External Links


Spring Thing 2016 version
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Story File [broken link]
Contains harmonic.z8
Requires a Z-Code interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Soundtrack and extras [broken link]
Link to directory of soundtrack files, walkthrough, and map.

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Harmonic Time-Bind Ritual Symphony

by Ben Kidwell and Maevele Straw

Psychedelic
2016

(based on 11 ratings)
1 review

About the Story

A musician's manic episode binds fiction and reality into a joyful union.


Game Details


Awards

Entrant, Main Festival - Spring Thing 2016

Editorial Reviews

Christopher Huang
I think there’s actually a pretty good story under all this. There are a couple of decent puzzles too: the bit with the remote lens comes to mind. However, there’s this sense of the whole thing having been designed on a “throw it in” principle. There are a lot of plot elements, many of them barely related, and they seem pretty random. It felt like an explosion of incoherence; there was so much that a lot of the plot seemed arbitrary and illogical. That sort of thing makes it difficult for my mind to engage with the world, which in turn makes it difficult for me to care.
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Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
I found Harmonic surprisingly successful, coherent, and enjoyable. At some level I’m aware that this is a story about a guy who wanders around town hassling baristas with stories about the Cosmic Wheel, but it’s also a story about someone who wants to share his vision of a harmonious universe inhabited by tremendous beauty, purpose, and love. If this is expressed through the figure of time-traveling aliens delivering space pancakes to farmers in the 1950s, so be it.
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Wade's Important Astrolab
I think Harmonic itself is an amazing game. The crucial thing is that its manic astral mysticism and free-associating subject matter are the province of its prose, world and characters, but not of the underlying structure. The game design is well-considered and has many addictive mechanics recognisable from both old and recent gaming. Harmonic's core gameplay carrots reminded me of a bizarrely disparate group of life simulation games, from Animal Crossing on the Nintendo GameCube to Shenmue on the Sega Dreamcast.
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Member Reviews

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Number of Reviews: 1
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A sprawling game about blurring reality and game with a 70s feel, April 9, 2016
by MathBrush
Related reviews: Spring Thing 2016

This game feels like what I would imagine the 70's would feel like during summer-long drug trip. However, it is set in 2013 and based on a real manic episode one of the authors experienced, during which he thought he was in an interactive fiction game (according to the blurb).

This game belongs to the relatively rare genre of games where you explore a big city and story events have to be searched for one at a time, while the rest of the city serves as decoration. Nick Montfort has done this multiple times (Book and Volume, Winchester's Nightmare) and Adam Cadre did this 3 times over in the branches of his game Narcolepsy. But the authors of this game have managed to avoid the crushing loneliness of Montfort's world as well as the frustration of Cadre's. They do this by filling the world with wonderful, descriptive things, packing in long text sequences and even song numbers downloadable from the author's website. They also do it by keeping the game simple. The first half of the game is just following instructions on where to go, and the second half has a great hint system. Both of these facets keep the game fast-paced and interesting.

The writing is trippy. Crystals, music, sex, co-ops, all give the feel of a hippie documentary. The main idea of the game is that the character has managed to bind reality and fiction together, so that he realizes he is in a game and the two start bleeding together.

The game doesn't have actual explicit sex, but it has several very sensual metaphors of sex, and implies sex at various times. Because I don't enjoy these types of scenes, I am unlikely to replay it.

The game took me about 1500 moves to get about 819/999 points (there are many optional points). It is the longest game of 2016 that I am aware of, and most likely longer than anything in 2015 (it has more text than Scroll Thief, I believe).

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Harmonic Time-Bind Ritual Symphony on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Harmonic Time-Bind Ritual Symphony appears in the following Recommended Lists:

TV, Film, Music and Theatre related games by MathBrush
This is a collection of games that are related to the film, tv, music or theatre industries, without regard to quality.

Polls

The following polls include votes for Harmonic Time-Bind Ritual Symphony:

Misunderstood games by MathBrush
I'm interested in games where the reviewers 'just don't get it', where part of the game that is essential or hidden got overlooked. I'm thinking of Scary House Amulet as a prime example, where a solid parody game is passed off as poorly...

For your consideration: XYZZY-eligible Writing of 2016 by MathBrush
This is for suggesting games released in 2016 which you think might be worth considering for Best Writing in the XYZZY awards. This is not a zeroth-round nomination. The category will still be text-entry, and games not mentioned here...

Hallucinogenic games by jakomo
What games best evoke the psychedelic/hallucinogenic feelings of using DMT/Mescaline/LSD/Ayahuasca etc ?

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