June 25, 2025 • 27 mins
#Harmonies #PlanetGame #Ecology #NichePartitioning #BoardGames #Science
We have a short bonus episode today, going over two science-inspired games, Harmonies and Planet. Both of these games touch on ecology and what animals need in their environment, but in a very science-light manner. We talk about niche partitioning, compare and contrast the games, and even have a cool science fact about trees using lightning to kill their neighbors.
Timestamps- 00:00 Introduction
- 01:06 Trees weaponizing lightning
- 03:54 Harmonies overview
- 08:31 Planet overview
- 12:25 Compare and contrast
- 17:24 Humans and vertebrate bias
- 19:39 Niche specialization
- 22:53 No science grades
- 24:18 Fun grades
- Harmonies official site (Libellud)
- Planet official site (Blue Orange Games)
- Tonka bean trees survive lightning (LiveScience.com)
- Interview with Harmonies creator (Youtube, French)
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This episode of Gaming with Science™ was produced with the help of the University of Georgia and is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license.
Full Transcript(Some platforms truncate the transcript due to length restrictions. If so, you can always find the full transcript on https://www.gamingwithscience.net/ )
Brian 0:05 Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast where we talk about the science behind some of your favorite games.
Brian 0:11 In today's bonus episode, we're going to discuss harmonies by Libellud
Jason 0:15 and planet by blue, orange games.
Brian 0:18 hey, I'm Brian.
Jason 0:19 This is Jason.
Brian 0:20 It's just the two of us. Welcome to a bonus episode anyway. So we're supposed to take a break midway through the season, and we have this is gonna be a bonus episode. It's gonna be a little weird. We're talking about two games today, harmonies and planet. These games are similar. I've decided that these games are, instead of being based on a true story, they're inspired by a true story. Both of these have a strong nature theme, but it you know, they weren't really trying to directly model anything in science. They just sort of did it by accident.
Jason 0:52 and they're both completely coincidentally French,
Brian 0:56 and have a lot of other similarities too, in terms of overall mechanics and also having some some fun gimmicks associated with them, you actually have a science fact. So, you know, it's a bonus episode, but what's your science fact?
Jason 1:08 This was some research that came out about trees in the Panama rainforest. Relevant, because this is all about ecology and plants competing well. So it turns out that tall trees in the rainforest get struck by lightning a lot, and it's actually thought to be one of the major contributors to tree mortality, to killing the tall trees and then opening up space. Well, turns out there's this one species of tree called a tonka bean tree, that apparently just survives lightning unscathed.
Brian 1:35 What?
Jason 1:36 but lightning strikes kill all of the parasitic vines on it, or most of them, and a lot of it's nearby competitors, and so it may actually be using the lightning strikes as a way of gaining a competitive advantage. They did research over time, looking at looking exactly where lightning struck, looking at the trees before and after, looking at long historical records. And apparently, for other trees, being next to a tonka bean tree is actually a very high risk for mortality. You are likely to die next to one of them, presumably because getting struck by lightning and kind of using that to kill you.
Brian 2:06 This is the strangest thing to imagine, having a selective advantage. This is so bizarre.
Brian 2:06 Well, think about it, though, like lightning generally strikes the tallest thing, and in a rainforest, it's always a game of trying to reach the light, and so lots of trees are benefited from getting really tall, but if a lightning strike comes by and hits you, then you're dead. And so I don't know, I think there's actually a decent selective advantage of like, Hey, if you can survive lightning, great. And then, because presumably, if you get struck by lightning, a lot of that cur
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of your favorite
games.
In today's bonus episode, we'regoing to discuss harmonies by
Libellud
Jason (00:15):
and planet by blue, orange games.
Brian (00:18):
hey, I'm Brian.
Jason (00:19):
This is Jason.
Brian (00:20):
It's just the two of us. Welcome to a bonus episode
anyway. So we're supposed totake a break midway through the
season, and we have this isgonna be a bonus episode. It's
gonna be a little weird. We'retalking about two games today,
harmonies and planet. Thesegames are similar. I've decided
that these games are, instead ofbeing based on a true story,
they're inspired by a truestory. Both of these have a
(00:41):
strong nature theme, but it youknow, they weren't really trying
to directly model anything inscience. They just sort of did
it by accident.
Jason (00:52):
and they're both completely coincidentally
French,
Brian (00:56):
and have a lot of other similarities too, in terms of
overall mechanics and alsohaving some some fun gimmicks
associated with them, youactually have a science fact.
So, you know, it's a bonusepisode, but what's your science
fact?
Jason (01:08):
This was some research that came out about trees in the
Panama rainforest. Relevant,because this is all about
ecology and plants competingwell. So it turns out that tall
trees in the rainforest getstruck by lightning a lot, and
it's actually thought to be oneof the major contributors to
tree mortality, to killing thetall trees and then opening up
space. Well, turns out there'sthis one species of tree called
(01:30):
a tonka bean tree, thatapparently just survives
lightning unscathed.
Brian (01:35):
What?
Jason (01:36):
but lightning strikes kill all of the parasitic vines
on it, or most of them, and alot of it's nearby competitors,
and so it may actually be usingthe lightning strikes as a way
of gaining a competitiveadvantage. They did research
over time, looking at lookingexactly where lightning struck,
looking at the trees before andafter, looking at long
historical records. Andapparently, for other trees,
(01:56):
being next to a tonka bean treeis actually a very high risk for
mortality. You are likely to dienext to one of them, presumably
because getting struck bylightning and kind of using that
Well, think about it, though,like lightning generally strikes
Brian (02:06):
This is the strangest thing to imagine, having a
to kill you.
the tallest thing, and in arainforest, it's always a game
selective advantage. This is sobizarre.
of trying to reach the light,and so lots of trees are
benefited from getting reallytall, but if a lightning strike
Jason (02:23):
But? but how do? how do? How survive lightning?
comes by and hits you, thenyou're dead. And so I don't
know, I think there's actually adecent selective advantage of
like, Hey, if you can survivelightning, great. And then,
because presumably, if you getstruck by lightning, a lot of
that current is going throughwhatever is nearby to you as
well or touching you, then itmay be able to clear off some of
your competitors or parasitesthat aren't so adapted.
(02:49):
So the article I read, which Iwill link in the show notes, I
think it's a hypothesis. I don'tthink they have the mechanism
yet, but they hypothesize thatthe interior is like highly
conductive, and so it conductsthe electricity without really
building up a lot of heat, whichthe heat happens because of
resistance?
Brian (03:07):
Yeah
Jason (03:07):
So if it conducts it well, then it's almost like an
insulated wire, where the it'sessentially grounding itself
out. And so the heat thatactually caused the damage to it
doesn't build up,
Brian (03:18):
yeah, because it would like boil the sap and cause the
tree to explode. So that doesn'thappen,
Jason (03:22):
apparently, not now this is from the high level summary I
read. So now that this is out,I'm sure that there will be lots
of follow ups. They're alreadytalking about looking at this in
other systems where you havetall trees that dominate the
ecosystem and all. So I'm surethere'll be much more data on
this in the future. But for now,like they seem to have solid
data that these things survivelightning strikes and other
things that are nearby them,don't, holy
Brian (03:42):
holy crap. In Pokemon terms, this is now a lightning
grass type,
Jason (03:47):
apparently, yes,
Brian (03:49):
that's nuts. Wow, that's a great thank you for finding
that. Fact
Jason (03:52):
that's too cool to skip
Brian (03:53):
Absolutely. Okay, so let's talk about these games for
Jason (03:55):
So at this point, you're reading more of an AI than you
a little bit. We're going to tryto keep this brief. I'm going to
talk about harmonies first, andthen Jason's going to talk about
are the actual originaltranscript.
planet, and then we're going tokind of compare and contrast,
Brian (04:04):
I mean, presumably, like, we do have one friend who speaks
Jason (04:04):
That's two, as in, t, w, o,
talk about some things we like,maybe some things that we don't
like. Harmonies sort of justfell out of nowhere. Last year.
