Harlow is an interesting puzzle game. It has a lot of personality to it, both visually and sound-wise, with influence from games like Loco Roco. Much like the latter, Harlow is incredibly addictive with a side of tricky.
Let’s dig into it.
It’s party planning time!
The idea behind Harlow is simple. You play as one of two robots residing on a space station and you are tasked with collecting party data from strange planets to open up unlockables in order to create a party for frozen colonists that are waiting to be thawed. These unlockables include furniture, food, and even lighting. You must have a good light show, right?
Anyway, the story is endearing and well-placed with some feel-good vibes. The humor between the main robot giving the orders and your character is well-written. It keeps the story on track and builds this motivating mission to do some good for some friends. In short, it’s a good story that will certainly give you some motivation to keep pushing forward, even when the puzzles get rather tricky at times.
Party on, dudes.
Slingshot your way through planets
The gameplay design with this puzzle-driven experience is also rather simple. You slingshot your robot across a platformer-designed landscape and traverse obstacles along the way. The obstacles can come in various forms. Sometimes they are fire pits that you haphazardly activate as you roll over them. Sometimes they can be toxic waste pipes that empty out and can instantly explode your robot. If toxic waste doesn’t get you, then you’re looking at lava trying to melt you. And if that isn’t enough, then you have other issues to worry about such as spiked platforms popping up from the ground and pushing down from the ceiling. As you progress in the game, the obstacles get more and more complicated, but never overwhelming. There wasn’t a moment I played this game that I felt frustrated and needed to quit. A lot of games of this type will do that eventually, but this just was a pleasure to push through repeatedly, and there are plenty of levels to keep you occupied with each bringing its own flavor of obstacles and wonderment.
Related, the controls in this game make for an interesting time when you’re going through all the above obstacles. Essentially, you pull your mouse down and slingshot your robot across the level and through locked barriers and things that will explode you. The slingshot allows for multiple slingshots when you’re in the air, which means you can do back-to-back slings, which is incredibly useful when you’re trying to catch party data placed all over a level. Also, it helps when you’re trying to avoid dying.
As you progress through the game, the levels do get gradually difficult. You’ll find yourself needing to move circular keys across the landscape by slinging your robot into them which causes them to roll. These keys have locks that they settle into open different parts of the level. Sometimes, you’ll find steeper hills in levels that are unforgiving which makes it tricky to push the keys, but again not overly frustrating. The keys show up here and there but aren’t always the solution to opening pathways. The change-up here and there is nice, as you don’t feel like the levels get repetitive.
There are also power grids you must activate that open doors and large levels you must climb up and up to get to the end. The power grids are just essentially plugs you must push into their sockets that activate doors. This is the secondary way of unlocking paths. Again, it changes up what the levels throw at you, which keeps the experience fresh.
The larger levels do require an upward climb, sometimes leaving little room for error. To climb up a level from platform to platform simply requires you to sling your robot carefully at the proper angles. This can get difficult as you progress in the game, especially if you screw it up like I did multiple times, and find your poor robot tumbling all the way back to the bottom. To prevent the latter, there are also checkpoints you arrive at that will keep you from having to start a level all the way over. Not that starting over becomes a problem because you can keep going in a level for as long as your patience dictates.
To end a level requires you to obtain three power canisters. Once you have those, and you have party data, which isn’t a requirement, you end the level and get back on the ship to dump off your collected load. Then it is off to the next level. The average time it took me to get through most of the levels in the game was about 2-4 minutes. As I became more adept at the controls and got the muscle memory pumped, the game really did open up quickly.
Shifting gears, the levels in Harlow are beautiful, genius, and, most importantly fun. Slinging your robot everywhere is just damn entertaining. It does harken back to my time with Loco Roco on the PSP, where just gathering and planning physics-based movements to complete a level is somewhat addictive. I spent an abnormal amount of time playing Loco Roco because I wanted to find everything and perfect my gathering and movements. The same could be said for Harlow, where I just want to keep playing because I want to gather everything and discover any hidden gems I might have missed.
On that same line of thinking, the game also includes the ability to return to levels and try to do better. The game measures you in time, the number of slingshots, and party data collected. Replaying and doing better is going to hook perfectionists, and the game encourages you to do so. I can think of a few writers on staff that would just dig into this because of that reason.
Overall, the gameplay in Harlow is fun. Plain and simple. You’ll go into the game thinking that it’s just another puzzle game experience, but then you’ll find yourself 10 levels in and enjoying everything. It’s just that type of game. The only knock I have with the design is the amount of time it takes to collect and purchase all the unlockable items. You must unlock a category with X amount of party data, then you have to purchase the party pieces. It feels bogged down at times, but I guess that is the point of continuing to not only do better but to keep going from level to level. Anyway, if that’s the worst part of the game, then it’s probably more me than the game. Just a minor complaint in the scheme of things.
Sights and Sounds
When you log into Steam and see the $14.38 price tag that includes the soundtrack, you’ll want that option. The game by itself is $12.99 but just go for the gusto. One of the most notable parts of the Harlow experience is the music and sounds of the game. The music is this soft electronic beat that just brings you down to earth and makes you comfortable as you go through the puzzle planets. It’s epic in its intentions and works well with the gameplay. It’s brilliant. It is so damn relaxing to experience and it flows perfectly with the game. The sounds are equally as pleasing to the ears. They are cute, comfortable, and I swear there are a few sound bites from Kid Icarus in there. I swear I can hear them.
As for the visuals, they’re TRON-like. You have a lot of cool neon, some simplified robotic models, and a soft filter that gives you a relaxing vibe that compliments the music and sound. The developers did a superb job of setting the presentation tone on both sides of the coin for Harlow.
Conclusion
Harlow is a spectacular experience that brings everything you would want and maybe didn’t expect in a puzzle-driven game. It has great gameplay design, clever levels, and a presentation that will keep a smile on your face.
