This review contains spoilers
Harvester is a point and click game developed by DigiFX Interactive and published on Steam by Nightdive Studios. DigiFX was originally known as FutureVision, Inc. and developed games The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki and Command Adventures: Starship before development began on this game. I don’t know much about its history other than writer Gilbert P. Austin pitched this to the company in an attempt to be able to “compete” with the giants. I’ll throw a couple links down at the bottom if I can about the dev history but I wanna go into my personal history. I wasn’t really familiar with this game before reviewer Grimbeard made a vid on this but I remember looking into it and buying it on a whim because I enjoy old point and clicks even if I don’t play them because I suck at puzzles, then watching his vid and realizing “wow, I DO have this game.” and not playing it until streaming it for a friend recently.
The gameplay is as said, a point and click game, and it has logic puzzles if that’s your thing. Now I can’t pretend like I completed it all by myself with my thinking and brain power because one, I was streaming for someone so I wanted to keep the pace going well and two I would get stuck anyways because I suck so I used a guide. However with that in mind, I can’t necessarily talk about that as much as I can talk about other things I’ve noticed. Everything in the town of Harvester is warped with its own sort of bridge logic, and as such so are the people; the first ½ to ¾ of the game you’ll be walking around, picking up items, talking to the townsfolk, and using these tools to solve certain steps just to get into “The Lodge”. There’s a lot more depth to the game than you think so I’d recommend not just using the guide but also going out of your way and exploring more. You can get extra flavor by showing people certain objects; for example if you steal the sheriff’s checkbook he uses for a blackmail scheme, photocopy it and show it to people around the town, they all have their own reactions; and you can even bring it to the sheriff himself for an extra “Get out of Jail Free” card later. This is useful if you want to do some murdering or you get caught doing something by accident as if you get arrested three times then you fail and have to reload a save, and this will give you another chance. Do certain things then come back later and talk to people to get their thoughts on it and if you type out certain text phrases to certain people, you’ll get certain dialogue trees that wouldn’t be accessible otherwise. From here I’m gonna combine the atmosphere and other stuff categories because these dialogue options are warped and morbid (for example, type F u c k to your mother for…results). Certain places aren’t even relevant but lead to fun moments, like talking to the guy at the nuke base leads to a bit of cold war paranoia. Other notables include Mr. Pottsdam’s creepy obsession with his daughter and meat, as well as the TV host who goes on a diatribe about TV violence, and the Sheriff is a comedic genius with his timing. There’s a lot of funny moments and truth be told if I wasn’t streaming I would’ve spent half the time trying to find all the dialogue.
Once you get into the Lodge though, that's when things go downhill; it has its interesting moments and baffling humor but this is when it forces you into combat. I’ll start by saying rotate your saves as the combat is shoddy and there isn’t really a way to “master” it persay as it’s kind of just a matter of luck and a bit of timing. In order to equip/fight, right click on your persons and then right click again on certain weapons to pull them out, then hold the arrow keys and press Ctrl to swing/shoot. Also a pro-tip, definitely use the guide here. I don’t know if you can skip the shotgun but you will NEED it later, scrounge all the shells you can and then try not to use any of it because you will need it for certain encounters with projectile wielders. Herein lies a problem; you’re not really used to doing this stuff except if you decided to experiment a bit with murder in town so doing this is just jarring as hell, mixed with the limited ammo and health pickups there’s a good chance that you might screw yourself over here. I understand that in a game like this, combat feels like a thematic necessity with the violence but it moreso just feels annoying with how it pans out and you WILL get damaged fighting. If I were to give any other tips I would say when you’re in the third level, don’t have s e x with the prostitute or you’ll get an STD and have to find an antidote or you will die, just trust me.
