New 'Harry Potter' Game Lets Players Go Through Daily Life in Hogwarts
Not many gamers will want to play a game only to sit down and attend a class lecture, but if its part of signing up for a wizarding school, then that ought to suit "Harry Potter" fans just fine. "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery" is now out for mobile devices, and it puts players through everything the famous school has to offer.
In "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery," players can customize the appearance and traits of their aspiring wizard or witch, a first for a "Harry Potter" game. It's a narrative RPG experience where players attend classes to learn magical skills and win over friends to join them against rivals.
There are also quests where the decision of the player earns them prestige or infamy as they guide the story of their own witch or wizard.
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"Our goal with Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is to make players really feel for the first time like they're attending Hogwarts," said Chris DeWolfe, co-founder and CEO of Jam City, in a recent press statement. To do just that, the studio actually went out to hire stars like Dame Maggie Smith to voice Professor McGonagall so that there would be an authentic "Harry Potter" movie experience to the game.
"By including these iconic and incredibly talented actors in the game, we come one step closer to truly giving fans their own Hogwarts experience," DeWolfe added.
As for Smith, its all about the potion classes. "If I could attend Hogwarts as a student, I would be most excited to attend the potions class taught by Severus because it is the most exotic," she revealed.
This is not the usual "Harry Potter" timeline, though, since the game is set in the 1980s according to Tech Crunch. In this timeline, players will encounter Professor Flitwick (voiced by Warwick Davis), Madam Pomfrey (voiced by Hemma Jones) and Madam Hooch (Zoe Wanamaker).
The player is also on a quest to find out what happened to an older sibling, who also attended Hogwarts before mysteriously disappearing. Between lessons and lounging in the house dorms, the character can use the magical skills that they learned to start looking into what happened.
Jam City has also added new original characters in the game, including Penny, the friendly potions expert from Hufflepuff, and Tulip, a naughty prankster from Ravenclaw. Depending on the character, Merula from Slytherin can be either friend or foe.
The classes themselves are interesting in their own right. Aside from learning spells, players can also increase skills and attributes from dueling with other characters or interacting with other students, as well.
The video below shows off the impressive animation and star-studded voicework of "Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery," which has been available from the Apple Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android since Wednesday, April 25.
