I finally picked up Harmonies at PAX Unplugged and just made it through my 10th solo game and wanted to
share my thoughts in a review.
There are plenty of other reviews with details on how to play, so I'm going to try something different.
Harmonies reminds me of Cascadia, which is similar to AQUA, and both of which remind me of Habitats, so
I'll compare them to these other games.
Habitats is the most puzzley of the bunch, in my opinion (it's also my favorite..maybe because it was the first
of the group that I played). Habitats requires more thought to where things are placed, because you want
each placement to both score itself and help others. If you do ti right, you can get a beautiful patchwork
where every animal scores..which just feel so rewarding. There are varying bonuses each round which are
nice to help your score, but most of your points come from the animals, with each tile being a unique animal.
Cascadia is nice as the scoring for each animal changes each round (with a reasonable amount of options -
enough that you can quickly learn them all), and there are much fewer animal types than in Habitats, so
there are less things to keep track of (since each of the 5 animals is scored the same way the entire game).
AQUA: Biodiversity in the Oceans is nice as the scoring changes each round (like Cascadia), the colors are
bright and pretty, and you have the extra aspect of pressing your luck (do you score a larger animal now or
try to keep going and score a larger animal for more points later) that is different and fun.
Harmonies has the same feel to me as those games, but does differ in many ways from the other three.
Harmonies is different in that you're not playing a hex or a square piece that you have to rotate or align just
right - you're playing a circular piece of a single color, where orientation of the specific piece doesn't matter.
Like the other games mentioned, which pieces you play next to each other matter, so placement is very
important.
But, and I know this matters a lot to many people, you're not playing cardboard hexes or squares - you're
placed very tactile-pleasing wooden circles. They are very nice pieces. And some of the pieces can be
played stacked on each other, which is a new dimension not present in the other games mentioned. And,
similar to both Cascadia and AQUA, you score points based on your landscape (excluding the animals)...a
lot of points. Of my 10 games, only twice did I score more points off animals than I did off the landscape. So
while you can't ignore animals completely and score the number of points you'll want to score, your
landscape is extremely important to scoring well. And yes, you could focus only on animal cards, and you'll
score some points for your landscape without focusing on it, you're going to get the most points by carefully
balancing focus both on landscape and animal scoring opportunities.
The Nature's Spirit Cards, while I've not yet personally capitalized them in my solo games to be worth the
sun impact of playing with them, do really up the replayability, as they really shape your strategy in a unique
way, urging you towards a specific landscape token. In this way, I believe each game is more unique than in
the other 3 games mentioned (because the Nature's Spirit Card + uniqueness of animal scoring cards). And
the way that, in solo mode, the 6 tokens you don't take each round get thrown out of the game can really
impact things (IE it mucks up your strategy). I understand that in a 3 player game, 6 tokens will get taken
between each of your turns, but if you're looking for a specific landscape token and they appear in all 3 piles,
you're going to get them thrown out and unavailable more than my normal strategy would prefer. But, that
keeps the solo game just as tactical as it should be - while you can try to plan for the strategic, the luck of
the token draw still forces you to make the most in a tactical way each turn, and that balance causes just the
right amount of tension to make the game enjoyable.
Maybe because I still feel I haven't really mastered Harmonies yet (some games "click" for me after a couple
plays and all of the sudden my scores jump as I really understand how to maximize my score - my scores
range from 78 to 109, 3-6 suns (I get more suns playing on Side A and without Nature's Spirit Cards)), but
I'm not sure I'm in agreement with it's current very high ranking here on BGG. Or maybe I'm just
embarrassed that after 10 games, I haven't even got as many suns as is provided in the solo mode example!
I do really like the Harmonies box. The way everything fits in perfectly, with a finger hole to easily slide the
cards out, really impressed me. I know it's a simple thing, but whoever designs the box deserves an extra
pat of the back. Thank you for making the game so easy to put away and take out.
For a solo game (since I have the older version of Habitats without official solo rules), I think I prefer
Cascadia or AQUA as I find them more enjoyable as I feel...more accomplished somehow after completing
them (and that's not even counting their achievements..which I'm a sucker for and really appreciate, as
beating each achievements gives me something more to strive for than just beating my own score / sun
count).
That being said, I'm looking forward to playing up another game of Harmonies after I hit Post, so I can at
least get to 7 suns and tie Pauline and her solo example in the rule book!!
(And this will be my 11th solo play in 48 hours, so I guess that says something pretty positive about
Harmonies )