It wasn't on Kickstarter oranything like that. It just
showed up in stores. My wife andI bought it on a whim. Also, did
you know harmonies is ranked 85on Board Game Geek? I did not.
Yeah, it's, I mean, it'sliterally in the top 100 I think
it has become my favorite game.I have probably played this game
(04:24):
more than any other game on myshelf, and it is a French game.
It's a French publisher. It is aFrench designing team. I usually
try to do a little bit ofresearch on these games to sort
of get some context for this. Icould not find an interview,
except for some interviews inFrench to try to do research for
this, I took the transcript ofthe French YouTube video which
put that through GoogleTranslate, and then got one of
the generative AIs to try toclean up all of the translation
(04:47):
artifacts to the point where Icould actually read it.
French, but I didn't get achance to get her to, like, tell
me how. Right or wrong. This wasso I am kind of assume. I mean,
it sounds okay, like, you know,it's, it's, it makes sense to
me, and it seems like it'sconsistent with what's there.
(05:08):
There wasn't, as far as I cantell from this interview, any
specific intentionality in termsof reflecting particular biomes
or or composition, or anythinglike that. Let me just talk
about the game, because Ihaven't done that yet. So what
you have is a little placementin front of you with a little
hex grid. It's a 3d landscapebuilding game. There's five
different color these nicelittle chunky wooden tokens, and
(05:29):
they're going to represent treesor mountains or rivers or water
or Plains or cities. Take theselittle tiles and you kind of
stack them up. So you'rebuilding little mountain ranges,
or you're building little riversor little planes or trees. Your
trees actually come in twosections. There's both trunks
and canopies, kind of likereminiscent of Earth. And what
you're trying to do is createpatterns on your little
(05:52):
landscape that will fit thesebeautifully illustrated animal
cards. So you'll draft an animalcard and try to create the
habitat that it needs. So forinstance, it might need, like, a
two tall mountain next to ariver or something like that.
Brian (06:08):
yes, two little mountain tiles on top of each other next
to a river or a tree orsomething like that. You're
building habitats for theselittle animals, and what you're
trying to do is sort of fit themall together harmoniously to try
to maximize how much habitat youcan create for your different
things. It's like turn basedopen drafting game. The cards
are absolutely gorgeous. Andactually, the one thing that did
(06:30):
come out from the interview wasthat in some early phases, they
were it was going to be muchmore abstract. It was just going
to be a picture of the animalwith maybe some sort of vague
frame representing its habitat.But they didn't do that. They
are these wonderful full colorillustrations with these
beautiful landscapes, with theanimals sort of existing in its
environment. So it's veryevocative. There's 32 different
(06:50):
animal cards. And then they alsohave these things called animal
spirits, special animals, solike a mountain goat with some
ridiculous, crazy horns orsomething like that. And those
will sort of like change the waythat the point system works.
Like you'll get bonus points forbuilding extra tall mountains if
you're working with thatparticular animal spirit.
Jason (07:12):
Yeah, if we were to extract these, those are
basically your personal goals,yes, that you're aiming for the
things that every player has onecopy of this, which puts you
towards something different,like when Brian I played this my
my little spirit animal thingwas something about mountains,
and so I was just trying to getas many mountains as I could.
Brian (07:29):
The way that you get points in the game is, again,
you'll get points for creatinghabitats for your little
animals. On your cards, you getpoints for your landscape
itself. So for instance, you'llget points for having mountains
in a chain. They have to be in achain or they don't count.
You'll get points for yourlittle cities. They have to be
two tall, and they have to be inharmony. So they have to be
surrounded by at least threedifferent types of tiles for
(07:51):
them to count. Points for treesand stuff like that. But your
tree has to have a canopy on topof it, otherwise it's a dead
tree, and you don't get anypoints for dead trees. And then
you'll get some additional bonuspoints based on your your animal
spirit thing. And those havedifferent you know, the extra
points for usually, like aplain, you only get points for
having, like, a group of two,anything more than that doesn't
(08:11):
count. But the the lion animalspirit that sits right on the
front box actually gives youextra points for having extra
large plains. So that'sharmonies. Uh, Jason, why don't
you explain planet? by the way,planet was suggested to me by
one of our listeners at DragonCon. I'm sorry I don't have your
name. If that was you, get onour Discord and let us know.
Jason (08:30):
Okay, so planet is by blue, orange games. It was
designed by Urtis Sulinskas. Iapologize if I'm mispronouncing
that name who I could not findany information on but you can
tell that this game is builtaround a central gimmick. It is
also about creating habitat. Butinstead of having a flat player
board, you actually have adodecahedron, so a D12, a 12
sided object with a bunch ofmetal plates on each side. And
you are placing these magnetictiles on each one of those sides
to build your planet up. So thegame takes place over 12 turns.
Each turn you place one of theselittle tiles. The tiles are laid
out. You go in player order. Youdraft one. So the first player
Brian (08:31):
So you don't get as many points if you're building the
picks one out of the fiveavailable that turn. They pick
which one they want, then thesecond player, then the third
player, and so on. And as you'rebuilding it, you're trying to
essentially recruit theseanimals. Again, very animal
focused. Recruit the animals toyour planet by meeting their
condition. And their conditionis usually either you have the
biggest contiguous patch ofwhatever territory there is, so
they have like ice and plainsand desert and forest and
mountain, I think so fairlysimilar to harmonies, you try to
get the largest single patch,and usually has to be either the
largest patch that is touching aspecific other type of habitat
or the largest patch that is nottouching a specific other type
of habitat, so the largestforest that is also touching
some desert, or the largestocean that is not touching ice.
You can also just get ones thatrequire the largest total little
triangles that each one of thesepatches is in across your little
world. And so as you go along,you start with a blank
dodecahedron. First turn, youadd one tile, then another, then
another. Over the course,eventually you start recruiting
animals. The animals give youpoints. And then there are some
personal objectives where eachperson secretly has one of the
types of territory, the water,the ice, the forest, that they
are trying to get as many asthey can, because that will give
them bonus points. But there'sthis little tension in that you
actually get more points forrecruiting animals that are not
part of your primary objective.There's a trade off. There is
that if you go whole, like if Ihave forests, and I do only
forests, as many as I can get,I'll probably actually get less
points than if I diversified abit and try to bring in some
other animals at the end.
(10:48):
forest moon of Endor.
Jason (10:50):
No, no. Single biome. Planets don't get very far.
Yeah. Anyway, the games for twoto four players, they only have
four dodecahedrons. You're kindof hard, limited at how many
people can be part of it, andplays in about 20 to 30 minutes.
