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We Harvest Shadows is an indie developed (I believe by a single developer) game from David Wehle. It tells the story of a man that moves to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, shunning his modern day life in the city with the intent of staying out there for ever. You start the game by settling into this serene lifestyle out on a farm by clearing rubbish, selling crops, and buying improvements for yourself and the farm. It’s there that you realise that things aren’t as idyllic as they seem and that the player’s character might slowly be losing his sanity.

I should mention that I have only played the demo for it so far and I will deliberately refrain from reviewing the game based on anything promised in the full-version on release, that being said, the demo is good fun and worth having a look at.

Game startup

The speed with which a game starts up is important to me, I’m not the kind of person to finish games in a single sitting and my time is often limited so when I click “Play”, I like getting into the action quickly. Unskippable title screens, games that expect you to press any key multiple times before getting to the menu or, after you’ve gone through all that, it has the audacity to only then start compiling shaders, these things are some of my biggest pet peeves for this very reason.

The demo for We Harvest Shadows starts up quickly, with no nonsense. I stress again that this is the demo and it could stand to change in the full release.

Settings

Before we talk about the gameplay, let’s talk admin.

Though there are plenty of available resolutions in the settings menu, in terms of graphical quality you are given 5 options and that’s it, no customisation around those options.

There is no offering of FSR, DLSS, or frame generation but to be fair, I didn’t feel like I needed it at any point. On a 4080 Super things ran well and I never felt any serious loss of framerate.

Gameplay

On to the gameplay. The game does a good job of introducing you to the controls and mechanics, one at time, with a simple daily task list that you need to achieve before you can call it a day and go to bed.

And you absolutely want to get to bed when the sun starts going down because that’s when strange things start happening. Rushed footsteps behind you, causing you to spin around only to see…nothing, or perhaps you hear someone call out to you and when you turn around, for a split second, you’re sure you saw someone hide behind a tree but on further investigation there’s nothing. You quickly get the feeling that if you don’t get to bed soon things will get really dangerous.

This sort of tension is not limited to night time only, throughout the day you’ll come across doors slowly creaking closed or perhaps a wardrobe shaking violently, everything just enough to keep you on edge and question just how safe you truly are.

There’s a painting on a wall in the house that’s meant to reflect your mental state, and I really enjoyed seeing how it changed as it did not only indicate that something definitely was wrong but it gave you reason for concern. At one point a scary face appeared in the painting and I felt nervous stepping foot outside the safety of the house. It’s a simple mechanic that delivers with great success.

As you progress through the days, new items unlock in the shop for you to purchase including upgrades to your existing equipment, which annoyingly don’t seem to replace your old items but we can work around that.

Graphics and Performance

The graphics are fine, what you’d expect from a modern engine. I had it set to Very High and as mentioned earlier, the game performed well.

I am happy to report I didn’t notice any graphical glitches during my playtime either.

My one gripe is that the lighting can be a over-bright at times. Not the whole time, just when the sun is at the right angle for it. It’s a shame because every morning you wake up you are greeted by this incredible sunrise, I can’t stress enough how great the sunrise looks, but it can at times be ruined with the sun just turning everything a reflective white.

Sound

The sound is great, it’s been done well including the use of imaging to give you sudden prompts behind you or beside you causing you to turn your head.

The ambient noises also feel well placed, with the sorts of noises you’d expect from a farm house out in nowhere. It also felt deliberately place and not just a randomly looped backing track of ambient noises. For instance, when the sun goes down you can hear the filament light bulbs buzzing to life to light up bits of the farm.

In a game where atmosphere plays such a big role you need to pay attention to sound design and they’ve done a great job here.

Interspersed between the various scenes you’ll get some calm and relaxing music that fits with both the narrative and general state of mind that your character is in. I’d play some here but I believe many of the songs are copyright protected.

Atmosphere

The developer does well to combine the graphics and sound to build the atmosphere up. They make you feel a sense of security, but then with subtle, well-placed, prompts you slowly start to question that sense of security.

Even then, I reached a point where I was sure that it was all in my head and that nothing could physically hurt me, only it suddenly did. Be it wild dogs that chased me up a ladder in the barn or a creepy statue that moves when you’re not watching.

Story

The story starts with you, the protagonist, decided to move out to the middle of nowhere and become a recluse, instead of returning to the big city.

You buy a farm and start doing the place up a little bit.

The game gives you exposition through flashbacks to the days during which you lived in the city.

Overall Opinion

Though the demo was short-lived, I could tell the developer had put a lot of effort into core gameplay mechanics as well as the narrative and how it unfolds. I enjoyed the experience and look forward to the full release for more of the story as well as more of those hair-raising moments that creep up on you.

I could find little wrong with the demo, there were no crashes or glitches or bugs to speak of. The developer seems to have a clear vision in mind and they’re sticking to that vision which I can appreciate. It might not lead to a mainstream game that sells tens of thousands of copies but I think anyone looking for this kind of an experience could pick this game up and appreciate what the developer has created.

Who should buy/wait for sale/avoid

It’s hard to tell whether the game would be worth buying without knowing the price tag for it but for arguments sake, let’s say the developer releases it at the average price-tag for similar indie games.

In that case, if you enjoy horror stories and wanted to see one incorporated into a survival, crafting setting then this might well be for you and I’d recommend grabbing it.

There is a demo after all and I think it gives a good idea of what to expect from the full game on release.