Harmonies

Components

Each color has a fixed role: gray = mountain, blue = water, brown = tree trunk, green = tree leaves, yellow = field, red = building. All terrain scoring comes from just these six colors and their stacked height.

Setup

1. 1Place the Central board on the side matching player count (5 spaces for 2–4, 3 spaces for solo).
2. 2Put all 120 Landscape tokens in the bag and place it beside the Central board.
3. 3Draw tokens randomly to fill each Central board space with 3 tokens.
4. 4Each player takes 1 Personal board. Agree together on Side A or Side B, and take a matching reminder card. Side A (river) is recommended for your first games.
5. 5Shuffle the Animal cards and reveal 5 beside the Central board. Keep the rest as a face-down draw pile.
6. 6The player who most recently saw a beautiful landscape goes first.

Game turn

1. 1(Mandatory, once) Take and place tokens — choose one Central board space and take all 3 of its tokens. Place them on your Personal board in any order, and you may interleave the two optional actions below between placements.
2. 2(Optional, once per turn) Take 1 Animal card — choose one of the 5 face-up cards and place it above your Personal board (up to 4 at once). Take as many Animal cubes as the card's spaces and set them on it.
3. 3(Optional, unlimited) Place 1 Animal cube — whenever a Habitat is complete, move a cube onto your Personal board.
4. 4At the end of your turn, refill the emptied Central board space with 3 new tokens from the bag, and refill the Animal card row to 5.

Stacking tokens — mountains, trees, buildings, fields, water

• A token goes on an empty space, or on top of 1 or 2 existing tokens to create a mountain, tree, or building. No other combination may be stacked.
• Mountain — only gray on gray, up to 3 high. A single gray token already counts as a height-1 mountain.
• Tree — 1 green token on top of 0, 1, or 2 brown tokens. Green with no brown underneath is still a height-1 tree. Brown tokens alone, with no green on top, are not yet a tree.
• Building — 1 red token on top of any red, brown, or gray token. Always exactly 2 tokens tall; a third layer is never allowed.
• Water and field (blue and yellow) can never be stacked on. They always sit flat.
• A new token can never go underneath an existing one, and never on a space already holding an Animal cube.

Animal cards and completing Habitats

Each Animal card shows the exact colors, heights, and shape required, plus the space within that shape where the Animal cube goes. Your Personal board must show this pattern exactly, though it may be rotated in any direction.

• The pattern may be rotated to fit. The rulebook illustrates 6 rotational orientations for a single shape.
• Tree and mountain heights must exactly match the card.
• The space receiving the Animal cube must be empty (no other Animal cube already there).
• A building space works with any of red, brown, or gray as its bottom token.
• A single token can belong to several Habitats at once.
• Once requirements are met, move the bottommost cube from the card. When the last cube is moved, the card is complete, set aside, and no longer counts toward your 4-card limit.

Scoring each terrain

End of game and winning

1. 1Either triggers the end — ① the bag is empty when a Central board space needs refilling, or ② any player ends their turn with 2 or fewer empty spaces on their Personal board.
2. 2Finish the current round so every player has taken an equal number of turns.
3. 3Add your Landscape score (trees, mountains, fields, buildings, water) and your Animal card score.
4. 4The highest total wins. Ties go to whoever placed more Animal cubes; if still tied, the players share the victory.

Strategy tips

• A field scores 5 regardless of size, so splitting 4 yellow tokens into two groups of 2 scores more than one group of 4.
• An isolated mountain scores 0 no matter its height. Before stacking gray tokens, check whether they will end up touching another mountain.
• On Side A, only the longest river counts, so scattering blue tokens is wasteful. On Side B, the opposite holds — splitting blue tokens raises your island count.
• A building only scores with 3 or more distinct neighboring colors. Building surrounded by only one or two colors tends to score 0.
• An Animal card scores 0 until at least one cube is removed, so don't just hold 4 cards — prioritize ones where at least the bottom slot is reachable soon.

Nature's Spirit, solo mode, and board sides

• Nature's Spirit cards (for experienced players): each player is dealt 2 face down and keeps 1 face up. Its cube is placed exactly like an Animal cube, and its score is tallied at game end based on your finished Landscape.
• Solo mode: use the 3-space solo side of the Central board and reveal only 3 Animal cards. At the end of each turn, discard the 6 untaken tokens to the box instead of the bag, then refill all 3 spaces with 3 new tokens. On a turn when you did not take an Animal card, you may discard 1 displayed card and replace it from the draw pile. Compare your score against the printed sun-rating scale.
• Personal board Side A (river) vs. Side B (islands): all players must use the same side; Side A is recommended for early games. Only the water scoring differs between sides.
• The game supports 1–4 players; only the Central board's space count changes (3 for solo, 5 for 2–4), while the Personal board and Animal card rules stay the same.

Frequently confused rules

Editions and history

Harmonies was designed by Johan Benvenuto, illustrated by Maëva Da Silva, and published by Libellud in 2024. Libellud's official game page lists a 2024 Swiss Gamers Award win, a 2024 Spiel des Jahres Recommended selection, a 2025 Hungarian Board Game Award win, and a 2025 As d'Or Game of the Year nomination.

Korea Boardgames publishes the official Korean edition. A dedicated English Wikipedia article could not be confirmed by search (checked 2026-10-10); Namuwiki confirmed only the designer, publisher, and release year. The BGG 414317 page returned an automated block (403) on direct access, so player count (1–4), age (10+), and playtime (30–45 min) were cross-checked against the catalog and official rulebooks instead.