It's actually a pretty fastgame. It's won several awards
for family games. So it's whenwe compare and contrast. This is
definitely the simpler game, butit also seems to be aimed at a
(11:12):
bit younger audience. This seemsto be a game that is meant to be
played if you have kids in likethe eight to 12 range. Minimum
age is eight, so something thata child could actually probably
have a lot of fun with, becausevery tactile. You have your your
little dodecedron You're puttingtiles on. It's a very physical
game that you're manipulatingwithout super deep, complex
rules, so that it's somethingthat you could play as a family
(11:35):
or with kids in a in a class, orniece, nephew, whatever, and be
able to have fun with them andstill have a decent amount of
strategic depth.
Brian (11:42):
The rules are really simple, uh, the little magnetic
hexes. I know that you said thatthey've got triangles split up
on them, so you kind of, if youlike, draw a line across the
center of it. Each edge willcorrespond to, like, one biome
type, right?
Jason (11:55):
So, yeah, they're all pentagon shaped, and they're
just five triangles glued,essentially stuck together into
a pentagon, and some variationof things. I usually, we all
know, saw like two or threedifferent biomes on each of
them, and there's definitelynone that have only one,
although it can be challenginglate game when you have like,
80% of your planet filled up,and you're like, rotating around
(12:16):
and trying to keep track of isthis contiguous with this other
part, and counting up all thetriangles. And that part can get
a little tricky, because I can'tsee all edges of my dodecahedron
at the same time. So why don't
Brian (12:25):
we compare and contrast some of these games? What do you
think we should do? Jason,what's the best way to start
this discussion?
Jason (12:30):
Well, let's start with what's the same so they're both
drafting systems. So inharmonies, you draft the animals
like the animals are out, andwhen it's your turn, you can
choose an animal. You also getto choose which set of various
tiles are out. So there's likefive groups of three tiles, and
you get to pick which one youwant. Whereas planet, you're
drafting the the ecosystemtiles. So each round there are
(12:52):
five little pentagon tiles thatyou get to choose from. And so
again, you go and turn orderfirst player first, and you're
picking which one. And then thatrotates each time. So everyone
has a chance of being first. Sothey've got the drafting
mechanic in place. They alsohave you wanting to build
specific arrangements ofecosystems or biomes, or
whatever we want to call thesethings. In planet, it's usually
(13:14):
just bigger, is usually better,although there is some stuff
about what it is or is nottouching. Whereas in harmonies,
it's much smaller. It tends todo with like these two or three
tiles that are next to eachother need to have this specific
arrangement. But it doesn't careabout the overall shape of the
of your island or your desert orwhatever it is you're building
Yeah, in planet, you're just collecting the cards. So
on.
Brian (13:33):
doesn't really matter.
Jason (13:35):
Well, they do if you build one on there.
Brian (13:38):
No, that's true. I mean, I guess you could try to build a
you have the cards, you recruitit. Not sure what the metaphor
polar cap, I don't think you'ddo very well in terms of scoring
is, because, like, if you lookat this literally, like you're
the game if you did that, butyou could do it in harmonies.
The scale is a lot different.Like, it's not really clear what
basically a bunch of nature Godsbuilding planets and trying to
the scale is. One of them, it'slike, you're sort of building an
island. I think that's theeasiest way to think about it.
(14:00):
And it's like, it's not superclear how big the island is, but
recruit animals to live on yourplanet, as opposed to someone
when you do think that, like oneof your little tiles is supposed
to correspond to a mountain, Ifeel like that's one of the best
ways to kind of get a feel forscale. If this is a mountain and
else's planet. So not exactlysure how that works, but eh,
this is a section of river, thenyou're not putting down a tree.
You're putting down a section,more like a section of forest,
or like an area of forest. Andone thing that we do have that's
it's fine. That's just, we'renot going to stretch the
(14:20):
different in harmonies versusplanet, is the existence of,
like human structures, buildingsare part of it. Then, as you're
metaphor again. These areinspired by science, not
building, you're kind ofbuilding little mountain ranges
and rivers. You're placinglittle towns or cities or
actually based on science. Yeah,I guess it could be a sort of
forests. So you really start toget sort of a feel of, kind of
like being down at the scale,sort of occupying this landscape
that you're building. And inharmonies, the animals
collective thing, of like you'redeciding which one, which
(14:41):
physically take up space. Whenyou place your cube there, the
animal is now in that space. Andthat's different in Planet,
planet, the animal would behappiest on, and they get to put
right?
the animal there. Something incommon, though, is the nature of
(15:02):
the requirements. So the typesof biomes and environments you
that's its hive.
have to build do make sense. Solike in harmonies, like you'll
The planes are like the opensarea. Yes, it put the honeybees
say, Oh, the honeybee needs tohave a plains next to a two tall
build their hives and trees, butit needs an open area with,
(15:25):
like, wildflowers and stuff forit to actually forage in which
tree. The honeybee actuallylives on the tree, which was a
little odd at first, but thenyou think about, like, Oh,
forests are not good for that.Or I've got some stuff here in
planet and, like, the narwhal,needs to have ice that is not
(15:57):
connected to forest, so coldareas, which is where narwhals
live, or giraffes are live basedon the largest piece of sand you
have that is next to forest. Sothey're kind of the open savanna
area. It's like, there's only somuch you can do with as simple
characteristics they have here.But even though it still makes
sense, you look at these like,okay, yeah, I can see kind of
(16:19):
where the metaphor is, like, itkind of makes sense based on
what it actually lives. On ourplanet.
In planet you're sort of building, presumably entire
biomes. The simplest way tothink about a biome is a
combination of temperature andprecipitation. Are the sort of
things that determine sort ofwhat can live there in terms of
plant life, in terms of animallife, and it's sort of one of
the ways that ecology kind ofnaturally partitions out is
(16:41):
temperature and precipitation.Planet again, really strips it
down to the bare basics, right?
Jason (16:46):
Oh yeah. I mean, it only has five in the entire world
that you're working with. So ittakes a little bit of
abstraction that you've got yourwater, your ice, your forest,
your mountain, your desert, orsand, or whatever you want to
call it very coarse grainedthere. But you could, you could,
you could use some imaginationand see a little bit more of
that,
Brian (17:03):
whereas in harmonies, we're building, again, at a
smaller scale, more likebuilding an island or a
landscape. So we're really, atthat point, creating habitats,
and I've tried to find some,like actual good dictionary
definition of habitats. Like ahabitat has to provide with the
creature, with what it needs, interms of food, water, shelter
and space, it has to be able tocomplete its life cycle within
(17:24):
that area. And one of the thingswe also get in harmonies that we
don't have in Planet is that wehave human built structures. And
like nine of the 32 animals thatare in the game and their
habitat includes a building. Sothese would be things like
squirrels or crows, things thatdo well around people.
Jason (17:41):
And I like that, because too often in these ecological
conversations, we're talking islike, oh, like everything humans
do is bad for the environment.And, okay, let's be honest, a
lot of things we do is bad forthe environment, but
Brian (17:52):
a lot of things we do are bad.
Jason (17:53):
Yes, a lot of things are, but they don't necessarily have
to be. And then you can arguethe point of harmonies is
showing that it is possible tobe in harmony with nature is
that we can get what we need,and then other things can get
what they need. And if you do itright, you can make it so
everybody wins.
Brian (18:07):
And the way that the game represents that for your city,
for your building, to earn youpoints, it has to, again, be in
harmony with nature. So how dowe represent that? It means that
the city has to be surrounded bythree different types of tiles,
so by a mountain, by a river, bya forest you can't build some.
