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Overview
There has been quite the buzz around this little game for a few months now since its release in April 2024 and with it rising to the top of BGGs hottest list, I just had to jump on the wagon and get my hands on a copy of Harmonies!
From the moment I held this box in my hands, I knew it was going to be something special.
With Harmonies being 30 to 45 mins per game, Harmonies is the perfect filler game and portable enough to take on your travels and with the added benefit of its 1-4 player count you can also play solo.
Harmonies is a cross over between Azul with its draw from a bag system to Cascadia's pattern tile/token placement mixing the best of both worlds, in well, perfect harmony….
So, lets dive into the box and discover what delights hide inside….
Presentation & Unboxing
The vibrancy of the Harmonies box is echoed in the contents, from the bright colours of the chunky tokens to the artwork on the cards themselves.
The overall contents give off deluxe vibes with the beautiful cards being of a linen finish and of tarot size (70x120mm), which both look striking on the table and feel nice in the hand.
The linen finish game boards are double-sided which affords some variety in gameplay.
One thing to mention is that when I received my copy of Harmonies, the cards were slightly bent. I have since discovered that this issue is fairly widespread with people having posted similar problems online. There are reports that this can cause an issue during play as the cards do not sit flat and the tokens do not sit in position. I on the other hand did not feel it effected our enjoyment or gameplay.
Gameplay
With the rule book only being 12 pages, the process of unboxing to playing is minimal, making it one of the easier games to get to the table, sometimes you just don’t want a massively crunchy Eurogame.
With a BGG weight of 2/5 Harmonies is fairly lightweight and is recommended for ages 10+. I feel that this game is best learnt by actually playing and definitely to learn from your mistakes as I did on several occasions. I had many moments of ‘why did I place that there?’ and ‘I’ve gone and blocked myself again’ which is part of the fun of Harmonies.
The main objective of Harmonies is to create your own unique ecosystem.
Turns are made up of 1 mandatory action which involves taking 3 tokens from the central board which must then be placed on their player board, then 2 optional actions of either taking 1 of the animal cards from the central display and/or placing an animal token which is achieved by completing that specific animal’s habitat. Each player can take any of the above actions in any order on their turn.
Order and placement are key to winning the game, you must be meticulous on where you are placing your token to enable you to maximise board space and VPs.
You achieve this by stacking tokens to create 3D landscapes which include trees, mountains, buildings, fields and rivers or by building a particular animal habitat as depicted on the card. For example, a ladybird requires 1 green and 1 yellow token to be placed adjacent to one another. You can score multiple times on 1 card with VPs increasing every time a habitat is completed – see photo for reference
The stacking of the tokens is thematic, for example, trees, mountains and buildings cannot be built on water, trees and mountains score more points depending on how high they are, trees are made up of either 1 or 2 brown tokens with 1 green token sitting on top and mountains only score when adjacent to other mountains (creating a mountain range). River/water tiles can be scored in 2 different ways depending on what side of the player board you are using and building are only scored if adjacent to 3 or more different colours.
The game ends when either the bag of tokens has been depleted or on your turn you have 2 or fewer empty spaces left on your board. Its then time to tally up those Victory Points!
Final Thoughts and Summary
Overall, myself and all that I have played with so far have really enjoyed Harmonies, both aesthetically and mechanically it’s a top game for me and feel it will have an established place on my gaming shelf for some time.
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