EA Studio Showcase: Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure

Fri, Aug 15, 2008

At yesterday's EA Studio Showcase, the publishing giant had a large array of big, blockbuster games on display. Godfather II, Warhammer Online, Harry Potter -- massive screens displaying the latest and greatest for the newest systems filled the room with EA's biggest-budget titles. So, why did I instead make a beeline for two guys crowded around a Nintendo DS to play a strange little game about a posh gentleman in a bowler hat? Well, as we've established, I have an unhealthy fascination with puzzle games. But, more so than usual, I was fascinated by the prospect of a dual-play meta-game which combined a match-three puzzler with a quirky and creative platforming adventure. I was able to go hands-on with Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure, and I am pleased to report that it was time extremely well-spent.

Based on the announcement made earlier this week, we already knew that Henry Hatsworth was going to be a mix of platforming and puzzle gaming, but how would it be handled? As cool as the idea sounded, I reserved a little skepticism going in -- I thought the latter portion might simply be tacked on, providing at-whim bonuses and powerups to the former portion -- or, worse, that the game might suffer from trying to do too many things at once. What I found, instead, were a handful of clever design choices that marry the two game types in very fun ways -- several of which I hadn't expected at all. With Kyle Gray, Hatsworth's creative director, guiding my steps, I had the opportunity to play through the first couple of levels, and explore the strange and wonderful mechanics that the game introduces.

The platforming gameplay of Henry Hatsworth, taken on its own, is your usual fare: Henry can move with the D-Pad, jump with B, swing his cane with Y, and shoot some sort of laser-blunderbuss with A. Some well-executed button combinations give Henry a reasonable repertoire of fighting and shooting moves, and the whole ordeal is handled with amusing animation, character, and charm. The titular protagonist is a pleasant old chap with a monocle, greying moustache, and -- naturally -- a dapper derby hat. Hopping his way through five thematic worlds of 6 levels apiece, he beats up on little blue froggy things and beasties wearing suits of armor, all while traversing typical platform hazards like bottomless pits and floating ledges. It's a perfectly competent jump-and-bump, and could stand as its own game if it had to. Thankfully, it doesn't have to.

At any given moment, pressing the X button will shift the game's focus down to the DS' touch screen, where the "Puzzling" part of Henry Hatsworth is taking place. A series of colored blocks is slowly, but constantly, rising up the touch screen towards the top of the game. Using basic match-three mechanics, the player can make horizontal swaps to eliminate rows of blocks, which not only stalls their upward crawl, but builds up a power gauge on the right-hand side of the screen. This is the first of many ways in which the two game halves interact: This power gauge has no effect on the puzzle, but is instead used for platforming benefits, providing power for Henry's gun. In addition, if the power gauge fills significantly, Henry himself can power up, transforming from his grey-haired form into a younger, strapping lad with fiery orange hair and a pith helmet. Also, should you manage to completely fill up the power gauge, you're in for a treat: A full gauge will provide you with a single-use teacup. Upon selecting it, Henry will declare "TEA TIME!" and be shown enjoying a relaxing beverage with Sherlock Holmes. This, quite naturally, summons a massive suit of powered armor which Henry can then use to bash and blast his way through his foes. Makes perfect sense to me.

Henry Hatsworth is full of these little occurrences and amusing quirks, and they really help drive the game forward -- it's worth your time just to see what bizarre thing is going to happen on the next level. Plus, it's the first game I've ever seen which will make you bellow "TEA TIME!!" as a battle-cry, and that's fantastic.

The puzzle mode has so many useful benefits to the platforming mode, including gun power, Tea Time, health boosts, and others, one has to wonder why a player would ever stop using it. I began to worry that players would simply stop platforming every time they used so much as a single shot's worth of energy, or attempt to go through the entire game in Tea Time, thus slowing the platforming adventure to a crawl. Conversely, if a player is good enough at platforming, they might never bother with the puzzle mode at all -- why spoil a good speed run? As Kyle demonstrated, however, Henry Hatsworth has been designed with precisely these concerns in mind, and through many refinements, has found a way to strike the proper balance between the game modes.

For starters, there is a timer on the puzzle mode. As soon as you've swapped to the touch screen, a time gauge begins to empty itself. It can be momentarily stalled by clearing blocks, but eventually, the timer will run out, and you will be forced to return to the top screen, where the gauge will only refill through time spent in the platforming world. The gauge can also be boosted through your platforming actions, providing an extra time infusion for every enemy you defeat. On the other hand, just as the puzzle provides benefits to the platforming world, so too is the puzzle affected by events occurring in the platformer. For one, when you defeat an enemy, they do not simply disappear; rather, they are knocked from one screen into the other, into the puzzle, where they turn into frowning "enemy" blocks. These enemies are not quite finished with you -- if the puzzle pieces rise high enough that an enemy block is allowed to return to the top screen, they'll come back to harass you with a vengeance. It's a curious mix indeed -- the better you are at whacking enemies, the more time you'll be granted for the puzzler, but the more often you'll needto use the puzzler. Careful mastery of Henry Hatsworth will involve striking the right balance between the two game modes, and learning how best to use one to complement the other.

Kyle Gray explained the thought processes that had gone into his game, which got its start in flash form before going into full production in August 2007. We asked Kyle about his previous work, and he was kind enough to point us to experimentalgameplay.com, where a collection of some of his prior games is still available (and definitely worth checking out). "Half of the fun is the insanity that's in there, and I try to put that in a little bit of everything that I make," Kyle told us. He also told us that EA's publication of Henry Hatsworth was based merely on having the idea first, and then bringing it to EA through fairly mundane channels. "I found them, actually. I was applying for internships, and that kind of stuff. So I ended up in Tiburon, and interned on a number of small projects, and then bigger projects, and you know how it is..."

Based on what we've played so far, we're quite glad for "how it is." Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure is due out in early 2009 for the Nintendo DS.