You know, huge metropolitan citywhere it's just city after city,
(18:27):
building after building afterbuilding that won't earn you any
points. You can do it. Butbasically, you are now not in
harmony. You have not balancedyour human buildings with the
rest of nature. So it's kind ofa fun way of playing with that
metaphor as well. Humans get tobe part of nature instead of
separate from it. One of thethings that we did notice about
these games, and look, I 100%get it, it's fine. I understand
(18:50):
this. These are both have thishuge vertebrate bias in terms of
what is represented in the game,most animals, most living
animals, are, are bugs, right?Areinsects, or things like that,
or arthropods. This is allvertebrates, with very few
exceptions, all things withbackbones in harmonies. There
are in the main cards, there areout of 32 there's two insects,
(19:13):
honeybees and ladybugs.Everything else is a vertebrate.
What about in planet?
Jason (19:17):
So we have three. We have jelly, jellyfish, octopi and
scorpions.
Brian (19:21):
So planet actually did better than harmonies with that.
But I think, you know, maybe Idon't know, there are some
pretty charismatic insects inthere. I did want to say, in the
animal spirits, where, like,there's only 10 of those, you do
have the dragonfly and aswallowtail butterfly. So we
get, we get four insects totalin the game. The rest are all vertebrates.
Jason (19:39):
Well, let's talk a little bit about the science we can get
out of this. Because there is,as you say, inspired by science
and looking at these, the onethat really comes to mind is
like, okay, yes, ecology, but wealready talked about general
ecology with earth and such.It's really more the idea of,
like niches, of an ecologicalniche, or niche, depending on
how you want to pronounce it,that an organism in. Is
(20:00):
occupying, and that basicallyjust means, like this is its
little specialized part of theworld that it focuses on. Well,
they're actually mostly definedby how they avoid competing with
other things. So maybe you haveanimals that specialize at
eating grass instead ofbroadleaf things, or maybe they
(20:20):
specialize at leading eating theleaves that are, you know, less
than two meters high, as opposedto, like a giraffe that eats the
ones that are way up top intothe tree tops. And so there's
certain parts of theirenvironment they're really good
at exploiting, and there areother parts of the environment
they don't bother with, whichlets something else occupy that
part of the environment. And soeach of these animals has their
(20:42):
own little habitat, their ownlittle niche that they are as
they're occupying. And really,if you look across the entire
game, you have different animalsthat are trying to occupy
different parts of theenvironment and different things
that you're building together.What I especially like with
harmonies is that part of thegameplay rewards you for finding
animals that have complementaryhabitats, because, as Brian
(21:04):
said, like when you place yourlittle animal cube saying, hey,
there's an animal here, you getpoints for that, but it only
occupies one of the tile spaces,but usually requires at least
two, sometimes three tile spacesin order to trigger that,
leaving those other two open. Soif you can find another animal
that uses part of that andoverlaps, then you can use that
overlapping part to build itshabitat and put it there. And so
(21:26):
you can try to havecomplementary animals occupying
your landscape, so that you getessentially as many of them in
there as possible, while havinga again harmonious existence,
because they're all occupyingdifferent parts of the
landscape.
Brian (21:40):
And I think harmonies represents niche, niche
partitioning really well,actually, because of that exact
reason, like the animalphysically occupies space, and
really only one animal can be onthat tile, right? Whereas with
planet, kind of, once yourecruit your animals, they just
kind of sit in a stack and younever think about it again,
which is sort of a littledifferent, unfortunately,
(22:00):
yes, but there is the thingwhere, so the way you draft the
animals, the animals, you seethem all like lined out for the
course of the game. So you knowwhat's coming down. There's a
variant rule where you don't butso you see what's happening. So
you can build your planetsaying, Hey, I'm not going to
get anything this term, but I'mgoing to try to aim in three
turns when I'm first player, I'mgoing to try to go for that
Orca, which requires a largeamount of ocean touching ice, so
(22:23):
I'm going to make sure I have areally big ocean touching ice.
But that decision means that,you know, two turns later, when
there's something that needs alot of ocean that does not touch
ice, you're out of luck. And sothere is a little bit of that
habitat partitioning going on.It's less within your own little
environment and more among thedifferent planets that are being
(22:43):
built. It's like by choosing togo after one particular setup, I
am sort of cutting myself offfrom a different one, leaving
someone else to take it andspecialize that way.
Let's jump into why we're notdoing science grades. It's not
that we couldn't, but just likewe're now, I don't think we're
going to, right?
Jason (22:59):
yeah probably not again these. I mean your your litmus
test is, will people have somewrong idea about the science? I
don't think it's deep enough toreally merit that. My thing is,
does it portray what it's tryingto portray? Well, honestly, I
think so yes, but they're nottrying to portray too much. I
think harmonies probably wentdeeper than planet on purpose,
and I think they both hit kindof the level they were going at.
(23:21):
But this is not a science game.This is not something from
genius games or ElizabethHargrave where, like, the
science is central to it. Thisis like, Oh, here's this
metaphor from nature that we cantake and we'll use that to make
a fun game.
Brian (23:34):
I've been thinking about what it takes to make a hard
science game. I don't think theysat down and did a ton of
research on each of these 32animals, how they would work
together, and what theirspecific habitat requirements
were. It's just sort of a, justa representation based on almost
common knowledge about thesethings, although some of them
are really cute, right? Like yousaid, with the honeybee having
the tree surrounded by the bythe field, it's, it's very
(23:57):
evocative. It's very it's agreat role play, to be able to
to play harmonies and sort ofplace all of those things, but
they weren't really trying to doscience. And I don't think
anybody's going to learnanything wrong from either of
these games, right?
Jason (24:10):
I mean, the only way someone learns something wrong
is if one of these has somehabitat that doesn't make sense
for its animal, and neither ofus spotted anything like that.
Brian (24:18):
I think they're just fine. But let's talk about the
So I think.
fun. And we can talk about thefun, in this case, in terms of
compare and contrast. Harmoniesis my favorite game, also one of
the only games I've ever beatJason at. So that's interesting.
But you know, since this is abonus episode, it doesn't count.
The thing that I like aboutharmonies is that you it's just
(24:38):
just the right amount of sort ofstrategic balance. For me, you
always feel like there'ssomething that you can do that's
helpful, right? You never feellike you're stuck with only bad
choices, because even if youcan't satisfy any of your animal
habitats, you can work towardssome kind of a landscape goal,
like building up your mountainchain, or trying to build a city
somewhere or something likethat. Harmonies is an A+ for me.
(24:59):
For fun. I would play thispretty much anytime. Planets, it
has a great gimmick, and I agreewith you that the rules were
made simple on purpose to try tomake it easier to play with
kids. And it plays fast too,right? I mean, both of these
games play fast, but planetplays really fast, particularly
with only two people. There'snot quite as many choices to
make, and you do kind of end upfeeling a little hamstrung by
(25:22):
previous choices and what's infront of you. So if I have to
choose between the two, I'mgoing to choose harmonies. I
think planet, I'll probably givea B, because I think the gimmick
of the three dimensional planetis the most appealing thing
Jason (25:34):
Yeah, I think mine will come out close. I think I give
about it.
harmonies an A and planet, a B+for basically the same reasons,
and I don't want to knock onplanet. It's like it is simple
on purpose. It's simpler than Iprefer. But this would be great
to play with my nine year old.Like, I would love getting this
out for a quick 20 minute game.And I think that would be
(25:55):
perfect. And I would love doingthat. I wouldn't necessarily
pull it out with my peer groupof adults who want to have some
more strategic depth, but sinceit is aimed at a younger
audience like I think it doesthat part very well. So it it
almost, I'd almost give it acontext dependent grade. given
like, if I had my choice betweenthis and Exploding Kittens, I
would take this 100% of thetime, guaranteed. So on the
(26:18):
Exploding Kitten scale, me withmy peers, okay, B+ me with my
kids. A, I would go with it. Iwould definitely take this with
my kids. I would love doingthat.
