Harvest Hunt

At 6 hours in (update at the bottom of the review), I'm just over halfway through Harvest Hunt. It's a stealth horror game in the vein of Alien Isolation (creeping around, hiding, distracting, watching 'vents') but with the thematic elements of Hunt: Showdown (cornfields, swamps, effigies, whispers, sound traps, tools, shacks and throwing axes) and a stylistic flair entirely its own. It's a gorgeous looking game, from the card art and menus to the in-game 3D, texture work and atmospheric lighting. The hazy colours at night just look so cool. To be honest, I wish Hunt: Showdown looked like this now. So far there's a single and relatively cosy map (not 'cosy' as in Animal Crossing, cosy as in 'there's a lot packed in here'). You play as a warden and your job is to collect Ambrosia each night while avoiding the Devourer who contaminates it. Gather enough Ambrosia to survive the season. There are five nights per season and each season has you play as a different character with their own backstory and a starting trait. While you can escape the map at any time, you can attempt to banish the Devourer for bonus Ambrosia, which involves damaging it, taking its 'fragments' to an effigy in the centre of the map and burning it. What makes Harvest Hunt so interesting is its card system and a few other twists. You buy tools with your blood (more tools = less starting health). But you don't start with these tools: they're stored in locations on the map. Oh, and you can only hold one tool at a time. All these elements force you to move around to patch yourself up and grab your gear, but they also made me plan routes: consume the rations here, take the stink pot from there, toss at the Devourer then swing back round for a vigor elixir. However, making your movement trickier (or easier!) are the warden and whisper cards. Each season your warden gains strength and fortification cards and each night there's a new set of 'whispers' which can dramatically change how you approach them. Perhaps this night there's no Ambrosia to gather so your only chance to get any is by trying to banish the Devourer. Perhaps there are some free tools to be found around the map. Perhaps the cornfields are poisonous. That's a tough one. There were numerous times where I thought 'why would I ever use this tool or trait?' but the answer was usually 'because that card is a massive pain in the arse without it'. Harvest Hunt takes a while to reveal the clever interplay between its mechanics and cards but it's been really cool to see how transformative they can be, even if there is only one map (I think!). I've not failed a night or season yet (there's a side of me that wishes it was a bit tougher to really get you sweating) and the story is still unfolding, but I've really enjoyed my time with it so far. Update after completion: I still recommend Harvest Hunt and love its card system but after completing it I've no real desire to jump back in to discover more about the story as it expects me to. By the end of the fifth and final harvest (each one comprising of five nights) the map and gameplay loop just became too familiar to really hold my interest like the first few did, which is a shame.

This Game Deserves A LOT more attention! Pros and cons are down below Check out a bit of gameplay here to understand the gist of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7tlo7jfUxw Pros: 1. THE ARTSTYLE is SO GOOD! It's unique, it's cool, it's scary, I absolutely love it 2. The sound design is on point! Literally sound design + artstyle make this game so scary and so interesting! 3. The whole idea is creative and fun! You basically have 5 nights to collect a certain amount of fruit in the trial but you compete for this fruit with a scary monster who lurks the fields. (check out the linked vid if you want more details). It's a roguelite survival horror and it's fun to play and replay. Cons: 1. When you unlock every card in the game, it becomes too easy. After a certain point, I didn't have "close calls" anymore. In my humble opinion, the sanctuaries were too OP (for the devs if they will ever read this: I would personally nerf them to restore health once per trial and then you get no more sanctuaries, I feel this would make the late game a lot more tense) 2. I wish there was more content. I feel like if this game got more popular, maybe the devs would update it to add more weapons, more variators, more wardens etc. It would be so cool! For now this game is 3 - 6 hour experience. Overall: Harvest Hunt gets 10 Devourers / 10 from me! I hope it gets it's deserved attention!

Good atmosphere, albeit a bit dark. Loved the idea of a horror roguelike, and while the gameplay is slow, feels a little necessary for a horror roguelike to effectively work. Like how each night gets both good and bad modifiers, and getting a selection of bonuses to choose from for your character / the map itself. I dislike the detection "fiends" though; feels very little counterplay and hard to notice (I notice they have a glowy white swirl but can be hard to see). First two nights out of the first run I get detected and die immediately. Still a good game and maybe slight skill issue, but would love to seen some tweaks.

If you're looking for an indie horror title that is genuinely novel, and not just "RE/SH/etc. but with QUIRKY THEMES and poorly-written mental health metaphors", this is an outstanding choice.

just finished my first "season", it's a neat little title with a great art style and a tight gameplay loop. Very easy to pick up and play! I had no issues with banishing the devourer, it's not too hard to cheese the AI, still makes for some tense encounters when you don't quite know where it is.

[h2]This isn't a stealth game![/h2] Love the art style and creature design so far, the music is subtle and the sounds from the creature are wonderfully grotesc. The creature or 'Devourer' is easy to spot so keeping away isn't a big issue. The game in some circumstances forces you with a penalty or makes it easier to adopt a new play style for one of the nights making it so you don't always cycle the same type of play each time. Some of these 'omen' cards you can get are a doozey and really change how you might approach a night or just the Devourer! And I can agree that this has a kind of strange sense of balance to it as no matter how bad the 'omen' is I tend to find a way to adjust it... exceptions exist [spoiler]Why would i spoil that here?[/spoiler] but I don't think I can give a good argument to that with having only finished my first run and a few extra failed runs. While above covers most of my current thoughts on the game, for those starting the game don't forget! This is not a stealth game, it is survival horror, you can hide but the Devourer has his own objective, don't let him do as he pleases! [hr][/hr] [h2]Update at 4 hours[/h2] So after first posting this review I played some more and am still going to play more but, probably not frequently. The variety in gameplay has it's issues as the whispers mechanic exists to make each night different but with the exception of poison corn and poison water there is a good way to play around them. Balance for the game beyond the two exceptions I made are very fun in changing the way you move on the farmland, collect ambrosia, and choose your tools. That's the best I have for an update but I will point out, YOU as the player will be the one to make each night interesting in CHOOSING to adapt to the whispers, abilities, and fortifications you use instead of holding dear one set of cards and crying the game is bad when your build doesn't work for one night [hr][/hr] [h1]First Run Note![/h1] I find a lot of people drop a rouge-like because they don't give the 'first run' the attention it needs to be informed when playing further in the game. So a big thing to understand when starting out in Harvest Hunt...The 'first run' is until you complete a harvest season with EACH CHARACTER! After the first run is when the game opens up and you can pick your character to do a harvest season with! Take the first play through to learn how you want to play the game and learn the creatures behaviour!

Great atmosphere, the Devourer can use some improvements, especially with how it grabs you most of the time before you can hit it with the pitchfork but otherwise solid game. Might just be a skill issue on my part tbh

It's alright. Great visual, sfx and some design choice. The randomize modifier may feel unfair at sometime. The fiends (what alert the Devourer about your location) is a bit hard to see, could make them easier to recognize. Fun at first but may become stale since only 1 monster and 1 map. 7.5/10. Recommended on sale.

Once the horror novelty wears off, you'll find this game to be a great stealth experience.

Was super fun for some adrenaline run/jump scare play! Not my usual type of game - cool art, great atmosphere and easy to pick up when you want to pass some time.