Harold

***Written using a key provided by the Developer for review purposes*** Harold is a very challenging, action-packed, platformer running/racing game which is currently available through Early Access on Steam. You take control of a guardian angel in training and you have to watch over Harold, the underdog of the competition, as he takes part in practices, races and challenges while making sure he stays ahead of the competition. Taking place across 12 stages you must first complete a practice mode where you familiarise yourself with the stage, then you take part in a race against five other competitors each controlled by another angel in training and after the race you can take part in an incredibly difficult challenge mode where you have to run the whole course without dying while collecting stars. +Absolutely beautiful design, in particular the background scenery +A very likeable main character (Harold) who is also well designed, as are the other competitors +Despite only having 12 stages the different game modes, and the difficulty of the game, Harold provides hours of entertainment +Great story behind the game +Entertaining cartoon style cutscenes +Great humour, I laughed out loud a fair few times while playing +Wonderful voice acting +Interaction with the level itself is well thought out, fun and at times challenging +You only need to finish in third place to unlock the next event which makes it great for all players +Each stage introduces a new mechanic/obstacle +Great animation +Great soundtrack +Very nice special effects +/-You fail a lot in this game, personally I enjoyed retrying certain sections until I got it just right but some people may find it irritating, it really just depends on how much failing numerous times bothers you -It doesn't have keyboard and mouse controls so the only way to play is with a controller which seems strange for a PC only game -The controls for interacting with the environment are quite difficult to get used to in my opinion Verdict: 9 An outstanding platform racing game with wonderful design and challenging gameplay, I cannot recommend this game enough especially to those who like a challenge. El K.

Hi! I may not recommend the game, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad one. The animation for one is absolutely gorgeous, as is the art direction. I also liked the lighthearted story before my gamepad died on me (gamepad required, so, wasn't able to experience more). However...As well made as various segments are, none of them felt cohesive during my time with the game and I didn't end up really enjoying more than a part here or there. Let me explain: In Harold, you play as a guardian angel in training. You're at top of your class but through some cruel twist of fate, in the final exam needed to become a guardian, you're assigned to protect/guide a lovable klutz named Harold through a series of races. It's a simple, innocent story that provides a nice framework for your job of zapping Harold to make him go faster and launching opponents into pits of spikes. Actual gameplay consists of going through a level a number of times in several modes. The first is "Practice" and can not be skipped. Ostensibly, you're supposed to be learning how to best navigate the actual race to come by making Harold collect stars in bite-sized stages. However by the time you're fifteen or twenty stages in you want to simply get things over with and it begins to feel like unnecessary padding. After getting through Practice, you can enter "Race" mode (the meat of the game). In this, you attempt to, again, help Harold get through the level as efficiently as possible. This time, though, you also have to make sure Harold places third in a race against opponents more fit and smart than our reluctant hero. You do this by affecting his environment (bridges, platforms, obstacles, etc.) and "encouraging" him with bolts of lightning gained by using "Puff Power." You also directly control the timing of Harold's jumps. This is where the gamepad-based controls and animation come into play. You always feel like you both 1) Never have enough control and 2) Have too much. This seems contradictory, but in practice this feeling dominated my time with the game. Every obstacle and platform, etc. can be used both to help Harold and hinder his opponents. So, despite Harold's sedate pace, you're constantly in a state of information overload unless relying on rote memorization based on constant failure. You can't point at an object and affect it with a mouse--you have to use the triggers to switch between objects, and the analog stick to conduct whatever changes you will. However, in the midst of the lavish animation, the cues for what object you're affecting can get lost. Even as early as the second stage, that one lapsed second of attention can mean failure and a trip back to the starting line. The animation and focus on beautiful artwork also affect collision accuracy in a number of ways--a case of game design fitting art, rather than the other way around. My typical thought process during a race: "Okay, a pit. Need to move it so that dude falls in and Harold gets across. Just swing across the gap and..." *Death* "...Shoot. It LOOKED like I'd make that jump. Wait, why am I controlling his jumps and not just the environment?" *Death* "Dang, got distracted. Okay, encourage, encourage..." *Death* "Man, I was moving too fast and couldn't put down the bridge fast enough. Okay, what if I move slower and take out my opponent before going across myself..." *Death* "Wasn't able to move the bridge back correctly in time. Okay, what if I..." *Death* "Too fast." *Death* "Too slow." *Death* "Couldn't see." *Death* "Got confused." *Death* "Mistimed jump" *Death* "Mistimed environmental change." *Death* "Wrong." *Death* "Wrong again." *Death* *Death* *Death* You can get used to this over time and enjoy the game, sure. As I said, it's not necessarily bad, and there is significant content here including another mode focused on moving through an entire level perfectly, but without the pressure of opponents to race against. However, in a time where we're left with too many games and too little time to play them, to have to dig and dig for that kernel of fun is disappointing. *In full disclosure, I received a copy of this game for review.