Brian (26:27):
The simplicity and the speed, you know, planet might
actually be a good fit for aclassroom. You already mentioned
that, but I kind of think it'strue for the I'm not sure what
the best age would be. I feellike for an elementary school
level, if you're having yourecology or your biome unit,
planet, would probably be a nicesupporting activity.
Jason (26:46):
Yep, probably elementary school, maybe, maybe up to
middle school. It may get alittle too simple for them by
the time you get into like,eighth or ninth grade. But no, I
think it'll work. I mean, andhonestly, even into high school,
I think it would be, well, highschool at that point becomes
more fun than instructional. Butyeah, elementary to middle
school is probably the sweetspot there.
Brian (27:03):
All right. Well, thank you for joining us for our break
bonus episode, thanks for tuningin. Have a great month and great
Jason (27:11):
and have fun playing dice with universe, see ya.
games
Brian (27:14):
This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright
2025 listeners are free to reusethis recording for any non
commercial purpose, as long ascredit is given to gaming with
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts,
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games thatwe've talked about, we encourage
you to do so through yourfriendly local game store. Thank
you and have fun playing dicewith the universe.
Hello and welcome to the gaming with science podcast
where we talk about the sciencebehind some of your favorite
games.
In today's bonus episode, we'regoing to discuss harmonies by
Libellud
Jason (00:15):
and planet by blue, orange games.
Brian (00:18):
hey, I'm Brian.
Jason (00:19):
This is Jason.
Brian (00:20):
It's just the two of us. Welcome to a bonus episode
anyway. So we're supposed totake a break midway through the
season, and we have this isgonna be a bonus episode. It's
gonna be a little weird. We'retalking about two games today,
harmonies and planet. Thesegames are similar. I've decided
that these games are, instead ofbeing based on a true story,
they're inspired by a truestory. Both of these have a
(00:41):
strong nature theme, but it youknow, they weren't really trying
to directly model anything inscience. They just sort of did
it by accident.
Jason (00:52):
and they're both completely coincidentally
French,
Brian (00:56):
and have a lot of other similarities too, in terms of
overall mechanics and alsohaving some some fun gimmicks
associated with them, youactually have a science fact.
So, you know, it's a bonusepisode, but what's your science
fact?
Jason (01:08):
This was some research that came out about trees in the
Panama rainforest. Relevant,because this is all about
ecology and plants competingwell. So it turns out that tall
trees in the rainforest getstruck by lightning a lot, and
it's actually thought to be oneof the major contributors to
tree mortality, to killing thetall trees and then opening up
space. Well, turns out there'sthis one species of tree called
(01:30):
a tonka bean tree, thatapparently just survives
lightning unscathed.
Brian (01:35):
What?
Jason (01:36):
but lightning strikes kill all of the parasitic vines
on it, or most of them, and alot of it's nearby competitors,
and so it may actually be usingthe lightning strikes as a way
of gaining a competitiveadvantage. They did research
over time, looking at lookingexactly where lightning struck,
looking at the trees before andafter, looking at long
historical records. Andapparently, for other trees,
(01:56):
being next to a tonka bean treeis actually a very high risk for
mortality. You are likely to dienext to one of them, presumably
because getting struck bylightning and kind of using that
Well, think about it, though,like lightning generally strikes
Brian (02:06):
This is the strangest thing to imagine, having a
to kill you.
the tallest thing, and in arainforest, it's always a game
selective advantage. This is sobizarre.
of trying to reach the light,and so lots of trees are
benefited from getting reallytall, but if a lightning strike
Jason (02:23):
But? but how do? how do? How survive lightning?
comes by and hits you, thenyou're dead. And so I don't
know, I think there's actually adecent selective advantage of
like, Hey, if you can survivelightning, great. And then,
because presumably, if you getstruck by lightning, a lot of
that current is going throughwhatever is nearby to you as
well or touching you, then itmay be able to clear off some of
your competitors or parasitesthat aren't so adapted.
(02:49):
So the article I read, which Iwill link in the show notes, I
think it's a hypothesis. I don'tthink they have the mechanism
yet, but they hypothesize thatthe interior is like highly
conductive, and so it conductsthe electricity without really
building up a lot of heat, whichthe heat happens because of
resistance?
Brian (03:07):
Yeah
Jason (03:07):
So if it conducts it well, then it's almost like an
insulated wire, where the it'sessentially grounding itself
out. And so the heat thatactually caused the damage to it
doesn't build up,
Brian (03:18):
yeah, because it would like boil the sap and cause the
tree to explode. So that doesn'thappen,
Jason (03:22):
apparently, not now this is from the high level summary I
read. So now that this is out,I'm sure that there will be lots
of follow ups. They're alreadytalking about looking at this in
other systems where you havetall trees that dominate the
ecosystem and all. So I'm surethere'll be much more data on
this in the future. But for now,like they seem to have solid
data that these things survivelightning strikes and other
things that are nearby them,don't, holy
Brian (03:42):
holy crap. In Pokemon terms, this is now a lightning
grass type,
Jason (03:47):
apparently, yes,
Brian (03:49):
that's nuts. Wow, that's a great thank you for finding
that. Fact
Jason (03:52):
that's too cool to skip
Brian (03:53):
Absolutely. Okay, so let's talk about these games for
Jason (03:55):
So at this point, you're reading more of an AI than you
a little bit. We're going to tryto keep this brief. I'm going to
talk about harmonies first, andthen Jason's going to talk about
are the actual originaltranscript.
planet, and then we're going tokind of compare and contrast,
Brian (04:04):
I mean, presumably, like, we do have one friend who speaks
Jason (04:04):
That's two, as in, t, w, o,
talk about some things we like,maybe some things that we don't
like. Harmonies sort of justfell out of nowhere. Last year.
It wasn't on Kickstarter oranything like that. It just
showed up in stores. My wife andI bought it on a whim. Also, did
you know harmonies is ranked 85on Board Game Geek? I did not.
Yeah, it's, I mean, it'sliterally in the top 100 I think
it has become my favorite game.I have probably played this game
(04:24):
more than any other game on myshelf, and it is a French game.
It's a French publisher. It is aFrench designing team. I usually
try to do a little bit ofresearch on these games to sort
of get some context for this. Icould not find an interview,
except for some interviews inFrench to try to do research for
this, I took the transcript ofthe French YouTube video which
put that through GoogleTranslate, and then got one of
the generative AIs to try toclean up all of the translation
(04:47):
artifacts to the point where Icould actually read it.
French, but I didn't get achance to get her to, like, tell
me how. Right or wrong. This wasso I am kind of assume. I mean,
it sounds okay, like, you know,it's, it's, it makes sense to
me, and it seems like it'sconsistent with what's there.
