Creating a "playful" video game is tricky. Games give the player freedom—but they also inherently follow a certain set of rules. Building a virtual space that encourages creativity almost feels at odds with how games are made, though this hasn't stopped developers from pursuing it. Playful games usually stay away from strictly defined goals, encouraging players to explore and interact with the world at their own pace and—most importantly—engage with the game on their own terms.

Enter Henry Halfhead, a whimsical sandbox adventure about the very nature of creativity, both in its story and game design.

Henry Halfhead follows the titular Henry, a boy with half a head, as he grows up from a baby through to adulthood. During each stage of Henry's life, you explore environments and use his possession power to jump into objects and control them. You're encouraged to play with the objects in a comical, tongue-in-cheek way—that is, until Henry grows up and realizes that this childlike playfulness can’t last forever.

“We have this lighthearted story of Henry growing up and being a really curious, playful kid like many of us were,” says Lululu Entertainment Co-Founder and Henry Halfhead Game Designer Aaron Abt. “Then Henry goes to school and, on their first day, gets confronted with everyday life, societal rules, and how they need to be more serious if they want to get a good job. They grow up and fall into a monotonous work-life routine where they have forgotten all their previous curiosity.”

It’s a universal topic—one that I'm sure will pull on the heartstrings of many—but the original nugget of the idea actually came from a class project.

“It was a task that we were given at university in a specific character design course. We had to create a character for a game, not only visually but also mechanically. The task was to create a character that has a superpower but also a certain disadvantage," says Abt. "Our idea was this character that doesn't have a body to interact with in everyday life, but they can turn into objects. That's why Henry doesn't have a body.”

This character design course is where the three members of Lululu Entertainment met, collaborating on projects together throughout their studies in Zürich.

“In the very, very first week, Tim Bürge and I started a game called Bamerang, which we continued to develop on and off during our studies, and then took on as our first project after we were done. That's when the Lululu Entertainment label came up,” says Abt.

Bamerang is a fast-paced multiplayer game that challenges players to master the art of boomerang throwing, using the curve of the boomerang to hit opponents. For their next project, however, both developers were keen to work on something bigger.

“With Bamerang, we struggled to make a big enough product out of it to sell. It was also quite hard because it was local multiplayer," Abt explains. "So for Henry Halfhead, we asked ourselves 'How could we do something that players could keep on playing for longer?'” As the pair wrapped up Bamerang in 2021, Bürge and Leander Schneeberger, Lululu Entertainment’s third member, approached Abt about expanding their prototype Henry into their next commercial release.

Together with their initial ideas, the team drew inspiration from other games. “Untitled Goose Game is a big one, the whole vibe of it,” Abt says. “And when we initially came up with the concept, of course, Super Mario Odyssey had just come out. There are quite a lot of parallels with the hat that can take over other creatures and objects.”

The team began work on Henry Halfhead, refining the concept and widening the scope of the story and gameplay. When you’re first introduced to Henry, he’s just a baby—trapped in his crib and with a whole world waiting to explore beyond his bed’s bars. Henry jumps out and starts playing with his toys.

As Henry, you get to leap into each toy and mess around. There’s a jigsaw you can solve by jumping into each piece and arranging them correctly. There’s a xylophone you can plonk about on, and a wooden box where you need to slide the right shapes into the right hole.

Henry Halfhead has a wonderful sense of playfulness. The tactility of the objects contributes, but so does the narrator, who gently prompts you with playful tasks—like building a tower as high as you can out of building blocks. This voiceover also doubles as Henry’s inner monologue, a gentle overseer who guides you through the rest of Henry’s house, cheekily suggesting you interact with certain items.

“From the beginning, the narration has been spoken by Leander,” says Abt. “We're still not 100% clear if it's going to stay that way. For a long time, we treated it as a convenient placeholder to prototype—but all of us like his voice, and we often get positive feedback.”

The music is lovely too, and Abt makes sure to mention the composer. “We worked with Lucien Montandon, a super cool pop musician who wanted to get into games. He made the music and sound design for Bamerang, which turned out really nice, so we're working with him again on Henry.”