[i]Key supplied by developer for review.[/i] [h1]======================================[/h1] [h1][b]Harold[/b][/h1] (Read on for the full review!) [h1]======================================[/h1] [h1]TL;DR[/h1] Harold is a torturously difficult obstacle-based running game that requires a keen sense of timing. You, Gabriel, must guide Harold through his races in real time while getting at least third place in this absolutely gorgeous game with good music. [h1]======================================[/h1] [h1][b]Pros[/b][/h1] +Gameplay: Hard but satisfying. +Animations: GORGEOUS. +Graphics: Detailed, look hand-drawn. +Music: Really good, but tracks are similar to each other. +Sounds: Perfect. Good sense of timing and encouragement. +Narration: Kid-friendly, good voice-acting. +Menus: Minimal AND intuitive as heck. [h1][b]Cons[/b][/h1] -Brutally hard timing requirements. [h1][b]Neutral[/b][/h1] +/- Have to practice before every level. Really, it makes sense, and is appreciated, as opposed to failing mid-race over and over, but can get a bit tedious. [h1]======================================[/h1] [h1][b]Introduction[/b][/h1] Welcome to Harold, the obstacle-based running game! In Harold, you surprisingly do not play as Harold, but play Harold indirectly as Gabriel. Gabriel is Harold's guardian angel, and your task is to see this unlikely runner to victory in races. Seraphiel is your nemesis in this task, doing everything she can to achieve victory in your place. [h1][b]Gameplay[/b][/h1] The gameplay of Harold is a blast. You, again, are Gabriel, Harold's guardian angel, trying to see him through his races in at least third place. That's not so hard, right? Wrong. In Harold, timing is everything, and you will be required to perform tasks with brutally tight timing. What tasks are you trying to perform you ask? Good question! In Harold, you will be required to perform many tasks, such as speeding Harold across drawbridges, knocking out crocodiles, and lowering or raising, as well as panning obstacles for Harold to cross them. But wait, the fun doesn't end there! You can also, with good timing, mess up other runners' journeys through said obstacles, getting you closer to victory. There is one other feature in the form of puff power. Puff power is used to either save Harold from an improperly passed obstacle such as a crocodile or fall, or to encourage him, which makes him go faster. There is a balance to be struck between encouraging Harold, getting him safely across obstacles, and to further puff pickups. If you fail the obstacle and don't have any puff power, you will have to start over, so be careful! All of this makes for extremely fun and engaging gameplay, with good incentivation and strangely enough a pretty high feeling of reward. If the reward of satisfaction isn't enough, the cheering and confetti flying at the end of a well-performed race will perhaps push your fun-o-meter over the edge. The only thing to make a special note of is the pretty high difficulty curve. You've been warned. [h1][b]Graphics[/b][/h1] Harold is a beautifully animated game with a very slick menu and equally slick transitions. The art looks to be hand-drawn, and is very detailed. The animations are even more detailed, with each runner featuring a unique set of art and animations alike. There are a wealth of colors and they are all vibrant and eye-pleasingly used. The menu system is minimal in every way, allowing you to choose races (levels) and the options corresponding to them simaltaneously, which is ingenious design. The menus are all made up mainly of pictures and background images, but the font that it uses when it uses a font is pleasing to the eye and a nice soft white, a good contrast against the colorful backdrops. [h1][b]Audio[/b][/h1] The audio in Harold is also very well done. The narration is flawless, and kid-friendly, with great intonation and sense of pausing, as well as unique voices for each character used, a major plus in my book. The music is also very good, although slightly repetitive, since the racing themes feel like variations on each other. [h1][b]Conclusion[/b][/h1] Harold is truly a gem, albeit a frustratingly hard gem. Like diamond level hard. The artstyle is wonderful, and well executed, the animations are fluid and varied, and the audio is wonderfully easy on the ears, as well as encouraging. There is polish all around, and the only problem you'll ever run into is the game's brutal timing requirements. If you're up for a very big challenge, but a fun one, Harold is for you! [h1]======================================[/h1] [i]If you liked this review or want to see more recommended games, be sure to follow our curator group: [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Original_Curators_Group#curation]Follow Original Curator Group[/url][/i]

