Harmonies Components Overview

Harmonies is such a great looking game, and the gameplay is fantastic as well. I have almost no complaints about the game, but I do think we need to talk about the game’s components. First and foremost, I think it’s important to remember that Harmonies is coming out as a fairly inexpensive title, and while that means more people are going to get to play it, it also means there need to be some cuts to keep costs down.

The wooden pieces you are playing out on your player boards are absolutely fantastic. They are screen printed wooden pieces – outside of the brown ones which have no printing – depicting the top of trees, fields, mountains, and buildings. They look great, they feel great, and they are fun to play onto your player board to create your own unique landscape.

You will be drawing these tiles from a bag as you play and populating a central board. The bag itself is serviceable and perfectly OK, which is meant to be a praise, not a con. Personally, it would have been nice to have the games logo stitched onto the bag, but that isn’t adding anything to the game itself, and would only increase costs.

The playerboards are really nice and thick, and although mine came a bit curled on some of the corners, a little bit of weight on them for a few hours flattened them out nicely. I chalk that up to a shipping situation, likely caused by temperature changes. I was disappointed to see a few of the edges pretty badly battered, and I’m not sure what is actually causing that. It could be that my game was a one-off here. Based on a few other pictures and videos I’ve seen, I am calling it a one-off, but still something to be aware of.

I did an interview with a few publishers a few years back and they all said the same thing when it came to board game production – cards are the components that get the most expensive, the fastest. Standard quality cards – which some would deem low quality by 2024 standards – are not overly expensive to produce, but once you start introducing thicker cards, and perhaps cards with linen finish, you get a nice production value but at a significant cost. For many board games that are meant to appeal to the masses – think about things you’d see at Target in the United States – there just isn’t a budget to produce really beautiful, sturdy cards.

Thankfully you are not doing a ton of shuffling and handling of cards in Harmonies, because these cards are not as good as most other games with cards. While it is a knock against the production quality of the title, I think it does fall in line with the price you are going to pay. I think longtime board game fans are going to look at the price of the game, look at the quality of the cards, and decide that they correlate and that it all makes sense. Less knowledgeable consumers might think they are getting ripped off.

Again, for me, and at this price, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but once again something to consider. That being said, you can always sleeve them or laminate them!