The May 2025 prototype, running in a browser. Use the arrow keys or the on-screen control pad; stay near ducks to rescue them.
The little idea that stayed.
The early brief was wonderfully simple: explore a world as a pulsing green cursor, find ducks, and let them follow you until they are safe. Forests, grasslands, deserts, swamps and mountains gave that tiny character somewhere to go.
It all lived in a single HTML file. By the surviving May 2025 build, there were nine shrinking worlds, wandering emoji animals, a breach in the eastern wall and a catacomb. This is one of the original playable builds, preserved as it was.
EXCERPTS FROM THE SAVED DESIGN NOTES
Before they were features, they were sentences.
“Play as Henry, a green pulsing square cursor”
“Explore a world to liberate 100 ducks”
“Ducks follow Henry and are liberated after 15 seconds”
From the game summary labeled v2.0, December 2024. That was the design brief; the May 2025 playable build starts with 50 ducks.
The same notebook’s wish list included a save system, more biomes, boss ducks and speed-run challenges. Later opening-sequence notes introduced the moment that became Henry’s story:
“Ball suddenly stops mid-game - reveals it's actually Henry the Cursor!”
From the archived opening-sequence design. These excerpts come from the original working documents.
A love letter to the arcade.
The idea grew into Henry the Cursor Saves the Ducks: a ball that breaks out of its Pong game and discovers a much bigger world. The little rescue experiment became the arcade adventure its creator wanted to play.
Henry is now nearing release. The plan is iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac and Apple TV, with a Steam edition to follow. Release dates will come when they are ready.
