Hogwarts Mystery, when an owl arrives from Dumbledore with a letter bearing your name and you’re whisked off to Diagon Alley to prepare for your wizarding education. Like a lot of smartphone games, Hogwarts Mystery looks a bit basic, but it’s not lazy; it’s colourful and gently humorous. Fan-pleasing touches come in the form of dialogue voiced by actors from the Harry Potter films, cameos from beloved characters and allusions to nuggets of Potter trivia.
From this point onwards Hogwarts Mystery does everything it can to stop you from playing it. You cannot get through even a single class without being interrupted. A typical lesson now involves 90 seconds of tapping, followed by an hour of waiting (or a purchase), then another 90 seconds of tapping. An outlay of £2 every 90 seconds is not a reasonable ask. Between story missions the wait times are even more egregious: three hours, even eight hours. Hogwarts Mystery pulls the old trick of hiding the true cost of its purchases behind an in-game “gem” currency, but I worked out that you’d have to spend about £10 a day just to play Hogwarts Mystery for 20 consecutive minutes. The interruptions prevent you from forming any kind of attachment to your fellow students, or to the mystery at the heart of the story. It is like trying to read a book that asks for money every 10 pages and slams shut on your fingers if you refuse.
Download: Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery 2.9.1
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