(05:08):
There wasn't, as far as I cantell from this interview, any
specific intentionality in termsof reflecting particular biomes
or or composition, or anythinglike that. Let me just talk
about the game, because Ihaven't done that yet. So what
you have is a little placementin front of you with a little
hex grid. It's a 3d landscapebuilding game. There's five
different color these nicelittle chunky wooden tokens, and
(05:29):
they're going to represent treesor mountains or rivers or water
or Plains or cities. Take theselittle tiles and you kind of
stack them up. So you'rebuilding little mountain ranges,
or you're building little riversor little planes or trees. Your
trees actually come in twosections. There's both trunks
and canopies, kind of likereminiscent of Earth. And what
you're trying to do is createpatterns on your little
(05:52):
landscape that will fit thesebeautifully illustrated animal
cards. So you'll draft an animalcard and try to create the
habitat that it needs. So forinstance, it might need, like, a
two tall mountain next to ariver or something like that.
Brian (06:08):
yes, two little mountain tiles on top of each other next
to a river or a tree orsomething like that. You're
building habitats for theselittle animals, and what you're
trying to do is sort of fit themall together harmoniously to try
to maximize how much habitat youcan create for your different
things. It's like turn basedopen drafting game. The cards
are absolutely gorgeous. Andactually, the one thing that did
(06:30):
come out from the interview wasthat in some early phases, they
were it was going to be muchmore abstract. It was just going
to be a picture of the animalwith maybe some sort of vague
frame representing its habitat.But they didn't do that. They
are these wonderful full colorillustrations with these
beautiful landscapes, with theanimals sort of existing in its
environment. So it's veryevocative. There's 32 different
(06:50):
animal cards. And then they alsohave these things called animal
spirits, special animals, solike a mountain goat with some
ridiculous, crazy horns orsomething like that. And those
will sort of like change the waythat the point system works.
Like you'll get bonus points forbuilding extra tall mountains if
you're working with thatparticular animal spirit.
Jason (07:12):
Yeah, if we were to extract these, those are
basically your personal goals,yes, that you're aiming for the
things that every player has onecopy of this, which puts you
towards something different,like when Brian I played this my
my little spirit animal thingwas something about mountains,
and so I was just trying to getas many mountains as I could.
Brian (07:29):
The way that you get points in the game is, again,
you'll get points for creatinghabitats for your little
animals. On your cards, you getpoints for your landscape
itself. So for instance, you'llget points for having mountains
in a chain. They have to be in achain or they don't count.
You'll get points for yourlittle cities. They have to be
two tall, and they have to be inharmony. So they have to be
surrounded by at least threedifferent types of tiles for
(07:51):
them to count. Points for treesand stuff like that. But your
tree has to have a canopy on topof it, otherwise it's a dead
tree, and you don't get anypoints for dead trees. And then
you'll get some additional bonuspoints based on your your animal
spirit thing. And those havedifferent you know, the extra
points for usually, like aplain, you only get points for
having, like, a group of two,anything more than that doesn't
(08:11):
count. But the the lion animalspirit that sits right on the
front box actually gives youextra points for having extra
large plains. So that'sharmonies. Uh, Jason, why don't
you explain planet? by the way,planet was suggested to me by
one of our listeners at DragonCon. I'm sorry I don't have your
name. If that was you, get onour Discord and let us know.
Jason (08:30):
Okay, so planet is by blue, orange games. It was
designed by Urtis Sulinskas. Iapologize if I'm mispronouncing
that name who I could not findany information on but you can
tell that this game is builtaround a central gimmick. It is
also about creating habitat. Butinstead of having a flat player
board, you actually have adodecahedron, so a D12, a 12
sided object with a bunch ofmetal plates on each side. And
you are placing these magnetictiles on each one of those sides
to build your planet up. So thegame takes place over 12 turns.
Each turn you place one of theselittle tiles. The tiles are laid
out. You go in player order. Youdraft one. So the first player
Brian (08:31):
So you don't get as many points if you're building the
picks one out of the fiveavailable that turn. They pick
which one they want, then thesecond player, then the third
player, and so on. And as you'rebuilding it, you're trying to
essentially recruit theseanimals. Again, very animal
focused. Recruit the animals toyour planet by meeting their
condition. And their conditionis usually either you have the
biggest contiguous patch ofwhatever territory there is, so
they have like ice and plainsand desert and forest and
mountain, I think so fairlysimilar to harmonies, you try to
get the largest single patch,and usually has to be either the
largest patch that is touching aspecific other type of habitat
or the largest patch that is nottouching a specific other type
of habitat, so the largestforest that is also touching
some desert, or the largestocean that is not touching ice.
You can also just get ones thatrequire the largest total little
triangles that each one of thesepatches is in across your little
world. And so as you go along,you start with a blank
dodecahedron. First turn, youadd one tile, then another, then
another. Over the course,eventually you start recruiting
animals. The animals give youpoints. And then there are some
personal objectives where eachperson secretly has one of the
types of territory, the water,the ice, the forest, that they
are trying to get as many asthey can, because that will give
them bonus points. But there'sthis little tension in that you
actually get more points forrecruiting animals that are not
part of your primary objective.There's a trade off. There is
that if you go whole, like if Ihave forests, and I do only
forests, as many as I can get,I'll probably actually get less
points than if I diversified abit and try to bring in some
other animals at the end.
(10:48):
forest moon of Endor.
Jason (10:50):
No, no. Single biome. Planets don't get very far.
Yeah. Anyway, the games for twoto four players, they only have
four dodecahedrons. You're kindof hard, limited at how many
people can be part of it, andplays in about 20 to 30 minutes.
It's actually a pretty fastgame. It's won several awards
for family games. So it's whenwe compare and contrast. This is
definitely the simpler game, butit also seems to be aimed at a
(11:12):
bit younger audience. This seemsto be a game that is meant to be
played if you have kids in likethe eight to 12 range. Minimum
age is eight, so something thata child could actually probably
have a lot of fun with, becausevery tactile. You have your your
little dodecedron You're puttingtiles on. It's a very physical
game that you're manipulatingwithout super deep, complex
rules, so that it's somethingthat you could play as a family
(11:35):
or with kids in a in a class, orniece, nephew, whatever, and be
able to have fun with them andstill have a decent amount of
strategic depth.
Brian (11:42):
The rules are really simple, uh, the little magnetic
hexes. I know that you said thatthey've got triangles split up
on them, so you kind of, if youlike, draw a line across the
center of it. Each edge willcorrespond to, like, one biome
type, right?
Jason (11:55):
So, yeah, they're all pentagon shaped, and they're
just five triangles glued,essentially stuck together into
a pentagon, and some variationof things. I usually, we all
know, saw like two or threedifferent biomes on each of
them, and there's definitelynone that have only one,
although it can be challenginglate game when you have like,
80% of your planet filled up,and you're like, rotating around
(12:16):
and trying to keep track of isthis contiguous with this other
part, and counting up all thetriangles. And that part can get
a little tricky, because I can'tsee all edges of my dodecahedron
at the same time. So why don't
Brian (12:25):
we compare and contrast some of these games? What do you
think we should do? Jason,what's the best way to start
this discussion?
