Harmonies Reveiew: manage a perfect habitat for your animals

According to Johan Benvenuto, designer of Harmonies, the game was inspired by the idea of ​​building balanced and poetic landscapes, where nature and animals coexist in harmony. Benvenuto sought to convey the feeling of balance between nature and wildlife. The idea was that each game would be a kind of "artistic composition," where the final board resembles a visual work of art.

The designer states that the game was conceived to be relaxing and contemplative, yet still competitive. The idea is for the player to feel like they are building something beautiful, not just accumulating points.

Johan Benvenuto describes Harmonies as a “symphony of patterns,” where each player composes their own landscape as if it were a visual piece of music, hence the game's title. All these characteristics and inspirations are present in the game.

Harmonies is a 1-to-4 players game, age 10+, by designer Johan Benvenuto. Art by Maëva da Silva.

Harmonies was released in 2024 by Libellud. Its mechanics include: pattern building, tile placement, combination, endgame bonus, progressive turn order, and open draws.

Harmonies, since its release in 2024, has been accumulating awards, nominations, and accolades:

- In 2024, it won Game of the Year from the Golden Geek, also winning the Swiss Gamers Award, and in the same year, it was recommended for the Spiel des Jahres;

- In 2025, it won the Hungarian Board Game Award.

Let's play!

Playing the Game

In Harmonies, we build landscapes by placing colored tokens and create habitats to attract animals. The general idea is to optimize habitat creation to accommodate the largest quantity and most varied types of animals. Be clever and use your strategy, as you will compete with your opponents for resources and animal types. Who will come out on top?

This is the scenario of Harmonies!

The setup or preparation of Harmonies contains only 6 steps. Simply allocate the components in their correct locations as detailed in the image below and start playing.

A turn in Harmonies is quite peculiar, because there are 3 possible actions, one of which is mandatory, but you can perform any of the 3 in any desired order.

- Action 1 - Pick up and place tokens: this is the mandatory one;

- Action 2 - Pick up 1 animal card: optional, and only once per turn;

- Action 3 - Place 1 animal cube: optional, and can be done multiple times per turn.

Before explaining the actions of the turn, let's talk about the tokens, cards, and the animal cube.

The colored tokens represent the elements of the habitat we will build, namely:

- trees: the brown (trunk) and green (leaves) tokens;

- mountains: gray tokens;

- fields: the yellow tokens;

- building: red tokens;

- water: the blue tokens.

The animal card contains important information: its score, where to place the cubes, the pattern of the colored tokens to form the landscape, and where to place the animal cube when the landscape is complete. Check out our next image for an example:

Now let's return to the turn actions, beginning with Action 1, pick and place tokens, which is mandatory. You begin by picking up 3 colored tokens from the main board.

Now place those 3 tokens on your personal board, following some rules.

These are the rules to follow when it comes to positioning the colored tokens:

- the token can always be positioned in an empty space;

- it can be placed on top of 1 or 2 previously positioned tokens to exclusively create trees, buildings, or mountains;

- the token cannot be positioned under previously positioned tokens;

- it cannot be positioned in a space occupied by an animal cube.

These rules are represented by the following image, showing stacking heights 1, 2, and 3.

Regarding Action 2, which involves drawing 1 animal card, it is optional and can only be done once per turn. It's quite simple: just choose 1 animal card from the center of the board among the 5 face-up cards. Then, place that card on top of your personal player board. An important detail: you can have up to 4 cards simultaneously on top of your personal player board.

After placing the card, take a number of animal cubes from the reserve equal to the number of spaces to be filled on your animal card and place 1 cube in each of these spaces as shown in the following image.

Last, but not least, it's time to place 1 animal cube, that is, Action 3. Remember that this action is also optional and you can perform it multiple times on your turn.

To perform this action, you must create the habitat pattern on your personal board exactly as described on the card. When placing a piece, you will obviously try to reproduce the habitat of the animal card you wish to attract, but there are different combinations to achieve this; see the examples below.

