The year is 1953. When Steve Mason awakens in the quiet North American town called Harvest, he cannot remember anything. People claim to know him and even to be related to him, but he does not recall their names. As he explores the strange town, he encounters more and more eccentric people, whose behavior is difficult to explain. Everyone keep telling him that he should join the Lodge, the headquarters of the mysterious Order of the Harvest Moon. Steve is determined to find out the truth about the town and about himself, but he doesn't know that this truth is more horrifying than he could have ever imagined... Harvester is essentially a point-and-click, puzzle-solving adventure game. Though a weapon-shaped icon allows the player to attack characters, this can only be done as a solution to a puzzle, in order to advance the game's plot at specific points. The largest bulk of the gameplay is dedicated to traditional adventure activities: talking to characters and manipulating inventory items to solve puzzles. "Hot spots" indicate interaction possibilities, as in most adventure games of that period. The game features video cut scenes with live actors; for gameplay portions, digitized animations of the actors are super-imposed over pre-rendered background graphics.