Jason (12:30):
Well, let's start with what's the same so they're both
drafting systems. So inharmonies, you draft the animals
like the animals are out, andwhen it's your turn, you can
choose an animal. You also getto choose which set of various
tiles are out. So there's likefive groups of three tiles, and
you get to pick which one youwant. Whereas planet, you're
drafting the the ecosystemtiles. So each round there are
(12:52):
five little pentagon tiles thatyou get to choose from. And so
again, you go and turn orderfirst player first, and you're
picking which one. And then thatrotates each time. So everyone
has a chance of being first. Sothey've got the drafting
mechanic in place. They alsohave you wanting to build
specific arrangements ofecosystems or biomes, or
whatever we want to call thesethings. In planet, it's usually
(13:14):
just bigger, is usually better,although there is some stuff
about what it is or is nottouching. Whereas in harmonies,
it's much smaller. It tends todo with like these two or three
tiles that are next to eachother need to have this specific
arrangement. But it doesn't careabout the overall shape of the
of your island or your desert orwhatever it is you're building
Yeah, in planet, you're just collecting the cards. So
on.
Brian (13:33):
doesn't really matter.
Jason (13:35):
Well, they do if you build one on there.
Brian (13:38):
No, that's true. I mean, I guess you could try to build a
you have the cards, you recruitit. Not sure what the metaphor
polar cap, I don't think you'ddo very well in terms of scoring
is, because, like, if you lookat this literally, like you're
the game if you did that, butyou could do it in harmonies.
The scale is a lot different.Like, it's not really clear what
basically a bunch of nature Godsbuilding planets and trying to
the scale is. One of them, it'slike, you're sort of building an
island. I think that's theeasiest way to think about it.
(14:00):
And it's like, it's not superclear how big the island is, but
recruit animals to live on yourplanet, as opposed to someone
when you do think that, like oneof your little tiles is supposed
to correspond to a mountain, Ifeel like that's one of the best
ways to kind of get a feel forscale. If this is a mountain and
else's planet. So not exactlysure how that works, but eh,
this is a section of river, thenyou're not putting down a tree.
You're putting down a section,more like a section of forest,
or like an area of forest. Andone thing that we do have that's
it's fine. That's just, we'renot going to stretch the
(14:20):
different in harmonies versusplanet, is the existence of,
like human structures, buildingsare part of it. Then, as you're
metaphor again. These areinspired by science, not
building, you're kind ofbuilding little mountain ranges
and rivers. You're placinglittle towns or cities or
actually based on science. Yeah,I guess it could be a sort of
forests. So you really start toget sort of a feel of, kind of
like being down at the scale,sort of occupying this landscape
that you're building. And inharmonies, the animals
collective thing, of like you'redeciding which one, which
(14:41):
physically take up space. Whenyou place your cube there, the
animal is now in that space. Andthat's different in Planet,
planet, the animal would behappiest on, and they get to put
right?
the animal there. Something incommon, though, is the nature of
(15:02):
the requirements. So the typesof biomes and environments you
that's its hive.
have to build do make sense. Solike in harmonies, like you'll
The planes are like the opensarea. Yes, it put the honeybees
say, Oh, the honeybee needs tohave a plains next to a two tall
build their hives and trees, butit needs an open area with,
(15:25):
like, wildflowers and stuff forit to actually forage in which
tree. The honeybee actuallylives on the tree, which was a
little odd at first, but thenyou think about, like, Oh,
forests are not good for that.Or I've got some stuff here in
planet and, like, the narwhal,needs to have ice that is not
(15:57):
connected to forest, so coldareas, which is where narwhals
live, or giraffes are live basedon the largest piece of sand you
have that is next to forest. Sothey're kind of the open savanna
area. It's like, there's only somuch you can do with as simple
characteristics they have here.But even though it still makes
sense, you look at these like,okay, yeah, I can see kind of
(16:19):
where the metaphor is, like, itkind of makes sense based on
what it actually lives. On ourplanet.
In planet you're sort of building, presumably entire
biomes. The simplest way tothink about a biome is a
combination of temperature andprecipitation. Are the sort of
things that determine sort ofwhat can live there in terms of
plant life, in terms of animallife, and it's sort of one of
the ways that ecology kind ofnaturally partitions out is
(16:41):
temperature and precipitation.Planet again, really strips it
down to the bare basics, right?
Jason (16:46):
Oh yeah. I mean, it only has five in the entire world
that you're working with. So ittakes a little bit of
abstraction that you've got yourwater, your ice, your forest,
your mountain, your desert, orsand, or whatever you want to
call it very coarse grainedthere. But you could, you could,
you could use some imaginationand see a little bit more of
that,
Brian (17:03):
whereas in harmonies, we're building, again, at a
smaller scale, more likebuilding an island or a
landscape. So we're really, atthat point, creating habitats,
and I've tried to find some,like actual good dictionary
definition of habitats. Like ahabitat has to provide with the
creature, with what it needs, interms of food, water, shelter
and space, it has to be able tocomplete its life cycle within
(17:24):
that area. And one of the thingswe also get in harmonies that we
don't have in Planet is that wehave human built structures. And
like nine of the 32 animals thatare in the game and their
habitat includes a building. Sothese would be things like
squirrels or crows, things thatdo well around people.
Jason (17:41):
And I like that, because too often in these ecological
conversations, we're talking islike, oh, like everything humans
do is bad for the environment.And, okay, let's be honest, a
lot of things we do is bad forthe environment, but
Brian (17:52):
a lot of things we do are bad.
Jason (17:53):
Yes, a lot of things are, but they don't necessarily have
to be. And then you can arguethe point of harmonies is
showing that it is possible tobe in harmony with nature is
that we can get what we need,and then other things can get
what they need. And if you do itright, you can make it so
everybody wins.
Brian (18:07):
And the way that the game represents that for your city,
for your building, to earn youpoints, it has to, again, be in
harmony with nature. So how dowe represent that? It means that
the city has to be surrounded bythree different types of tiles,
so by a mountain, by a river, bya forest you can't build some.
You know, huge metropolitan citywhere it's just city after city,
(18:27):
building after building afterbuilding that won't earn you any
points. You can do it. Butbasically, you are now not in
harmony. You have not balancedyour human buildings with the
rest of nature. So it's kind ofa fun way of playing with that
metaphor as well. Humans get tobe part of nature instead of
separate from it. One of thethings that we did notice about
these games, and look, I 100%get it, it's fine. I understand
(18:50):
this. These are both have thishuge vertebrate bias in terms of
what is represented in the game,most animals, most living
animals, are, are bugs, right?Areinsects, or things like that,
or arthropods. This is allvertebrates, with very few
exceptions, all things withbackbones in harmonies. There
are in the main cards, there areout of 32 there's two insects,
(19:13):
honeybees and ladybugs.Everything else is a vertebrate.
What about in planet?
Jason (19:17):
So we have three. We have jelly, jellyfish, octopi and
scorpions.
Brian (19:21):
So planet actually did better than harmonies with that.
But I think, you know, maybe Idon't know, there are some
pretty charismatic insects inthere. I did want to say, in the
animal spirits, where, like,there's only 10 of those, you do
have the dragonfly and aswallowtail butterfly. So we
get, we get four insects totalin the game. The rest are all vertebrates.
