Harvester

Harvester is a 1996 DigiFX point-and-click that became infamous for being one of the most violent adventure games ever shipped. Steve wakes up in 1953 Harvest with amnesia. The people who claim to be his family are aggressively unhelpful, his supposed fiancée Stephanie lives next door, and the entire town keeps insisting he join the Lodge at the center of town: headquarters of the Order of the Harvest Moon.

Progress through the early game requires completing initiation tasks for the Order. They start with petty vandalism, escalate through arson, and eventually require killing townspeople. The game offers two parallel paths to almost every objective: solve a puzzle nonviolently, or murder the relevant NPC and take what you need. The combat system handles direct attacks with weapon selection and click-to-strike.

Fully digitized live-action actors, hand-painted backgrounds and pre-recorded video cutscenes give it a distinctive look. The satire of 1950s American small-town life runs alongside genuinely transgressive content, and the late-game shift in setting and tone is the moment the game is most remembered for. Not for the squeamish.