As for the plot, there’s so much here that I’m not even sure where to begin but I know I won’t go through a beat for beat basis as I’ll violate the review limits. Instead I’m going to throw out that this game is a painfully obvious satire on violence as it’s portrayed in the media as well as the hypocrisy behind people outcrying against violence. Everyone one way or another contributes in some way to this satire, especially in the Lodge portion but ultimately the plot is this: Steve wakes up to learn he’s about to get married, remembers nothing and is told to “join the lodge”, run by the Order of the Harvest Moon. You’ll get some flavor as you play but you’ll eventually run through five different trials of different scales, a lot of which leads to death before your fiance, Steph, disappears and you enter the lodge to rescue. When you finally beat the game you’re left with the twist: You are in a simulation meant to desensitize you to violence and breed serial killers before you’re left with two endings: Live in Harvest and marry Steph, which leads to you dying in the real world or kill her and live on, becoming a killer before it cuts to the final scene of you playing Harvester while Steve’s mom gives him hell on how “Playing violent video games will turn you violent”. I don’t usually care for “it was all a dream” twists, neither did my friend who I streamed it to but I actually didn’t hate it and felt that it made sense considering the warped tone this game has; with even the Lodge having different trials based on religious parody, gladiator fights, BDSM dungeons, a really warped one involving childbirth and how parasitic it can feel; like it certain tries to hit all the nails in the head even if it's not the most highbrow and intellectual but then again I like Postal 2 so I don't care lol.
So what happened after the game was made? Nothing. All I know about it was that it was shut down and everyone moved on. All I know personally is that in an ironic twist I didn’t see coming, the actor who plays Steve, Kurt Kistler, was arrested for CP (in flannel no less) which…ewww. The actress who plays Karin, Rheagan Wallace, was in stuff like Agents of SHIELD and Hellraiser: Judgment. So is it worth playing? I would say yes, but play this game with a lot of patience, and both a guide at hand and a willingness to deviate a bit; definitely have an open sense of humor and a fondness for point and click logic is definitely recommended. I wish I could go into it more but there's so much I want to say that I'd need a whole essay to cover everything; it's a lowbrow yet hilarious romp on modern day morality that's better explained by professionals, though if you want to stop once you get into the Lodge it's understandable, and according to one person you can input the code BRUCE for invincibility though I'm unsure of even how to do that. Also Alt+Enter is how to fullscreen in case you window it by mistake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYu7_wzuKk&ab_channel=GrimBeard (Good Vid)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Harvester
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=248246741 (Guide)
https://www.gog.com/forum/harvester/harvester_secrets_easter_eggs_etc_spoilers
https://archive.org/details/harvester-the-script/mode/2up
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The gameplay is as said, a point and click game, and it has logic puzzles if that’s your thing. Now I can’t pretend like I completed it all by myself with my thinking and brain power because one, I was streaming for someone so I wanted to keep the pace going well and two I would get stuck anyways because I suck so I used a guide. However with that in mind, I can’t necessarily talk about that as much as I can talk about other things I’ve noticed. Everything in the town of Harvester is warped with its own sort of bridge logic, and as such so are the people; the first ½ to ¾ of the game you’ll be walking around, picking up items, talking to the townsfolk, and using these tools to solve certain steps just to get into “The Lodge”. There’s a lot more depth to the game than you think so I’d recommend not just using the guide but also going out of your way and exploring more. You can get extra flavor by showing people certain objects; for example if you steal the sheriff’s checkbook he uses for a blackmail scheme, photocopy it and show it to people around the town, they all have their own reactions; and you can even bring it to the sheriff himself for an extra “Get out of Jail Free” card later. This is useful if you want to do some murdering or you get caught doing something by accident as if you get arrested three times then you fail and have to reload a save, and this will give you another chance. Do certain things then come back later and talk to people to get their thoughts on it and if you type out certain text phrases to certain people, you’ll get certain dialogue trees that wouldn’t be accessible otherwise. From here I’m gonna combine the atmosphere and other stuff categories because these dialogue options are warped and morbid (for example, type F u c k to your mother for…results). Certain places aren’t even relevant but lead to fun moments, like talking to the guy at the nuke base leads to a bit of cold war paranoia. Other notables include Mr. Pottsdam’s creepy obsession with his daughter and meat, as well as the TV host who goes on a diatribe about TV violence, and the Sheriff is a comedic genius with his timing. There’s a lot of funny moments and truth be told if I wasn’t streaming I would’ve spent half the time trying to find all the dialogue.
