Wizards, Witches and Muggles can officially yell ‘EXPELLIARMUS’ now that J.K.Rowling’s Pottermore website is now officially open to the public.
ReadItRibbit was fortunate enough to obtain one of the hallowed early entry slots to the site during the beta testing period which opened last September, but due to restrictions in the terms of use for the website, we have been unable to report anything until now. With the gates to the wonderful world of Potter now thrown open to all, we give you a tour of the site…
ReadItRibbit’s guide to Pottermore
1) Are you Magical?
Every Harry Potter fan knows that a wizard or witch receives an invitation to Hogwarts School of Magic on their 11th birthday. Following an initial sign up, you will receive your very own magical invitation via the digital owl known as email. We assume that the website creators couldn’t train enough owls to deliver the millions of invitations needed, so this was the second best option.
2) Signing in
Once you receive your welcome letter, you will be re-directed to the main sign up page and Pottermore will assign you a nickname to make sure that you can’t be identified. Instructions tell users not to accept any friend requests or make requests to people who they don’t know. Precautions such as these help to ensure the safety of users, especially the many millions of Potter fans under the age of 18.
We had to wait a while for our account to be activated due to the beta testing, hopefully you’ll be able to get in straight away.
ReadItRibbit’s Pottermore homepage screen (user name blanked out to follow Pottermore’s privacy code). As we were sorted into Ravenclaw, the background colour changed from neutral purple to Ravenclaw blue.
3) Entering Pottermore
Your lovely purple homepage should now appear complete with navigation bar on the top of the gates. From here, you can start making your way through the story in the Philosopher’s Stone (the other six books have not yet been opened).You may see padlock signs on some of the symbols, don’t worry, they’ll open as you progress through the story. To enter the interactive book chapters, click on the Philosopher’s Stone symbol, then click on the first small circle to enter chapter 1.
4)The Philosopher’s Stone
The beauty of Pottermore is that you follow the action as it happens. Your journey into the wizarding world follows Harry’s: which means that you don’t get a wand or sorted into a house until Harry does. As the events of Pottermore follow the chronological order of the book’s chapters, it’s not a spoiler to tell you that the wand and house sorting chapters are found in Chapter Five and Chapter 7. You have to play through to get to this point, so we suggest you enjoy the experience instead of rushing through.
5) Gameplay
Depending on the chapter and scene, you may be required to complete certain tasks before you can progress onto the next chapter. If you ever get stuck, your house’s common room is a good place to search for help.
Clicking on the scene will sometimes zoom into the picture to reveal the next stage of your task. Running your mouse around the page until something jumps or moves is probably the best way to find useful objects.
In addition to tasks which carry the gameplay forward, there are a number of objects to find and store in your trunk which adds another level to the game aspect of Pottermore.
Once you are far enough advanced in the game, you can play ‘mini games’ such as potion making and wizard dueling to win house points. Potion making can be as tricky as a lesson with Snape, especially if your browser is a bit slow to react to your movements. Potions are brewed in real-time and you have to remember to keep an eye on them or they’ll become spoiled and you’ll have to start all over again, which although frustrating is true to the book. Wizard dueling is slightly more satisfying as you hit the glowing letter targets to create the most accurate spell possible.
6) Becoming a Witch/Wizard
Rowling and her web team have put a lot of effort into (re-) creating scenes from the books that fans want to interact with. The epitome of these are the wand choosing and sorting hat tests.
One of the many gorgeous scenes from Pottermore
Despite the storm of controversy about these tests that can be found on some websites, these tests can only be played once per account, so once a wand chooses you and the hat sorts you, that’s it! Don’t despair if you end up in a house you despise with a wand you don’t like – although you’ll be claiming housepoints for your house, you’ll be following Harry throughout the game and won’t miss out on anything a Gryffindor would be doing.
Both tests consist of a number of multiple choice questions about how you would react to certain situations or what are you favourite magical themed objects or people. There’s no point trying to second guess what each answer means as they are randomly generated and the combination of answers is likely to be just as important as your individual responses.
Once you have a wand and have been sorted, the interactivity of the story increases and you can then start earning house points, making potions and battling in wizard duels. In addition, your homescreen theme changes to reflect your new house allegiance (bye bye Pottermore purple) and you are given access to your common room where you can interact with other members of your house and plot to win the house cup!
7) New Info
In addition to its gaming aspects Pottermore also enhances the beloved books with new background information on characters and places from J.K herself dropped into the story.
Although access to this new material is ‘hidden’ (ie, you must find the interactive object in a scene which acts as a link for the hidden information) the appearance of a small red quill in the left hand menu lets users know that previously unreleased material is present in a scene. Our favourite discovery so far has been the information on wandlore and what our wand says about us.
To help navigate users through this new treasure trove of info, a favourites bookmarking feature has been created which lets users jump to content without searching through scenes.
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