Harmonies
Review Table Top

Harmonies Review – BGA Game Week 1

So, in my Nerds Year Resolutions, one of them that I was that I wanted to learn a new game on BGA (Board Game Arena) each week. The first week of learning a new game is done and I learned Harmonies. Harmonies is a popular abstract game that really hit the ground running. With nice artwork and nice pieces, is Harmonies going to be an abstract game that I enjoy?

How To Play Hamonies

Harmonies is an abstract game where you are taking discs and adding them to your board. You place down the discs to create patterns. Those patterns should (ideally) match those on cards that you have. The game ends when either someone has filled all the spots on their board, or when there aren’t any more of the discs left.

On your turn you do two things, generally, you take a card which will give you a scoring opportunity. And you take discs. Then you place all of the discs. You check if you completed any of your scoring objectives. If you did, you place a token on the spot designated from the scoring card. You are able to complete objectives multiple times or different ones on the same turn based off of how the scoring cards are set-up.

What Doesn’t Work

I think this is a standard abstract game. Now that sounds more mean than I mean it. The game does some interesting things. But it’s a game where if you can plan out moves and get the right corresponding cards and tokens you can strategize to create big scoring turns. But you do need to be a bit reactive as well in how you play. The game is a very mechanical game in nature and for me, that is generally going to be more of a miss than a hit.

What Works

The simplicity of the turns is good. Like I said, as a negative, the game is mechanical in nature. But like some of the better abstract games, it makes sure to keep things simple in what you are doing. The strategy comes in around how you can keep the different scoring options in your head and how you can complete them multiple times or use what you’ve already done to complete other scoring objectives.

Harmonies is also a quick game. I played it asynchronously on BGA. So, that is going to take longer, but the turns were very fast. This again is because of that simplicity but also the clarity in the mechanisms of the game. I expect that in person there would be a few moments in the game, as there were in BGA, where you would ponder a turn a bit more, just debating the combination of options.

I also appreciate that you can score the different options multiple times. So each scoring card is going to be able to be scored I think between 2-4 times, or it might be 2 or 3 times. So you want to repeat some shapes and you want to figure out how you can build off of what you already have to do that. Only one of the spots isn’t able to be reused when you complete a shape, so it’s a challenge to figure out how to get that to work.

Who Is Harmonies For

Harmonies is going to be for people who like an abstract game. The best people at playing this game are going to be people who slow down the game, consider all the options and figure out how to combo as many of the different scoring opportunities at once. So if you know someone or are someone who likes to think about those puzzles in a game, Harmonies is going to be a strong option for you.

Final Thoughts on Harmonies

Let’s get it out of the way quickly here, I am not a big fan of abstract games. Especially ones that really rely on you to think through all the possibilities to do well in the game. Harmonies gives you a ton of those options in the game. So I know that it’s a game where you can be very smart and clever, but it’s not how I like to be smart and clever when it comes to board games.

That said, I do appreciate it more than other abstract games. Games like Quarto and Boop for example I did not enjoy much at all. Here, I think there is enough extra, those scoring cards for example, that make the game more enjoyable for me. I might not be able to plan out being smart and clever as well as some in this type of game, but it does make you feel good when you stumble into it.

My Grade: C+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B

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