PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox; Don’t Nod
This choice-driven adventure gives the game away by showing what’s happening under the hood
Polly thought she had left her home and her family behind, but her mother Ursula’s disappearance swiftly brings her back to the island of Atina. And it’s not just Polly’s family that’s in trouble. A mysterious necklace transports her to Reverie, where the Aspirations, a group of humanoid mythical beings, tell her she has the gift of foresight and needs to use it to save their world as well as hers.
The ideas of fate and foresight in Harmony provide a narrative anchor for developer Don’t Nod, which then lays bare exactly how you go about designing the choices in a visual-novel style game such as this. Ahead of each decision in the story, you visit the Augural, a tree with nodes that each represent different choices. Each choice represents an Aspiration’s approach to a problem – Power favours assertiveness, Bliss wants to avoid conflict, and so on – and making a decision locks you out of the alternatives. If you’re not sure what to pick, you can look ahead on the tree and see what your choice may lead to.
Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is out now on PC and Nintendo Switch, and 22 June on Xbox and PlayStation; £22.99
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