Jason (19:39):
Well, let's talk a little bit about the science we can get
out of this. Because there is,as you say, inspired by science
and looking at these, the onethat really comes to mind is
like, okay, yes, ecology, but wealready talked about general
ecology with earth and such.It's really more the idea of,
like niches, of an ecologicalniche, or niche, depending on
how you want to pronounce it,that an organism in. Is
(20:00):
occupying, and that basicallyjust means, like this is its
little specialized part of theworld that it focuses on. Well,
they're actually mostly definedby how they avoid competing with
other things. So maybe you haveanimals that specialize at
eating grass instead ofbroadleaf things, or maybe they
(20:20):
specialize at leading eating theleaves that are, you know, less
than two meters high, as opposedto, like a giraffe that eats the
ones that are way up top intothe tree tops. And so there's
certain parts of theirenvironment they're really good
at exploiting, and there areother parts of the environment
they don't bother with, whichlets something else occupy that
part of the environment. And soeach of these animals has their
(20:42):
own little habitat, their ownlittle niche that they are as
they're occupying. And really,if you look across the entire
game, you have different animalsthat are trying to occupy
different parts of theenvironment and different things
that you're building together.What I especially like with
harmonies is that part of thegameplay rewards you for finding
animals that have complementaryhabitats, because, as Brian
(21:04):
said, like when you place yourlittle animal cube saying, hey,
there's an animal here, you getpoints for that, but it only
occupies one of the tile spaces,but usually requires at least
two, sometimes three tile spacesin order to trigger that,
leaving those other two open. Soif you can find another animal
that uses part of that andoverlaps, then you can use that
overlapping part to build itshabitat and put it there. And so
(21:26):
you can try to havecomplementary animals occupying
your landscape, so that you getessentially as many of them in
there as possible, while havinga again harmonious existence,
because they're all occupyingdifferent parts of the
landscape.
Brian (21:40):
And I think harmonies represents niche, niche
partitioning really well,actually, because of that exact
reason, like the animalphysically occupies space, and
really only one animal can be onthat tile, right? Whereas with
planet, kind of, once yourecruit your animals, they just
kind of sit in a stack and younever think about it again,
which is sort of a littledifferent, unfortunately,
(22:00):
yes, but there is the thingwhere, so the way you draft the
animals, the animals, you seethem all like lined out for the
course of the game. So you knowwhat's coming down. There's a
variant rule where you don't butso you see what's happening. So
you can build your planetsaying, Hey, I'm not going to
get anything this term, but I'mgoing to try to aim in three
turns when I'm first player, I'mgoing to try to go for that
Orca, which requires a largeamount of ocean touching ice, so
(22:23):
I'm going to make sure I have areally big ocean touching ice.
But that decision means that,you know, two turns later, when
there's something that needs alot of ocean that does not touch
ice, you're out of luck. And sothere is a little bit of that
habitat partitioning going on.It's less within your own little
environment and more among thedifferent planets that are being
(22:43):
built. It's like by choosing togo after one particular setup, I
am sort of cutting myself offfrom a different one, leaving
someone else to take it andspecialize that way.
Let's jump into why we're notdoing science grades. It's not
that we couldn't, but just likewe're now, I don't think we're
going to, right?
Jason (22:59):
yeah probably not again these. I mean your your litmus
test is, will people have somewrong idea about the science? I
don't think it's deep enough toreally merit that. My thing is,
does it portray what it's tryingto portray? Well, honestly, I
think so yes, but they're nottrying to portray too much. I
think harmonies probably wentdeeper than planet on purpose,
and I think they both hit kindof the level they were going at.
(23:21):
But this is not a science game.This is not something from
genius games or ElizabethHargrave where, like, the
science is central to it. Thisis like, Oh, here's this
metaphor from nature that we cantake and we'll use that to make
a fun game.
Brian (23:34):
I've been thinking about what it takes to make a hard
science game. I don't think theysat down and did a ton of
research on each of these 32animals, how they would work
together, and what theirspecific habitat requirements
were. It's just sort of a, justa representation based on almost
common knowledge about thesethings, although some of them
are really cute, right? Like yousaid, with the honeybee having
the tree surrounded by the bythe field, it's, it's very
(23:57):
evocative. It's very it's agreat role play, to be able to
to play harmonies and sort ofplace all of those things, but
they weren't really trying to doscience. And I don't think
anybody's going to learnanything wrong from either of
these games, right?
Jason (24:10):
I mean, the only way someone learns something wrong
is if one of these has somehabitat that doesn't make sense
for its animal, and neither ofus spotted anything like that.
Brian (24:18):
I think they're just fine. But let's talk about the
So I think.
fun. And we can talk about thefun, in this case, in terms of
compare and contrast. Harmoniesis my favorite game, also one of
the only games I've ever beatJason at. So that's interesting.
But you know, since this is abonus episode, it doesn't count.
The thing that I like aboutharmonies is that you it's just
(24:38):
just the right amount of sort ofstrategic balance. For me, you
always feel like there'ssomething that you can do that's
helpful, right? You never feellike you're stuck with only bad
choices, because even if youcan't satisfy any of your animal
habitats, you can work towardssome kind of a landscape goal,
like building up your mountainchain, or trying to build a city
somewhere or something likethat. Harmonies is an A+ for me.
(24:59):
For fun. I would play thispretty much anytime. Planets, it
has a great gimmick, and I agreewith you that the rules were
made simple on purpose to try tomake it easier to play with
kids. And it plays fast too,right? I mean, both of these
games play fast, but planetplays really fast, particularly
with only two people. There'snot quite as many choices to
make, and you do kind of end upfeeling a little hamstrung by
(25:22):
previous choices and what's infront of you. So if I have to
choose between the two, I'mgoing to choose harmonies. I
think planet, I'll probably givea B, because I think the gimmick
of the three dimensional planetis the most appealing thing
Jason (25:34):
Yeah, I think mine will come out close. I think I give
about it.
harmonies an A and planet, a B+for basically the same reasons,
and I don't want to knock onplanet. It's like it is simple
on purpose. It's simpler than Iprefer. But this would be great
to play with my nine year old.Like, I would love getting this
out for a quick 20 minute game.And I think that would be
(25:55):
perfect. And I would love doingthat. I wouldn't necessarily
pull it out with my peer groupof adults who want to have some
more strategic depth, but sinceit is aimed at a younger
audience like I think it doesthat part very well. So it it
almost, I'd almost give it acontext dependent grade. given
like, if I had my choice betweenthis and Exploding Kittens, I
would take this 100% of thetime, guaranteed. So on the
(26:18):
Exploding Kitten scale, me withmy peers, okay, B+ me with my
kids. A, I would go with it. Iwould definitely take this with
my kids. I would love doingthat.
Brian (26:27):
The simplicity and the speed, you know, planet might
actually be a good fit for aclassroom. You already mentioned
that, but I kind of think it'strue for the I'm not sure what
the best age would be. I feellike for an elementary school
level, if you're having yourecology or your biome unit,
planet, would probably be a nicesupporting activity.
Jason (26:46):
Yep, probably elementary school, maybe, maybe up to
middle school. It may get alittle too simple for them by
the time you get into like,eighth or ninth grade. But no, I
think it'll work. I mean, andhonestly, even into high school,
I think it would be, well, highschool at that point becomes
more fun than instructional. Butyeah, elementary to middle
school is probably the sweetspot there.
Brian (27:03):
All right. Well, thank you for joining us for our break
bonus episode, thanks for tuningin. Have a great month and great
Jason (27:11):
and have fun playing dice with universe, see ya.
games
Brian (27:14):
This has been the gaming with Science Podcast copyright
2025 listeners are free to reusethis recording for any non
commercial purpose, as long ascredit is given to gaming with
science. This podcast isproduced with support from the
University of Georgia. Allopinions are those of the hosts,
and do not imply endorsement bythe sponsors. If you wish to
purchase any of the games thatwe've talked about, we encourage
you to do so through yourfriendly local game store. Thank
you and have fun playing dicewith the universe.
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