Years ago, the site Newgrounds was a site every PC gamer was very familiar with. In many ways, it was to access ‘free’ games, created by talented people usually in Adobe Flash in those days. Over the years, a series of games featuring Henry Stickmin keeps coming up on my radar. I play a bit, think I will come back to it later, and then forget about it for ages.
While mucking about with my Steam Deck, I tried playing The Henry Stickmin Collection. Short version, it works but isn’t ideal. That doesn’t diminish the fact that all of the games were back on my radar. I also needed something quick to distract me while I was sick.
So, I powered through all of The Henry Stickman Collection.
Now, it’s called The Henry Stickman Collection as it’s all the previous games and combines it with a new series of endings.
Gameplay is super simple. You control Henry Stickmin and make decisions at certain junctions. These allow the story to unfold with many different paths. Yes, Henry Stickmin is a fun quick choose your own adventure type game.
The other big part of The Henry Stickmin Collection is the number of things to unlock. Sure, it’s a silly fun story with multiple branches, but there is also a variety of things to collect.
The most common collectible is literally failed endings. There is also the fun subversion of what you expect to happen. A lot of the humour is very much golden age Looney Tunes, and I love it.
But there are also a heap of hidden easter eggs and achievements that can be unlocked. Each character has a bio that can be unlocked by right-clicking on them, giving Henty Stickmin deep levels of lore.
Other achievements are hidden in text or background objects that can be collected. There are also silly things just for the sake of being there.
I am probably going to go through and try and finish all of the achievements in the Henry Stickmin Collection. I am so deep in at the moment and having so much fun, it’s a solid chance.
If you are interested, try the first episode on Newgrounds (yes, it’s still there!), and if you like the humour go by the collection on Steam. To give another idea on the humour (and where you may have seen Henry Stickmin before), the people behind Henry Stickmin became well known for a little game called Among Us.
The Sixth episode lets you combine multiple endings into new adventures, and the updated graphics and elements are well worth it. You can spend hours mixing and matching the sixth Henry Stickmin episode together.
Don’t watch Henry Stickmin on YouTube if you are interested in playing. A lot of the fun is discovering everything yourself, and the videos will spoil a lot of that.
