Ah yes, Flash games. So much was created. So much of it trash. Yet, also so much of it great. Some of the best known games of the last decade started out as projects made on flash, released for free on sites like Newgrounds. Maybe even originally lost among crappy horror themed jump scare fueled point and click adventure games and edgy crap. My personal favorites have always been choose your own adventure toy boxes, where most or even all choices you make lead to fun results. Simple games like Moon Waltz or Caesar’s Day Off.
Somehow, I’ve completely missed the Henry Stickmin games back in those days. And I might’ve never knew about them if not for the fact that the developers of the game decided to not just “remaster” the series, but also create a completely new entry. And also probably because the developers managed to get well known due to their other project – Among Us, – which gained a huge audience during the past year. But whatever the reasons, I’m glad I’ve experienced The Henry Stickmin Collection.
As you might’ve guessed from the intro, the game works kinda like a choose your own adventure. There’s a setup, then you’re presented with a choice, sometimes timed, and your choice leads to a certain result. Most commonly it’s a fun failure where things go terribly wrong and you’re presented with a choice to retry and make another choice. But when it’s a correct choice, it might not be the only correct choice, leading to a branching narrative full of these silly failure events and endings. Luckily, you have a map of each game which allows you to jump to any choice (there are very few exceptions to this) and select a different option.
It’s incredibly dumb, full of jokes, in-jokes, references and memes, lots of which are also quite old by internet standards (unsurprising, since the series originally started since 2008). Yet, vast majority of them feel genuinely fun and well delivered, often using the reference to build a joke rather than use it as a joke. The story is silly, yet at the same time is so committed that the final game in the series, the one that was just added, has a ton of plotlines, all based on the possible endings you could’ve gotten in the preceding two games (and there are a lot). And many characters reappear throughout the story in all of its alternate timelines and even occasionally manage to have proper (if simple) story arcs.
If you are trying to be a completionist, getting everything can become annoying at times, but if you wish to just enjoy the silly animations and situations, it’s a joy to go through. Sadly, from a technical perspective it’s also not all great, as, possibly due to its flash roots (I’m not sure if the games are still running it in this version, but it feels like it), there are some annoying issues. For example, if you have a very high resolution monitor, the game will launch in a rather small window (1264×682, according to the screenshot size). It has a fullscreen option, but with a warning that the game will become unstable, and guess what – it will to the point of becoming unplayable in certain scenes. Which is a real shame, since with the death of Flash it would be nice to not just preserve these games for today but make sure they don’t become unusable in the future.
All that said, if you’re in the mood for some relaxing funny silly animations, full of stupid game references and ima firing ma lazer jokes, The Henry Stickmin Collection is a blast.