The game is constantly introducing new items to play with. There’s immense satisfaction found in childishly banging the kitchen cabinet doors open and shut and banging pots and pans together—actions encouraged by the narrator.

It quickly becomes impressive how many objects Henry can interact with. Each room in the house opens up more playful opportunities, like a cushion in the living room that’s incredibly bouncy, or a music player you can switch on and off to play Henry’s favorite song (or so we’re told by the narrator).

Abt says that programming all these objects into Henry Halfhead was less a technical challenge and more a test of design restraint. “We have so many ideas,” Abt says, “but we often have to cut them down to just a few, or make them more basic so we have time to implement them all.”

The description of Henry Halfhead on the Epic Games Store says that there’ll be "over 150 objects with unique properties and abilities," but this number is massively outdated. Abt estimates that there are now around 80 objects in the first level alone, making the total in the ballpark of “a few hundred." Some will have a unique action, like filling up a bath with water and soap bubbles. Others are less bespoke—but even so, rolling around on the floor as a watermelon is just as entertaining.

Abt lists off some of his favorite items in Henry Halfhead. “I really like all the cooking chains," he says. "There are way more objects in the game's main level. You can cook spaghetti and harvest tomatoes from your garden to make sauce. That also combines well with the game's gardening aspects.”

This is something that’s not obvious from Henry Halfhead's trailers, but there will be lightweight gardening and crafting activities. “You can find different kinds of seeds and unlock the garden area where you can plant them, tend to them, watch them grow, and harvest some fruits and vegetables to cook with,” Abt says.

There’s also an unlockable workbench where you can craft items—and even a recorder that will let you record music. “Those are the two pillars where we want to show Henry being creative, through everyday objects. But they're also activities that should feel nice."

Of course, as mentioned, Henry's playfulness and creativity are challenged as he gets older and goes off to school. “We have this first part where Henry (or you as a player) are allowed to toy around with anything, and we try to design the objects so that they're inviting to just toy around with," Abt says. "But then at the end of the level, you will get scolded for not just doing the homework that you're given.”

As Henry continues his journey into adulthood, his creativity and childlike playfulness are slowly lost.  “Bit by bit these objects disappear, because Henry learns to focus on just the important stuff. The school level leads next to the work level, where Henry has a very narrow view of what he needs to do in life.” It’s a sweet sentiment that feels particularly impactful because of Henry Halfhead's earlier focus on playfulness.

For the game’s narrative, Lululu Entertainment worked with an external member, Dominik Wolfinger, to help punch up the story. “We all noticed that we didn't have much experience with narrative work, so we got to meet [Wolfinger] at Gamescom and really liked to bounce narrative ideas off him and have him help work out the story and narration.”

One thing that has changed since Henry Halfhead's inception is that you can now play with a friend in co-op. After all, two half-heads are better than one. “It started as just a single-player game, and we still designed it mainly as a single-player experience, but half a year in, we just started copy-pasting the Henry object in our game engine and pressed go. We were surprised how well it already worked without any additional level design or tasks. The tasks that you are given can often be done using multiple objects, so you can help each other out.”

Cooperating with a friend, with both of you controlling different objects, can lead to silly antics. “If you want to make toast, for instance, someone can plug in the toaster, and then be the toaster while the other person jumps into it as a slice. There are lots of mechanical interactions with two people that are quite fun,” Abt says.

This co-op play has been particularly endearing when the team has demoed Henry Halfhead at events and seen players' reactions. “It was so nice,” Abt says. “We've seen parents play with their kids in co-op mode. It was super motivating to see them have so much fun. That was super sweet.”

Henry Halfhead finds the fun and satisfaction in childlike play, but it also highlights how meaningful this type of game design can be. When discussing how games can embrace being more playful, Henry Halfhead's toybox of fun interactions is diving into the conversation headfirst.

Henry Halfhead is coming soon to the Epic Games Store.