Harold is a challenging, high quality hand-drawn 2D platforming racing game where you play as a guardian angel in learning, trying to graduate from school into a prestige academy, you have to at least win 3rd place in all (I think all) races. The twist is, you mainly control the environment of the race, with only a jump action you can do with the character that's in the race. The hand drawn graphics are really high quality, and it looks gorgeous along side the animations and the music too. At first glance one could say it's a game that came out of a Disney movie, the 2D classic kind, not the CGI kind. The story is cheerful one, and the characters are nice and likable, accompanied with great voice acting. And just the whole presentation of the game is almost spotless, with the right fine touches being applied. The music is just damn awesome and 'magical' if one could say, it reminded me the awesome music from Lilo & Stitch. The gameplay is you racing with having control mainly of the environment rather than the character, where you have to interact with certain parts of the environment, and little character control, which is only jumping and enabling a speed bost, to be able to finish a race. The game itself is really challenging, even from the beginning, which is why they always have a practice session before every new race in a new level for you to get an idea of how you manage and finish the level. It was also a good thing for me that they didn't make it mandatory that you have to finish first place, and they made it where you have to finish at least at third place. Along the way you will learn new techniques every now and then regarding a level, that will introduce something new you will have to cope with, in order to finish the level in most cases, or learn how to better use them and finishing the level in the fastest possible way at first place. There's a decent amount of content for you to go through and finish, with a challenge mode for each level that's even changed up a bit in a different way where you have to finish the race with speed bost on and not failing once, and that mode helps add more replayability. The bad thing is that it's sometimes it's hard to tell where the character you play as is standing, especially in speed mode, which results in fuzzy knowledge of when to jump. The other problem is on PC, there's no keyboard and mouse support, only controller support, and that's not a good thing. To those who say that it isn't a big deal, sure, but imagine for a moment that a game on console gets released, and it only has keyboard and mouse support, no controller support. Bad right? The game's presentation is just spot on amazing, with the art, animations, special effects, voice acting, the beginning to the ending, the story, all of which one would think they developers hired a director from Disney movies. That plus the good challenging and different type of gameplay. I went to have another look, and actually the game is inspired by classic Disney animation, with Hollywood animation veterans that have worked on it, so no wonder this game looks great. Shameless [url=http://www.ksalue.com/_/review/my-thoughts-on-harold-r705]link[/url] to original post.

Довольно сложный платформер с непрямым управлением, очень красивой рисовкой и прекрасным юмором. Здесь буквально все яркое, интересное и запоминающееся. И хотя по сути он является родственником мобильных «раннеров», Harold несравнимо глубже и сложнее (а также смешнее) предшественников, просто благодаря механикам, которых в мобильных версиях пока не встретишь. Пробегается за пару вечеров если соблюдать минимальные условия (прийти на каждой трассе третьим), но если любите проходить все на максимум, то игре есть что предложить и показать. Трассы сложные, ветвящиеся, самых разнообразных ловушек и препятствий много. Кроме того есть режим Challenge, который потребует еще больше ловкости и четкости. Стоит отметить непростое управление, требующее высокой координации движений (отдельные элементы требуют серьезной практики). Кроме того игра ТРЕБУЕТ геймпад и с клавиатуры не управляется НИКАК. Любителям простых и ненапрягающих игр можно смело проходить мимо, здесь для них нет вообще ничего. Кто любит превозмогать - смело берите.

[h1]Harold is for me the most beautiful game made on Unity!!! [/h1] [b]Graphics[/b] in this game is a marvel, hand-drawn locations - very large! Each element of the entire board is drawn from start to finish; and nothing here is repeated - on top of that, each race takes place in a different climate and location - from winter - to deserts through jungles. On top of that there are funny and imaginative character animations - and those wonderful particle effects - explosions,crackles,sparks etc! And cartoon animations as movie inserts before each race - in a cool style drawn <lightly manga-like :D>. [b]Plot[/b]. Before I get to the gameplay I'll write what the story is about - the whole game takes place in heaven where young guardian angels in the local gymnasium study and train. A pair of opponents appears here - a pit laugher aka Prankster and a miracle deity blonde from a noble family. Laughing Man does everything right, he easily succeeds in everything, while Miracle Goddess Blonde, despite trying with all her might, is always inferior, and even when she is not, the hero Prankster annoys her. Here is where the gameplay begins - our guardian angels get a protégé from the ground who runs in a race and they have to help him so that he doesn't kill himself (all for ratings!). [b]Gameplay[/b]. In the game, we play our own guardian angel who, with the help of divine powers, can move and manipulate specific objects on the map and crack the main character with lightning - then he starts running faster. The entire race board is divided into segments in which there are several traps - the moment Harold reaches it we get the opportunity to interact with objects on the board - and so on in turn until the finish line. Harold himself can only jump up and down and speed him up with the help of lightning (for this you need to collect special halos scattered around the board). However, in the race we do not run alone, there are also representatives of other angels whom we must unfairly interfere when possible - and watch out for them because when we run with someone at an equal pace; believe me, but two people on one liana is not her very good idea. [b]Control[/b] is based 100% on the pad. [b]WITHOUT a pad you CANNOT OPERATE THIS GAME[/b]. You use the pad to unscrew taps or move up and down the controls. On the keyboard there wouldn't really be a way to implement this; this interaction with objects. [b]Modes[/b] of play we have three - the first is a tutorial. Before we approach the game we have to play each segment of a given map in the tutorial to learn what we need to do at a given point - just for example, move the board to the left, cut the line and lift the saw up. Later we have a proper run in which if we die twice we have to play from scratch - you have to finish at least third place. The third mode is challenge - where Harold runs constantly fast, we have one life and a bunch of stars to collect. [b]Music[/b] - it's here Superb! All songs are such played African melodies from the bush - Hawaiian rhythms and some others that are hard to categorize - For me the music is MEGA!!! (check yourself on youtube WORTH IT) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FIxMzaG6Sk It's hard for me to find a downside - as for me it's too difficult - I admit I could not pass it, it's very demanding but it's mainly because of the control unfortunately, harold runs so slowly that it's hard to get used to it and measure the jump - especially that you have to jump a millimeter before the edge otherwise you will not jump. You should be able to choose the difficulty level on easy where it does not matter which place you take. AND ATTENTION THIS GAME CAN NOT BE RUN WITHOUT A PAD! For me, this game is another marvel to the list - a graphic masterpiece with an interesting storyline and enjoyable sometimes annoying gameplay. I give a dyche! A WHAT! [★[★[★[★[★[★[★[★[★[★]

