Harmonies: We Love It. It Still Rarely Gets Played.

Every game shelf has one: the game everyone agrees is great, and nobody ever picks. At our house, that game is Harmonies.

It came into our house as a Mother’s Day present, because flowers had been officially banned. When I first played it, my verdict was simple: beautiful game. That still stands. We’ve played it with friends and in the family, and a game takes us about 30 minutes. So why does it stay on the shelf so much? We’ll get there.

What is Harmonies?

Harmonies feels like a mix of Azul and Cascadia. You take colorful tokens and place them on your personal board to build little landscapes: rivers, mountains, forests, fields. Then you place animals on them that need very specific habitats to score.

The twist is that you stack tokens on top of each other, building in three dimensions. Reading the rules, I expected that to add a lot of complexity. It didn’t. It played surprisingly smoothly.

It’s designed by Johan Benvenuto, illustrated by Maëva Da Silva and published by Libellud, and it came out in April 2024. The box says one to four players, about 30 minutes, age 10+. It was on the Spiel des Jahres recommendation list in 2024 and won the Swiss Gamers Award the same year.

How it plays

The rules fit on a napkin. The puzzle doesn’t.

• Tokens build terrain. You take colorful wooden tokens and place them on your own board. Where they go, and what you stack on what, decides which landscape you’ve built.
• Animals want specific homes. Animal cards show a small habitat pattern. Build that pattern on your board and you can move animals onto it for points.
• A shared market, a light draft. You pick animal cards from a common market, and the tokens you take are gone for everyone else. That’s about as mean as it gets.
• Two-sided boards. The personal boards have two sides, and the animal cards come out in a different order every game, which keeps it varied.
• Color-blind friendly tokens. The tokens carry symbols, not just colors.

It takes about five minutes to explain. The rules are simple. Spotting all the clever combinations takes longer.

The nature spirits

The rules recommend leaving out the nature spirits for your first game, and we did. After that first game, I had a feeling there was more to discover, and I wanted to add them next time. Confession: we still haven’t.

A puzzle you mostly solve alone

Harmonies is more of a solitaire game with relatively little interaction between players. Everyone builds their own landscape. The rules are simple, but the puzzle has real depth.

Whether that’s a feature or a flaw depends on your table. For a relaxed evening, it’s lovely. If you want to feel your opponents breathing down your neck, look elsewhere.

The catch: cards that didn’t get the memo

Here’s what bugs me, and it’s come up several times in the community: the card quality isn’t good. The paper is thin and the coating could have been better to make the cards more durable. In a box that otherwise looks this premium, it feels like the cards didn’t get the memo. The cards in Everdell, Wingspan or even Cascadia are much better.

Great game, rarely played

And now the honest part. Lately, Harmonies hasn’t come to our table very often. It’s a great game, I’d never say otherwise. But when we decide what to play, something else somehow wins, and I honestly can’t tell you why. It’s worth knowing before you buy.

Harmonies, Cascadia or Azul?

“Azul meets Cascadia” is how Harmonies got introduced, and it’s how I described it after my first game. Here’s how it stacks up against Cascadia, the comparison everyone makes.

The community doesn’t agree on a winner. Some think Cascadia handles shared animal scoring better, others prefer Harmonies and have even let Cascadia go. And because of that cramped feel, you also hear that it’s closer to “Cascadia meets Tiny Towns” than to Azul.

Our rule of thumb: if you want a quiet, tight puzzle on your own board, Harmonies. If you like a landscape that grows in every direction, Cascadia.

There are also two expansions, both needing the base game. Pulse adds ten new animal cards with three-color patterns. Crescendo adds three modules, including new personal boards, and is co-designed by Mathieu Rivero. We haven’t played either.

Harmonies with kids

The box says 10+. Our own games were with friends and family, so this section leans on the box and on what we hear in the community.

Many recommend it for families, as a good way for newer or younger players to get into patterns and combinations. The animal art, the cards and the scoring go down well with teenagers, too.

Things to watch:

• The animal patterns. The patterns on the cards can be hard to read and easy to miss.
• Symbols on cards. The tokens have color-blind symbols, but the symbols on the cards are less clear.
• Give it two games. It can take a game or two before the combinations click.

The low-conflict feel helps at a mixed table. Nobody wrecks anybody’s landscape, which is good news for siblings, for couples who’d like to stay on speaking terms, and for roommates with a shared bookshelf of games.

What we hear in the community

The community likes the same things we do: the art and the chunky wooden tokens, the satisfying spatial puzzle and how quickly it’s taught and played. Many also enjoy its relaxed, low-conflict feel, and some use the solo mode as a way to learn the game.

The most common criticism matches ours: there’s little interaction, it’s essentially multiplayer solitaire. Some also mention luck in the card market and a slightly cramped feel as your board fills up, for a few so claustrophobic that they sold their copy. Others find the stacking a bit fiddly (we don’t), and the solo mode is mostly a “beat your own score” affair.

On the expansions, you hear that Pulse is a small, simple addition, while Crescendo’s new boards go down well and its other additions get mixed reactions.

Our verdict

Harmonies is a beautiful, accessible puzzle with more depth than its rules suggest, and quick enough for a weeknight. If you love Azul or Cascadia and don’t need much interaction, it’s a great pick.

Just be honest with yourself before you buy: if your group lives for player interaction, Harmonies might become the prettiest box on your shelf, and stay there.