If you – like me – fondly remember the B-movies from the ‘50’s and ‘60’s with their preposterous plots (The Tingler, The Last Man on Earth ) made believable by a harried Vincent Price, then independent developer Michael B. Clark’s Harvest is your cup of doomsday.

Harvest is a one-man independent adventure game (has this not been a banner year for independent adventure game developers!) that relies heavily on the gamer overlooking a non-existent budget and focusing instead on a labor of love sustained by solid, sometimes ingenuous puzzles and a theme that, while common to movies, is somewhat unique to an adventure game.

The Vincent Price plot has to do with a scientist who has discovered a process to harvest water from rocks. Ah, but it seems our brainy friend has gone coo-coo and as mad scientist’s are wont to do, has built a secret underground complex in order to carry-out his nefarious scheme of poisoning the earth’s water supply through his rock-harvesting process. Where the game shines though is with a theme that explores father/son relationships and feelings of guilt that drive and sometimes ruin a life. Without giving away any more of the story, this is accomplished by a combination of diary entries and dialogue that drives the narrative forward. It is very much Myst-influenced as are the most important part of the game – the puzzles.

Harvest is truly a cornucopia of conundrums that will have you taking copious notes to refer to later in the game. The puzzles have been nicely integrated into the game under the guise of the main character’s madness directing him to ‘booby-trap’ his underground complex to keep intruders from discovering the harvest machine. The problem with this is that gamers who like the freedom to explore will find themselves confined to specific areas until a puzzle or series of puzzles are solved. On the plus side though, there is a feeling of satisfaction to finally unlocking a closed area that has had you stumped for quite a while. The puzzles are an eclectic collection of sliders, logic, color-coding and inventory-based puzzles that always play fair. Clues are abundant for the observant player and even the more complex puzzles are head-smacking logical in retrospect.

The graphics and animations are functional and were designed using a combination of Simply 3D, POV-Ray, 3D Home Architect Deluxe and JASC Paint Shop Pro 6. As the majority of the game takes place in an underground complex – or home – most of the graphics consist of rooms natural to the environment – kitchen, bedroom, mad scientist’s workroom, etc. There is though one nifty animation of a ghost that I found to be rather unsettling and the accompanying quivering voice was the perfect touch.

As Harvest is a one-man production, all of the voices, sound-effects and music were done by its developer – Michael B. Clark. Mr. Clark has done a yeoman’s job. The background music in particular is most impressive as it changes according to the area you are occupying, but I found the main title theme to have a tinny, eerie atmosphere most appropriate to setting the mood. The sound effects and voice-acting are passable, but most importantly they don’t distract from the gaming experience.

Harvest is Michael B. Clark’s first game and it is highly recommended to those who like a challenge. The game is played from a first-person perspective and is entirely mouse-driven. You can not die during game-play and there is an unlimited amount of saves. While Harvest would never be considered a game to be sold at retail level, I think that if Mr. Clark had a staff and budget, he would be more than capable of producing an ‘A’ quality title.

If you are still not sure if Harvest is your type of game, then make sure to download the demo to get a feel for the game. But at a price of only $14.95 there is literally no excuse for any adventure gamer to not purchase Harvest and show support for the burgeoning independent adventure community.

Final Grade: B

System Requirements:

• Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP
• 75 Mhz or faster
• about 400 mb of Hard Disk space