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Harvester (video game)

Harvester
Harvester cover.jpg
Developer(s) DigiFX Interactive
Publisher(s)
Producer(s) Lee Jacobson
Designer(s) Gilbert P. Austin
Platform(s) MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows, Linux
Release
  • NA: August 31, 1996
  • EU: 1996
Genre(s) Interactive movie, point-and-click adventure
Mode(s) Single-player

Harvester is a interactive movie point-and-click adventure game written and directed by Gilbert P. Austin. The game was designed by DigiFX Interactive and published by Merit Studios in 1996. On March 6, 2014, Lee Jacobson re-released it in GOG.com, for PC and Mac. On April 4, 2014, Night Dive Studios re-released it in Steam for PC and Linux.

Harvester was first announced to public at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 1994 in Las Vegas. The dark and blasphemous content of the game drew a huge amount of attention and created a lot of expectations. The writer/director Gilbert P. Austin was against any kind of censorship and he wanted the game to serve as an examination of the controversy about whether violence in media creates, or is created by, violence in society. Austin finished the creative work in autumn 1994 and moved on to the other projects. The game was set to be released the same year but was instead delayed two years and became a commercial failure. However the game managed to cause controversy. One scene in which children cannibalize their mother was censored in Europe, and in Germany, the game was banned. Today Harvester is known for its cult following.

The game stars Steve, who awakes with a case of amnesia in a strange town in 1953 called Harvest. He can't remember anything from his past and when he tells the people that claim to be his family, as well as townsfolk, they all tell him what a kidder he is. All of the town inhabitants are extremely eccentric and many appear to be more a satire or stereotype than real people. They all continuously stress to Steve that he should join the Lodge, which is a large building located at the center of town that serves as the headquarters of the Order of the Harvest Moon. Steve visits the Sergeant at Arms at the Lodge, who tells him that all of his questions will be answered inside the building. To enter, he must first join the Order of the Harvest Moon. But in order to join, he must perform a series of tasks that range from simple vandalism to arson for his initiation.


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