Отличная красочная игра! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vNhtDMKtDo&list=UUCnZsGZwQKhnklsxgHXzXww

As much as we love it, we can at least admit that Harold isn’t necessarily for everyone. Loris said himself that each person’s tolerance for failure varies quite a bit so it’s difficult to say whether or not everyone can deal with the game's challenges. That said, we don’t especially enjoy indie games focused solely on difficult platforming, but in the case of Harold, we just couldn’t put it down. What is certain is that, for 15 Euro, you’ll never feel robbed by the game or the developers, who are truly committed to pleasing players. Visually stunning, musically brilliant, Gamersyde strongly advise you to jump on this one rather than waiting for the “inevitable Steam sale in a few months”. We can’t wait to see what this ten person team can accomplish in the future and we’ll be eagerly awaiting their next projects whatever they may be. In the meantime, we’re heading back to the races. Full review here: http://www.gamersyde.com/news_gamersyde_review_harold-16260_en.html ---- Emballés et dithyrambiques que nous sommes, il faut comprendre qu'un jeu comme Harold ne s'adresse pas à tout le monde. Loris le disait lui-même, le seuil de tolérance à l'échec étant très différent d'une personne à l'autre, difficile de vous promettre que vous garderez un calme olympien en toutes circonstances en jouant au titre de Moon Spider. Ceci étant dit, n'étant pas spécialement des hardcore gamers prêts à passer des heures et des heures sur certains jeux indépendants reconnus pour leur difficulté, nous avons énormément de mal à décrocher de ce jeu de plateforme à l'envers. La marge de progression est impressionnante, la profondeur de jeu beaucoup plus grande qu'il n'y paraît lorsqu'on le regarde en vidéo, et c'est réellement en l'essayant que vous pourrez savoir de quoi il retourne. Ce qui est certain, c'est que pour 15€, vous en aurez pour votre argent si vous accrochez au concept, et que vous ne vous sentirez jamais volé, ni par le jeu, ni les développeurs qui se sont vraiment attachés à nous faire plaisir. Visuellement superbe, musicalement génial, Gamersyde vous conseille fortement de vous y mettre et de ne surtout pas ranger Harold dans la catégorie des "jeux à prendre en soldes sur Steam d'ici quelques mois". Quand on voit ce qu'a réussi à accomplir ce petit studio de 10 personnes, on se prend à rêver de leurs prochains projets, qu'il s'agisse d'une probable suite ou de courses supplémentaires à ce premier épisode. On croise les doigts pour eux donc, et en attendant, on y retourne ! Test complet ici : French: http://www.gamersyde.com/news_review_harold-16260_fr.html

Game is broken for the xbox one controller on win10.

I just received Harold as a present and I didn't know the game at all. But I have to say that I am really impressed by the gameplay, the graphics and the music at the same time! The gameplay is really unique. It's quiet hard but they give you all the tools to succeed! So if you fail a race you wil be angry after you but not the game. The animation is like a Disney cartoon, have just a look at the waves in the background of the beach level and you will understand what I am talking about. The music is discret at the begining of the race but get more loud when you increase the speed of Harold. And it's a great idea because you feel like having a crowd encouraging you and it's a great feeling. You should try it if you like challenges! Harold is a great indie game!