A 2024 novelty that has already become a bestseller. Less than a year has passed, and the game has claimed 3rd place among abstract games and 19th place among all family games according to BoardGameGeek, the most influential board game website.

About the Board Game Harmonies

In "Harmonies," you’ll shape landscapes by placing colorful tokens and create habitats for your animals. The player who most skillfully places animals within their habitats will earn the most victory points and win.

Gameplay

During setup, each player receives a personal board. A bag with all tokens is placed near the central board, and 3 tokens are randomly drawn and placed on each of its sections. Finally, 5 animal cards are laid out in the center of the table, forming a market.

Players take turns clockwise, starting with the first player. On their turn, a player must perform one mandatory action and two optional actions.

Take and Place Tokens

This is the mandatory action. Take 3 tokens from one section of the central board and place them on your personal board. Each token corresponds to a specific landscape and must be placed on the board following specific rules, as shown in the image below.

Take 1 Animal Card

This action is optional. A player may perform it at any point during their turn, but only once per turn.

Select 1 animal card from the row of 5 cards in the center of the table (the market). Place this card above your board. You may have no more than 4 cards above your board at once. Also, take as many animal tokens from the supply as there are squares to fill on your animal card, placing 1 token on each square.

Each animal card shows a habitat layout you must replicate on your board to place the animal.

Place 1 Animal Token

This is also an optional action during which you may move an animal token from a card to your personal board. This is only possible if you’ve met the habitat conditions on your board exactly as depicted on the card.

Once the conditions are met, take the bottom-most animal token from the card and place it on the corresponding token in the habitat on your board. When the last token from an animal card is placed on the board, place that card beside your board. It is considered completed and no longer counts toward your 4-card limit.

Game End

The game ends when one of two conditions is met:

• The bag is empty, and a player needs to replenish a section of the central board.
• At the end of a player’s turn, their board has 2 or fewer empty spaces (without tokens).

After this, tally the points for the landscapes you’ve created and the animals placed. The player with the most points wins!

Spirit of Nature Cards

After playing a few games, you can use Spirit of Nature cards to add more variety to your experience!

On their first turn, a player chooses one of two cards and places it face-up above their board, returning the other to the box. Spirit of Nature tokens are placed following the same rules as animal tokens, but at the end of the game, they award victory points based on the number and groups of landscapes on the player’s board.

We also recommend checking out the video rules in the “Video” section and, if desired, exploring the detailed illustrated rules in PDF format in the “Files” section.

Final Thoughts

This is a game everyone should try, no exaggeration! It’s perfect for a relaxed family evening with kids or a brain-teasing strategy session for two. Whether you enjoy abstract games or not, Galu the Rooster insists you give "Harmonies" a try.

We also recommend checking out another equally fascinating abstract game—"Cascadia". In it, you’ll craft the landscape of the namesake bioregion on North America’s Pacific coast, arranging mountains, forests, and rivers while populating them with bears, deer, foxes, and other fauna, like Mother Nature herself.