Although it's been a year since the last Harry Potter book was published, and the Harry Potter movie isn't due until November, there is still plenty of Harry Potter to be found online. Today's picks are sites that feature online Harry Potter games for muggles and wizards alike.
HarryPotterFans.com has a small collection of original Java games that include a slider puzzle made from the British cover of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and four word searches. My favorite is the MadLib Spellmaker. Just enter in the required nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs and numbers, and you'll be rewarded with a unique potion recipe and incantation. "Rumble fumble toil and tigerle. Whispius snakeius flispius."
This fan site from England is a collection of Flash games from a variety of developers and sites. Best clicks are Save Hogwarts (use your bluebell flame spell to defend Hogwarts from attacking witches) and Save the Magic Hat (use your wand to stop the rabbit that has kidnapped the sorting hat). My only complaint is that some of the games have only an oblique connection to Harry Potter. For example Pacman in Hogwarts is a fun game, but it is simply Pacman with the following intro: "Pacman is lost in Hogwarts Castle. Peeves the poltergeist and his pals are after him. Help Pacman defeat him by eating the cherries."
"How many questions can you get right in a row? The game goes until you get a question wrong." This trivia game from Scholastic.com (J.K. Rowling's American publisher) consists of questions created by Harry Potter fans just like you. To submit your own challenge question, first play the game. On your final screen, in addition to your score, you'll see a link to "Send us your question" and "Challenge a friend." Challenge will email a friend with your score and an invitation to top it.
"No wizard or witch may play a game of Quidditch without practise!" Two fabulous practice games are currently available (Beater Practice and Chaser Practice) with two more (Keeper Practice and Seeker Practice) coming soon. These Shockwave games from Warner Bros. are topnotch, and I learned that being a beater is much easier than being a chaser!
The following links are either new discoveries or sites that didn't make it into my newspaper column because of space constraints. Enjoy!
Kids Reads Harry Potter Games |
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