific action based on the item he is at the time. In doing so, possessing things like a pencil will only roll, limiting movement. Or possessing a seat cushion, means that you’ll have to shimmy and slide across floors. You’ll often need to inhabit objects to complete the game’s various puzzles, and it can be sometimes frustrating to get something to do exactly what you want, but that’s part of the fun and hilarity when things don’t go according to plan.
With a simple button hold, you see everything there is to inhabit or interact with. This then makes things easy for those who want to get the achievement for completing the catalog of possessing each of the game’s 300 objects. During the course of the game, there’s puzzle pieces to find and assemble during a level, that serve as a collectible of sorts.
Henry can be played however you like. Henry can be played to be an obnoxious troublemaker, or a complete rule follower as you do exactly as you’re told. There’s no morality or good/bad ending, there just is. If it wasn’t a bug, there certainly wasn’t a lot of feedback with certain objectives. There were times where I felt like I had done what it asked, like exploring a bedroom fully, but it wasn’t ticking off the list. This happened seldomly, but it meant there were sometimes objectives I never completed and thankfully wasn’t soft-locked from finishing the game. Truthfully, controlling someone with no arms, legs, torso, or a full head does make things difficult. Oftentimes you’ll break a valuable or maybe do something that goes against the objective. So I felt it was better to embrace the chaos, or at least accept what I couldn’t control so well.
Each level lets you take in the environment for as much or as little as you like, tackling them when you want. The game is rather dynamic, often reacting to what you’re doing either through narration or the game itself. There was one moment when I was playing through Henry’s work day where he was sorting boxes and mail. There was a counter reaching its digit limit, and I deposited packages to see what would happen – it didn’t do anything. The game didn’t acknowledge this. But when it works well, you can do things like free draw on a piece of paper or canvas with creativity.
You’ll go from childhood at home, to school, to work, to a playground, home as an adult, and finally old age. The levels features clear goals and plenty of interactive elements. With six chapters in total, it’ll take roughly two hours to see the game in its entirety. I ended up playing for nearly three hours, revisiting levels, and just trying to mess with every item that it would let me.
There aren’t any graphics options to set, at least in terms of quality. But on my PC it had no problems running at a capped 180fps the entire time with SMAA (Sub Morphographic Anti Aliasing) enabled. This is a game that’s already Steam Deck verified, so it’ll run on just about every system with relative ease. I gotta say, the music in this game is really catchy, and I found myself bopping to a lot of it. There’s one song in particular that’s a standout, that’s essentially the “main theme” and it’s great.
My PC Specs:
– Linux (6.16.6-3-cachyos)
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
When the credits rolled I felt like Henry had a life well-led, and was a game well-made. It’s something truly enjoyed playing. While I can appreciate a bite-sized game, I felt it undercut a lot of the experiences Henry might’ve had across an entire lifetime. I think there’s more to Henry’s story. For its few drawbacks, Henry Halfhead is a sweet, kind, and memorable game that’s worth playing.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
