Harvest Hunt Review (PC)

In the aftermath of a wicked plague that ushered the remnants of the human population into an opaque purgatory of rot and sorrow, I, too, found myself at the twisted hand of fate. I, like every other wretched soul who happened to find themselves encapsulated in the monster-infested crimson nightmare, wanted little more than the everlasting darkness to disintegrate. But there was a catch: I, against my own will, was to be the guardian of this world, and if I was to ensure the survival of my kin, I would have to carry the torch forward and set the foundations alight—a task that would involve having to make dismal sacrifices and launder pressure on my ever-changing moral compass. Sure enough, the nights would be long, but in the eyes of my overseer, when the Harvest Hunt would eventually come to knock, I’d be the one to answer the call.

Harvest Hunt is a twisted creation, I’ll say that much; it’s as if Tim Burton had a shot at directing The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or something along those lines, at least. With that in mind, you might just be able to picture what the latest first-person survival-horror entails, or at least establish a sense of what it aims to encompass in its narrative, anyway. However, if you are a little apprehensive about plunging into it for yourself, or have yet to make the vital decision on whether or not to simply romp through it without the relevant knowledge, then allow us to point you in the right direction. Care to join us as we commence the hunt? Then let’s go ahead and cue the Black Death!

When in Luna Nova

Harvest Hunt paints its picture as a rather grim affair—dismal, even, and one that blends the story of a forsaken civilization lost in a purgatory lockdown, and a looming conflict between the unfortunate souls of a world called Luna Nova, and a ravenous force of flesh-deprived and evidently sadistic entities. In this world, you take on the role of the Warden, whose job it is to not only protect those who have fallen victim to the lies conceived by the so-called Promise Land, but to also secure new ways of abolishing the monstrous foes that hang in the shadows. It isn’t an easy job, but given the fact that there is nobody else to take the reins, it falls to you to bear the torch and hoist the flag — even if it means having to die numerous times in order to find a snack for your villagers. Sad times.

Like a lot of traditional rogue-like games, Harvest Hunt sees you embarking on various dives into the world of Luna Nova—a horrifyingly bleak locale that’s absolutely bursting at the seams with eerily vacant structures, disturbances, and a worryingly limited amount of supplies for you to lumber back to your paper-thin husk of a haven. For each attempt that you make into the looming darkness, a new web of trials await, all of which require you to make a decision before taking on the shift. This decision that I speak of, whilst largely unpredictable and often difficult to utilize, falls from a tarot-inspired deck-building format—a process that involves acquiring completely random tools and skills, and learning to roll with whatever cards you’ve been allocated. In other words, every night is different; the cards that you bring with you either have the power to aid you, or eradicate your survivability.

If All Else Fails

Once you’ve obtained your initial starter deck of abilities and tools, you’ll find yourself engulfed in a myriad of treacherous cornfields and unruly biomes inspired by European folklore—locations in which the deprived creature known as the Devourer prowls and hunts for its next meal. The game, which is spread out over the course of five nights, sees you making short but ludicrously risky dips into the aforementioned labyrinths, and searching for a valuable resource known as Ambrosia—a rarity that is vital for upholding the communal welfare of Luna Nova. With all of this, the goal is all rather clear: enter the cornfields, and play cat and mouse with your stalker until you’ve obtained enough Ambrosia to satisfy your requirements. After that, it’s merely the case of doing it all over again, but against higher odds of surviving the onslaught.

As far as gameplay goes, Harvest Hunt blends a mixture of stealth and strategy with a randomized tarot-centric card system. Naturally, the narrative unfolds in vastly different ways depending upon the cards that you have in your collection, though, for the most part, the goals remain mostly the same: collect Ambrosia, and flee with your tail between your legs to an escape point before the Devourer catches your scent and hunts you down. In order to make short work of these rather simple fetch quests, you also need to adopt a stealthy approach—a tactic that will see you crouching, tiptoeing, and sifting through areas of interest. Think Slender: The Eight Pages, but with a fungi-like resource instead of daunting notes, and you’ll have a vague idea of what I’m talking about. That, for the most part, is Harvest Hunt — and it works surprisingly well.

Reversing the Tide

I’m not going to say that Harvest Hunt is a terrifying game, because it isn’t. I will, however, give credit where it’s due and say that, as far as unsettling ambiance goes, it does manage to lean on all of the appropriate trappings to be considered a genuinely creepy experience. In a similar vein as other survival-horror games of its caliber, each night in Harvest Hunt allows you to not only cower behind some form of foliage, but also turn the tides on your oppressor by fashioning an offensive weapon from the tools that you collect, and going toe-to-toe on their backsides. And unfortunately, this is, whether you like it or not, a goal that often ties in with the overarching task of collecting Ambrosia and stat-boosting cards.

Aside from the generous selection of tarot-inspired cards, tools, and procedurally generated scenarios and what have you, Harvest Hunt does also feature a series of unique and mysterious cel-shaded thematic set pieces, too. Suffice it to say that, when it comes to ultra-realistic graphical components, it isn’t in receipt of anything particularly mesmerizing, though its lack of visual complexity is often overshadowed by its general use of striking color schemes and transparent effects, truly. Its audio, too, is pleasantly spooky—so much, that I almost feel morally inclined to give headphone users a minor warning. Granted, it won’t make you leap out of your skin, but if you’re a sucker for cheap thrills and anticipating the unknown, then there’s every chance that you’ll find something to gnash your teeth over in this depository of despair.

Verdict

Harvest Hunt provides a genuinely thrilling rogue-like experience that’s both dauntingly chilling to sift through, as well as pleasantly entertaining to watch unravel over the course of each Harvest Season. There’s certainly a learning curve to it, but given the fact that it does, at least, make an effort to offer you some basic understanding of how each component works, and how to complete certain feats through the use of various tutorials, I wouldn’t go quite as far as to say that it’s overly perplexing. Sure enough, death in Harvest Hunt is inevitable, as is the need to restart from scratch and begin a new Harvest Season for every time you fail to decipher the lore. For me, though, that was half of the fun, and something that I didn’t mind having to deal with — despite the fact that I was, more or less, repeating the same mistakes.

There’s a hefty amount of content to shovel through here—and perhaps even more that what I’m letting on, given the fact that there are countless variations of tarot cards to unlock, and thrice as many original scenarios to bear witness to, also. Needless to say that, the fact that I was only able to knuckle in on a minor portion of the potential combinations and conclusions during the first several hours of play, really, was enough of an indication that there was a whole lot more left to unravel. Again, its gameplay is a little bare-bones, to say the least, but due to the fact that there are, indeed, several story arcs to decode, cards to unlock, and tools to fashion, respectively, I’m willing to grant Harvest Hunt a temporary residency in my collection — if only for the next few weeks or so.