Learn and grow through seven years at Hogwarts

Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery For: iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android

From: Jam City

Minimum software requirements: Requires iOS 10.0 or later; Android 4.4 and up

Price: Free (with optional inapp purchases)

Rating: (4plus) ★★★+

EVERY Harry Potter fan has at one point or another daydreamed about attending Hogwarts. The fantasy is the subject of fan fiction, amateur movies and theme park rides. Everyone wants to know what it would be like to attend J.K. Rowling’s school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Now, players have that chance thanks to a new game by Jam City.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery lets players live out the dream of being a Hogwarts student. They can create their own avatar, choose their house and take part in an adventure that spans seven years as players go from being young newcomers to seasoned students.

The interesting part about

Hogwarts Mystery is that it takes place during the 1980s. That means players get to see professor Snape and McGonagall and aurors such as Nymphadora Tonks as their younger selves. In this case, the teachers are more youthful while Tonks ends up being a classmate.

Dumbledore is still the headmaster and he acknowledges the survival of the boy who lived. Similar to the books, players pick a house and explore the school, but what’s important is that education plays a role in the game. (It is Hogwarts, after all.) The type of spells and potions players can use in duelling or during the exploration is dependent on the classes they attend. In the first year, players will have herbology, flight class and potions, but their repertoire expands as they advance in the campaign.

Another pillar of the game is the type of relationships that players build during their years at the school. No matter what house they choose, players will have the same friends and rivals. Rowan is the player’s best friend. She’s bookish. There’s also a rival that gives players problems. Over the course of the campaign, players will face dialogue choices and depending on how they answer, it can impact the relationship with those characters and plot points.

Although players have some agency in how the shape of the story, it doesn’t appear as though there will be branching storylines or anything that elaborate. The main narrative is that players will be searching for their brother Jacob. He was a promising thirdyear student but he was kicked out of school and disappeared.

Players discover that his expulsion had something to do with cursed vaults hidden around Hogwarts. Over the course of their seven years, players will have to figure out the secret behind them.

Again, in between, they’ll be expanding their spell and potion abilities. They learn spells such as Lumos, a charm that lights an area. When they learn expelliarmus, they can use it in duels. To duel, players have to use coins and ingame currency. The coins can also be used to buy superficial items to dress up their hero.

Duels are done in a rockpaperscissors manner. Players choose a defensive, aggressive or sneaky stance and the game compares that decision with the rival duellist. Aggressive beats sneaky and sneaky beats defensive while defensive beats aggressive. Once a winner is declared in the stance round, they get to use an ability such as potion to heal or charm to disarm the opponent. A win earns players resources to level up their character.

One of these items are gems, which boost player stats in one of three categories: courage, empathy and knowledge. Lastly, energy is another resource that players have to manage. Energy is what dictates actions in class. It refills quickly as players participate in class, and taking in lessons also earns players coins and gems.

Lastly, player choices and deeds have an impact on House Points. Depending on whether you’re a model student or rebel, players can earn or lose points for their house and it impacts what happens at the end of the year.

From what I’ve seen, Hogwarts

Mystery is rather amorphous. Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment label it a casual roleplaying game, but it’s a hard game to categorise. Players can progress through this singleplayer campaign and see it evolve as they go through the adventure and find out what happened to their brother, Jacob.

From what I’ve seen in the short demo, the game seems to be a solid

Harry Potter experience that lets fans live out a fantasy. — TCA