

The game has clubs, which are like clans for the biggest fans, where players band together and chat. Players can journey on the Hogwarts Express, see Hagrid’s magical creatures, and experience Hermione casting the “Wingardium Leviosa” spell. The game opens in Diagon Alley with Hagrid welcoming the player. If you level up to become a Level 10 wizard, you get an extra move on the gameboard on every one of the main story puzzles. But Turmell noted you can play the whole game for free if you wish. Players can spend real money in the game to buy virtual gold, which they can use to buy things like cards, extra lives, and boosters. The authentic lore of the Wizarding World has been woven into the story and images, with puzzles that feature hopping Chocolate Frogs, fluttering Winged Keys, battling wizard chess pieces, and other unexpected obstacles and objects. The game has lots of spells, humor, soundtracks, and voiceover recordings from the Harry Potter films. The idea was to take players back to their nostalgia for the series and weave a deeper story into the game. In an earlier interview, publishing president Bernard Kim said Zynga decided to include all the “iconic moments and memorable faces from the series” using live animations that pop out of the screen when you’re playing what would normally be a 2D gameboard with jewels on it.

That’s pretty different from a lot of early match-3 games, but it’s where companies such as Jam City, Small Giant Games (which Zynga now owns), and others have taken the genre. The gameplay has a role-playing element to it. In the meta game, you can earn cards and collect them. So you have time before you are exposed to the complexity.” We roll the features out over the course of time. “We make sure the first-time player experiences are good. “This is match-3 reimagined, or match-3 elevated, because the team has really gone the extra mile,” Turmell said. Zynga used AI to test whether the games could be completed by humans in a reasonable time frame, Turmell said. All told, the game has more than 1,000 puzzles.
