Universal Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (by Jam City)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Boardumb, Apr 26, 2018.

  1. Stronsay

    Stronsay Well-Known Member

    Aug 6, 2015
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    #21 Stronsay, Apr 27, 2018
    Last edited: Apr 27, 2018
    Lower floor: West - tap on the knights to the right of the Great Hall.
    Not aware of the refresh time; my assistants are looking into it.

    Update: I am reliably informed that the refresh time is ‘after lunch’. Hope that helps.
     
  2. Analander

    Analander Well-Known Member

    Aug 24, 2014
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    Lol, what the heck?

    [​IMG]
     
  3. nicoga3000

    nicoga3000 Well-Known Member

    Dec 21, 2010
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    They just want as many 5* reviews as possible to bump it up the charts to get hype downloads to get reckless quick purchases to progress the story.

    At least my 1* review hasn't been removed yet.
     
  4. fring

    fring Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Jul 26, 2017
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    Alright, I'm totally loving this. Definitely don't come in thinking of this as a game. It's a visual Harry Potter novel with very fun graphics and good-enough writing. I did not know I had a giant, gaping Harry Potter-sized hole in my life, but I'm so glad I got to fill it. There's tons of ridiculous timers and it's stupid, but this is definitely a case of them needing timers to gate the content and give themselves time to continue building out content. Players who pay are going to regret it because they'll just end up waiting at some point in the future, when there's little-to-nothing to do, aside from level up friendships super slowly (or something similar, I don't know).

    I would say that the biggest risk is that, because this is a TinyCo game, it will eventually become very event-heavy (like Avengers Academy or Simpson: Tapped Out), with minimal actual story progression. If that is the case, I'll sadly delete it. Otherwise, I'm optimistic about its future and would absolutely recommend it.
     
  5. L.Lawliet

    L.Lawliet Well-Known Member

    Jun 28, 2011
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    Yeah I saw on the app store that this has an average rating of 5 stars by thousands of people. I guess this is the way to go?
     
  6. LinC

    LinC Member

    Dec 31, 2017
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    This game is a complete joke, it's like it was meant for 2 year olds.

    The "gameplay" (big quotes) in this "game":

    - Tap on glowing objects. It's like the dev thinks the players are imbeciles attracted to bright lights. And no it's not a rhythm game or "find hidden object" game, you literally just tap on glowing objects that are right in your face
    - Read dialogue
    - Once in a while you get a "choice" on what to say , but most of them don't affect anything

    Oh and you can only play for like, maybe 10min before running out of energy. You start the game with about 20 energy, each "quest" takes like 10 energy and maybe 1 minute to complete excluding all the dialogue. You do the math. I started the game and literally ran out of energy within 10min in the beginning of the third "quest".

    This game has less "gameplay" than a frickin choose your own adventure book.

    If you enjoy Harry Potter, enjoy games where you simply watch or read with absolutely minimal interactions involved, and don't mind waiting for the ridiculous energy meter to take 5 hours to recharge in order to get 10min of "gameplay" then this is your app to download.
     
  7. brogmoid

    brogmoid Well-Known Member

    Jun 21, 2015
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    a series of tubes
    the south side of the sky
    OK so I haven't played this, although I will admit to having a rather dim view/bias based on AppUnwrapper's review.

    But am just trying to evaluate this on the merits of the artwork, and it looks positively dreadful to me, like the worst kind of crass cartoon sellout. It just doesn't appeal whatsoever.

    Read the books, seen each film 10+ times etc Hogwarts is basically in my blood at this point.
     
  8. YaoYao

    YaoYao Active Member

    May 21, 2014
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    It's kind of curious how we've hit the point where games exist with a major design focus towards getting players to _not_ play the game, and how many players will defend such "gating" and paywalls. You can make a F2P game that makes money and is still a game, or you can make a Skinner box like this to try and wring cash out of fans.
     
  9. RandomizedKirbyTree47

    Sep 2, 2017
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    I like interactive fiction games (I'm a big fan of Choice of Games/Hosted Games), and I love Harry Potter. When I first heard about this game, before the business-model was revealed, I was intrigued. Now that it's out and free-to-play, I don't think I'm going to download it.
     
  10. ac166

    ac166 Well-Known Member

    May 15, 2014
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    Nearly 40k votes but the thread only has 2k views... it’s almost as if some of those votes were fake... but a big f2p mobile company would never do anything like that... right? Right?
     