The following rules must be respected when creating a habitat:

- the height of the trees and mountains must correspond exactly to what is shown on the card;

- the landscape tile on which the animal cube should be positioned in the habitat must be unoccupied;

- the buildings can be of any type, for example: the bottom tile can be red, brown, or gray.

If these requirements are met, take the lowest cube from the animal card and place it on the corresponding landscape tile within the habitat on your personal board. Once the last cube of an animal card is positioned, place that card next to your personal board. It is considered complete and opens up a space towards your 4-card limit.

Play continues to the next player to your left.

This is a turn in Harmonies!

Ending the Game

The game ends in one of two ways:

- the bag is empty when you need to replenish the central board;

- at the end of your turn, there are 2 or fewer empty spaces on your personal board.

If necessary, end the current round so that all players have played the same number of turns.

At the end of the game, count the points for the landscapes you created and the animals you placed:

- Trees: the height of each tree determines the number of points you score;

- Mountains: the height of each mountain determines the number of points you score. However, a mountain is worth 0 points if it is not adjacent to another mountain;

- Fields: you score 5 points for each field formed by 2 or more adjacent yellow pieces;

- Buildings: you score 5 points for each building, but only if it is surrounded by at least 3 pieces of different colors. If it's not, the building is worth 0 points;

- Water: the length of a river determines the number of points you earn. Count the number of pieces from one end of the river to the other along the shortest path. You only score points for your longest river. If the river path has more than 6 consecutive pieces, score 4 points for each piece after the 6th;

- Animal Cards: for each animal card, completed or not, you score the number of points indicated in the space above without an animal cube. A card with all cubes on it is worth 0 points.

Here's an example of how to score eveything:

The player with the most points wins the game!

In case of a tie, among those tied, the player who placed more animal cubes wins. If the tie persists, the tied players share the victory.

Harmonies is all strategy, all the time. It's one of those games where you have to look at your own board and analyze your opponents' boards as well, which makes it both competitive and fun.

The ability to choose the order of actions on your turn makes all the difference. I agree that Action 3, to place 1 animal cube, even though optional, will rarely be executed as the first action, because this will "normally" be done right after Action 1, to take and place tokens. After all, it's more logical to have the tokens placed, the habitat created, and then position the animal cubes.

Action 1, which involves taking and placing tokens, can actually be the first or second action to be performed. This will vary depending on the animal cards you have in front of you and the animal cards available to be taken in Action 2:

- If you already have animal cards in front of you and the tokens to be taken already create a habitat for your animals, take and place tokens;

- If the available tokens do not yet allow you to place animal cubes, consider taking 1 animal card before taking the tokens.

In fact, the key is: pick tokens that create a habitat and allow you to place the animal cubes.

Regarding the tokens, pay attention to how to use each one, in addition to creating habitats:

- Trees: the taller (up to 3 meters high), the better;

- Mountains: like the trees, the taller (up to 3 meters high), the better. Remember that it has to be adjacent to another mountain to score points;

- Fields: join tokens in pairs, 2 by 2, so you'll have a chance to score better;

- Buildings: make sure to surround them with at least 3 tokens of different colors, otherwise you will not score points;

- Water: there's no point in extending, only the shortest path of your longest river scores points.

So, as already mentioned, it's all a matter of strategy and timing. Combine the two and win in Harmonies.

Unboxing:

Rules:

Gameplay:

Harmonies is an easy-to-teach, beautiful, and simple game to play, without forgetting strategy and other equally important stimuli.

There is much involved throughout the game that will provide important moments for children's development, namely:

- resource management: managing the tokens you pick up to know where best to use them to create the perfect habitat;

- strategy: creating a habitat to house various animals will not be possible without good planning;

- decision-making: choosing where best to position the tokens to recreate the habitat on several occasions requires deciding where to place, and not place, your tokens;

- logical-mathematical reasoning: used to know which habitat will provide you with more victory points, to maximize the score;

- culture: don't overlook the images on the animal cards, discuss the animal, its habits, etc. with your child. Do some research together during the game; it will be fun and educational.

From a pedagogical standpoint, Harmonies addresses resource management, encourages strategy, decision-making, logical-mathematical reasoning, and is also fun!

I recommend Harmonies for your collection!