I wanted to expand on who can play the game. Although explaining the rules does take a while, the actual playing is fairly easy. I (a, er, grownup, I guess :-) have played with my 7-year old kids, and they got it the first time we tried. There _is_ a bit of strategy involved (placing your "movers" most efficiently), but you can also play hapazardly if you don't want to be bothered, or can't quite figure it out, and the game still runs its course. It will still be fun and challenging because of the trivia questions that you still get to answer, which can also give a chance to catch up with a more "Napoleonic" opponent. If you do want to, or are able to, work the strategy, it will give you an edge, but you still have to be able to answer the trivia questions, which can even out the field. The game was fun for me, and it was fun for them. Pretty good.

My children can't really read yet, but I've read them the HP books, and they remember answers to the trivia questions as well if not better than I. The only drawback if you have non-readers playing the game, is that you have to be around to read the trivia questions for them. If you're a Harry Potter fan, that won't be too much of a chore (if you're not, but have at least read the book, it's still fun to go over the trivia.) There is a huge store of questions, and the limited sample we've covered so far was well chosen: the easy multiple choice questions were easy (what does Harry spots in petrified Hermione's hand: a) a piece of paper. b) Lockart's business card.), the harder ones were pretty challenging (Name the shop where Harry lands in Nokturn alley.) Casual acquaintances to the world of HP as well as beyond-hope addicts will find questions to fit their level of knowledge of the book.

Games can go fast, as a correct answer to a Snitch question will end the game, or they can drag on and on. The latter happened once to us, and my 7-year old lost interest after a while. No big deal, it's an easy game to stop and pick up later if you want, or just drop after you've had your fill of trivia huntin'.

Happy playing.

28 of 28 found the following review helpful:


Another AWESOME game  Jul 21, 2002 By Casey Bauer "DigiCasey"
Don't look at this and say "Oh no, another Trivial Pursuit game based on Harry Potter!"! This game goes way beyond Trivial Pursuit. True this game is based on the BOOK "Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets", and does have trivia questions, that is only a side point to this game.

This game is more like a real life Quidditch match (much better than the card game was). The game includes 8 quidditch players (a beater, seeker, keeper, and a chaser). These pieces have WONDERFUL artwork on them and are made of hard plastic (makes them very durable). The seeker on the Gryffindor team looks like Harry Potter, and the seeker on the Slyterhin team looks like Draco Malfoy. You will also get 2 sets of trivia cards, one for each team. These cards are well designed and extremly durable (I dropped one in a glass of water, wiped it off and it was as good as new). Ths trivia cards have 5 questions on them: quaffle, keeper, bludger, beater, and snitch. (explained below)

Other pieces include a dimand shaped dice, a small quaffle piece, one golden snitch piece , and two bludgers pieces. These pieces could be easily swwallowed, so you may not want to give this to little kids. Finally you have the two scoreboards (the only pieces that feel like cheap plastic) and the game board, designed like a Quidditch pitch (MORE EXCELLENT artwork). All the pieces are easy to store and there is NO ASSEMBLY required.

As for gameplay, the goal is to move your pieces around the board, until someone catches the golden snitch (which scores 150 points and ends the game. I have been told you can lower that to 50 points and make the game MUCH MORE competitive). This game is meant for 2 players or teams and be quickly understood by children and adults.

Every time you want to score 10 points using the quaffle, you have to maneuver your chaser to the quaffle ball, and then to a scoring space. if your opponent has the quaffle, you can steal it by going past the space next to them. After your chaser is on a scoring spce with the quaffl, you then answer a "quaffle" question (2 multiple choice answers). If you get it right, then your opponent can answer a "keeper" question (as long as the keeper is behind the goal line) to block the goal. The keeper questions are a little more diffuclt with 3 multiple choice answers. Whether you score or not, the quaffle returns to the middle of the board.

If you want to bludger an opponent, you must move your beater to a bludger square. Then you answer a "bludger" question (medium difficulty with 3 multiple choice answers). An opponent can stop the attack by answering a "Beater" question (as long as their beater is on the field somewhere). The beater questions are difficult, and have 4 multiple choice answers. Any player hit with a bludger, gets taken off the field and must make their way back onto it using 10 squares set to the side. When a playing piece is bludgered, you can not use them until they are back on the field (for example, if your keeper is knocked off the field, your opponent can score without you having any chance to stop it).

The golden snitch is moved by icons on the bottom of each card. Sometimes, you can move it 3 or 4 spaces, but it starts off the board. Once you get a card with a golden circle & a number of it, you can move it around the board. Other times a black dot appears on the card, forcing you to take the golden snitch off the board until another golden number appears. This makes catching the snitch quite a challenge (like it should be), so the game will take some time. Of course, the only piece that can catch the golden snitch is the seeker. These are the most difficult questions of the game, giving you NO multiple choice.

As you can see, this can sound complicated and a waste of your money, but trust me, it's all worth it. After playing a couple of minutes (and having the actual game in front of you), it makes much more sense than reading this review. We have played this game several times already and it has been fun every time. Unlike the first trivia game, just becuase you know everything about Harry Potter doesn't necessarily mean you will win the game; I lost sevearl times to friends who know much less about Harry Potter than I do. There is a lot of strategy and a little luck involved, which will make the game exciting to everyone; including people who don't know a whole lot about the Harry Potter world.

Does it teach you anything? Well, it will test your reading comprehension of "Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets", how well you know how to play Quidditch (but that's easy to learn), and your logic skills (as this game does require some strategy).

The price may seem just a bit high, but it is well worth it for this quality of game. A lot of thought went into the design & gameplay of this game and it refelects that.

20 of 20 found the following review helpful:


Confusing Directions But Fun Trivia  Nov 16, 2002
We, a thirty-two year old and seventeen year old die hard Harry Potter fans, purchased this game recently. We agree with the other reviewer who said the directions were confusing. We could follow the directions after reading through them- but they were not "easy" or "obvious" directions. More importantly, we abandoned using the directions after playing for a while, because we found it was just more fun to answer the trivia questions- some that were simple, and some that were incredibly hard. We found ourselves re-reading the book and noticing details we hadn't noticed before. Definately purchase the game if you love Harry Potter- but know you might not want to play it as much as read it.

12 of 12 found the following review helpful:


Awesome trivia board game!  Nov 12, 2002
Harry Potter fans won't be disappointed with this game! My 9-yr-old son and I played for the first time tonight, and it was great fun for all the right reasons.. it's Quidditch, it has durable, solid game pieces with recognizable characters, it's trivia with a twist. You travel around the board diagonally forwards, backwards, wherever, as you play Quidditch. And even when you miss a question, you still get to move the Golden Snitch, which keeps the game's momentum and fun going and keeps frustration to a minimum. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

10 of 11 found the following review helpful:


Confusing  Nov 11, 2002 By Quixote
The game can be fun, yes. I'm twelve
(13 in 8 days!) years old, and it took me forever to just figure out the directions. I was trying to set up the game so that I could play it with my mom, but I got as far as putting the little guys on the field. The directions are long, and you have to read every single little word or you could mess up everything. The fun thing about it was answering the trivia questions. The scoring was too confusing for me, as was the whole game. I just answered some trivia questions with my mom and that was enough for me. Shame, because it cost so much. Maybe some day I'll figure it all out.

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