  11. triwolf

    triwolf Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Sep 5, 2012
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    After reading the comments on this thread I downloaded this game with no expectations at all... Definitely feels more like an interactive novel than an actual game. And gamers aren’t the target audience at all. I’ll take it as a game one plays 2 or 3 times a day for 10 minutes, and stop if there’s an actual paywall.
     
  12. fring

    fring Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Jul 26, 2017
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    Whoo-hoo! I got a shout-out in the podcast! A correction for the later part of my post, I got confused since Jam City bought TinyCo a while back and some of the initial marketing mentioned TinyCo's previous games in its resume. In reality, I was totally wrong and this is a pure Jam City game.

    Anyways, playing further, I have to say, some of the mechanics are downright hilariously anti-consumer. I'm occasionally running into classes where you have a fixed amount of time to complete the tasks and the amount of energy needed to complete the task is only moderately less than what would generate over the course of that time period. The worst part is that if you don't complete the class within the time limit, you not only need to start over, but you get docked House Points!

    Anyways, I'm still enjoying the story. I confess that I totally have a crush on Meruda and am making all my choices to try to convince her to be a nicer person and eventually my friend. If it's possible, they're keeping it secret, since she's not listed as any of the potential future friends we can gain as the story progresses. I would fully support a future event where we can earn her friendship...
     
  13. Serenityinaz12

    Serenityinaz12 Well-Known Member

    Mar 27, 2015
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    Yeah because the game is absolute GARBAGE bro... Don't be dumb
     
  14. verlaine

    verlaine Well-Known Member

    Jul 26, 2012
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    I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds as if HP:HM is a glorified 'free-to-play' visual novel with lots of timers--and it might be best played in short 'spurts'?
     
  15. Stronsay

    Stronsay Well-Known Member

    Aug 6, 2015
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    Yes that’s exactly right. I think many people are disappointed that it’s not a game but a kid friendly interactive storybook. The publishers should have made this clear in their pre-release hype.
     
  16. fring

    fring Well-Known Member
    Patreon Bronze

    Jul 26, 2017
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    And now the game makers are in damage-control mode. I just received a 100 free gems, with the game saying something along the lines of: We're so happy you're playing and hope you stick with our game as we continue telling this story. Or something like that. It'll be interesting to see if they adjust any of energy elements, though. I am starting to see 10-energy progress rewards occasionally, which I don't think I was seeing before, but I don't have nearly enough sample-size to say for sure.
     
  17. shadowgamerr

    shadowgamerr Well-Known Member

    Apr 16, 2011
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    Living life and Playing mobile games
    Right by your side
    It's common practice to do that, probably adjusting as much as they can server side before deciding what else to alter that needs a client update. I bet the producer and game designers are crunching numbers trying to figure out the minimum adjustment they can make to up the number in the statistics. They missed the classic "watch a video ad" for energy approach commonly found in other games, which really surprised me. That is the easiest way to convince someone to generate some money without making them actually pay money from the pockets. There are actually so many design flaws when compared to other F2P games that it'd take too long to compile. I'm curious to see what the next move is and, by my estimates, what will happen 2-3 weeks from now (I believe usually 3-4 weeks from global launch usually renders a clear(er) picture on the future of the game and what course of action to follow).
     
  18. verlaine

    verlaine Well-Known Member

    Jul 26, 2012
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    #38 verlaine, May 4, 2018
    Last edited: May 4, 2018
    It's not bad, but maybe the developers are forgetting that their intended audience of Harry Potter fans have different expectations and aren't necessarily familiar with cash-grab gimmicks in free-to-play games. I suspect the majority of Harry Potter fans had (and still have) the patience to spend several hours reading the novels, watching the films, etc., but the mechanics in HP:HM force players to read in short bursts of only a few minutes at a time (unless players are willing to pay up constantly to continue the story). Avid Harry Potter fans probably expect much more than that, but they're not about to spend shitloads just to read the equivalent of a few paragraphs.
     
  19. tleotm

    tleotm New Member

    May 7, 2018
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    Too many damn in-game purchase and that ruined the game
     
  20. Maslan266

    Maslan266 Well-Known Member

    Oct 14, 2017
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    I agree,IAPs are a big issue here.
     

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