Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
2-4
11+
30+
The forces of evil are threatening to overrun HOGWARTS™ castle in this new cooperative game! It’s up to four students to ensure the safety of the school by defeating villains and consolidating their defenses.
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Players take on the role of a HOGWARTS student: Harry, Ron, Hermione or Neville, each with his or her own personal deck of cards. To secure the castle from the forces of evil the students must work together to build more powerful decks using iconic Wizarding World characters, spells, and items. Defeat all the villains including He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and win the game!
User Reviews (2)
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I’m biased (I helped build the initial engine prototype Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is built on), but I’m confident in saying that this game is the absolute best game out there for teaching non-gamers how to play a deck-building game.
Without going into spoilers, the HP:HB is built to play out in seven games (think chapters) that incrementally add new, more complex mechanics. Game 1 is incredibly basic and works as an entry-level tutorial on how turns work. Each of the following games adds a few new mechanics and ramps up the challenge.
Since the game is fully co-operative, there’s little reason for novice or non-gamers to feel intimidated; any over-the-shoulder advice offered by more experienced players is always intended to help all players. This takes away any hesitation new players might feel about whether they’re being taken advantage of.
The Harry Potter theme is perfect for bringing players into the game. Each of the villains, heroes, and purchasable cards is designed to mechanically behave the way anyone familiar with the Harry Potter world would expect. This makes the first experience with the game feel immersive, and allows the mechanical procedures to blend into the background, quickly putting new players at ease.
Experienced deck-building game players will likely want to cut straight to Game 3 or 4, since 1 and 2 are specifically meant to teach players what a deck-builder is in the first place. As far as games for mixed crowds go (family gatherings on holidays, game nights with strangers, etc.), Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a fantastic way to initiate new gamers into the fold.
Up front I will say this: I absolutely loathe co-op games. I turn into the annoying general alpha gamer whenever I play them, I am awful at stopping myself from doing so, and therefor I avoid them. Yet I played this anyway
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle flies in the face of the traditional co-op, in that 2 people who both despise co-ops played through the entire thing and LOVED it
Gameplay/replay
It plays as a team deck builder played across 7 game sessions. You start with an easy adventure where your only 3 goals are defeat Malfoy, Crabbe & Goyle, and Professor Quirrell before all the locations are corrupted by the dark arts. Each turn you gain coins, damage, hearts, and possibly more cards and use them to damage the villain, remove corruption, heal yourself or your allies, ad buy new cards to add to your growing deck. However the villains strike back every turn and can stun you if you take enough damage, disrupt key abilities like healing, removing corruption, drawing cards, or sometimes even buying new cards.
The interesting thing about the game was like the young Hogwarts heroes I was also learning how to more effectively battle Voldemort’s minions with each new game, and once the later games open up new mechanics, you have to fold these into your playstyle and work together playing to each other’s strengths. For example, whoever plays Neville gets to use healing cards more effectively, so him purchasing more healing cards like ‘essence of dittany’ is a good idea. As the new scenarios get harder, we got better at the game so that by the end, we were able to win, but just barely. The challenge by the end is extreme, but the way you learn from your mistakes and successes is satisfying.
The Bad
The challenge ramps up rapidly. Maybe too rapidly for younger players. Also, fans of the books will notice that villains who die in certain places keep reappearing in each subsequent scenario which will make no sense whatsoever to said fans.
In Conclusion
Story confusion aside, this was an extremely fun co-op deck builder. I was glad I played it, and you will be glad you played it too