Once you get into the Lodge though, that's when things go downhill; it has its interesting moments and baffling humor but this is when it forces you into combat. I’ll start by saying rotate your saves as the combat is shoddy and there isn’t really a way to “master” it persay as it’s kind of just a matter of luck and a bit of timing. In order to equip/fight, right click on your persons and then right click again on certain weapons to pull them out, then hold the arrow keys and press Ctrl to swing/shoot. Also a pro-tip, definitely use the guide here. I don’t know if you can skip the shotgun but you will NEED it later, scrounge all the shells you can and then try not to use any of it because you will need it for certain encounters with projectile wielders. Herein lies a problem; you’re not really used to doing this stuff except if you decided to experiment a bit with murder in town so doing this is just jarring as hell, mixed with the limited ammo and health pickups there’s a good chance that you might screw yourself over here. I understand that in a game like this, combat feels like a thematic necessity with the violence but it moreso just feels annoying with how it pans out and you WILL get damaged fighting. If I were to give any other tips I would say when you’re in the third level, don’t have s e x with the prostitute or you’ll get an STD and have to find an antidote or you will die, just trust me.
As for the plot, there’s so much here that I’m not even sure where to begin but I know I won’t go through a beat for beat basis as I’ll violate the review limits. Instead I’m going to throw out that this game is a painfully obvious satire on violence as it’s portrayed in the media as well as the hypocrisy behind people outcrying against violence. Everyone one way or another contributes in some way to this satire, especially in the Lodge portion but ultimately the plot is this: Steve wakes up to learn he’s about to get married, remembers nothing and is told to “join the lodge”, run by the Order of the Harvest Moon. You’ll get some flavor as you play but you’ll eventually run through five different trials of different scales, a lot of which leads to death before your fiance, Steph, disappears and you enter the lodge to rescue. When you finally beat the game you’re left with the twist: You are in a simulation meant to desensitize you to violence and breed serial killers before you’re left with two endings: Live in Harvest and marry Steph, which leads to you dying in the real world or kill her and live on, becoming a killer before it cuts to the final scene of you playing Harvester while Steve’s mom gives him hell on how “Playing violent video games will turn you violent”. I don’t usually care for “it was all a dream” twists, neither did my friend who I streamed it to but I actually didn’t hate it and felt that it made sense considering the warped tone this game has; with even the Lodge having different trials based on religious parody, gladiator fights, BDSM dungeons, a really warped one involving childbirth and how parasitic it can feel; like it certain tries to hit all the nails in the head even if it's not the most highbrow and intellectual but then again I like Postal 2 so I don't care lol.
So what happened after the game was made? Nothing. All I know about it was that it was shut down and everyone moved on. All I know personally is that in an ironic twist I didn’t see coming, the actor who plays Steve, Kurt Kistler, was arrested for CP (in flannel no less) which…ewww. The actress who plays Karin, Rheagan Wallace, was in stuff like Agents of SHIELD and Hellraiser: Judgment. So is it worth playing? I would say yes, but play this game with a lot of patience, and both a guide at hand and a willingness to deviate a bit; definitely have an open sense of humor and a fondness for point and click logic is definitely recommended. I wish I could go into it more but there's so much I want to say that I'd need a whole essay to cover everything; it's a lowbrow yet hilarious romp on modern day morality that's better explained by professionals, though if you want to stop once you get into the Lodge it's understandable, and according to one person you can input the code BRUCE for invincibility though I'm unsure of even how to do that. Also Alt+Enter is how to fullscreen in case you window it by mistake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRYu7_wzuKk&ab_channel=GrimBeard (Good Vid)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Harvester
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=248246741 (Guide)
https://www.gog.com/forum/harvester/harvester_secrets_easter_eggs_etc_spoilers
https://archive.org/details/harvester-the-script/mode/2up
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/