Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells Reviews

by RickinLA

But! Just like their compatriot developers the developers of this game are greedy! You can’t play this game without dropping lots of money for the privilege! And there’s ways that the game does not work as the rules state. The chocolate frogs for instance. You can’t knock them off the board no matter what you do. They’ll get knocked off the board unexpectedly and for no discernible reason! Supposedly you are able to knock the frogs off by matching three jewels next to them but, I’m here to tell you, it does not work! Overall it’s just not worth the amount of money you’re forced to spend and their own rules are ignored by them!! Go figure!!

After spending more time playing this “game” I’m absolutely amazed at just how much the game is skewed against the player. To say the developers outright cheat the player is not unfair. The so called “clear stones” are nothing more than a way to make the player lose points. They claim they’re used to give you more playing opportunities but they do just the opposite. They are not calculated correctly and are willy nillie tossed out without discernible reasons! It makes no sense and was programmed to mislead and cheat! Why? Why this need today to screw over the public? Simply to get more of our hard earned money! Pure & simple!

by Eac97

I have a love hate relationship with this game. It can be challenging, which I like, but it can be redundant at times as well. I feel like you don’t get enough coins through gameplay so you get to a point where you feel like you have to spend money. Some levels it seems like you HAVE to have some type of powerup and if you don’t, good luck. I’m okay with a challenge but I also am not the type to try for weeks or months to pass a level. I think either more coins or more powerups need to be achievable through gameplay and events. My BIGGEST problem is that since it updated last it will not let me play. The game just won’t load. I’ve tried everything I can think of. Restarting HarryPotter , restarting my phone, playing with WiFi, with just my 5G, airplane mode, I’ve uninstalled and tried reinstalling multiple times over the last week and if anything that made it worse. I’m now logged out of my account but i can’t reach out for support because it won’t load me into my account. This is my only way to reach out for assistance because I’m losing out on the gameplay and if you are like me and are in a club that has weekly trophy minimums I am at risk of being kicked out of my club. Please fix this!!!!

by Kayboogie76

Update: previous gave this game 4 stars!

My club is not a fan of the most recent update. The magic strike used to clear just one gem. So if you had a gem bag and a lightning strike separated by one gem, you use the magic strike to bring them close together, then boom. Huge combined power-ups. Now the use of the magic strike clears everything around the gem selected. Terrible idea! There was nothing wrong with the way it worked before. Why are you guys overthinking this? Also, there are nearly enough lives provided in MOST of these puzzles once you get to the later ones. I’m on puzzle 964. Being strategic is something that needs to be done but that’s not enough. For the past few weeks it’s been taking me days to just get by one puzzle and my club feel the same way. The fun has been taken out of this game. Now onto the ranking. Why would you go from the top 5 being premoted to it not being just the top 3? Yet another area that had nothing wrong with it. It’s that much harder to get to the next league and on top of that there’s now this useless Mischief prank. I’m over the game now and really considering just deleting it.

by OneStoneKiller

Let me start by saying this review is not the typical railing against ad-based games in general. I understand the need for monetization and respect a developers preference to release a game as “free” but ad-supported. Having said that, the way this game treats ads is clunky, frustrating and prone to utter failure. The gameplay is enjoyable, visuals are impressive but the game is created in a way to push the user to click on an ad to extend a board (i.e. watch this ad for 3 more moves). The amount of times that this process has failed on me cannot be coincidence. I will be conveniently one move away from completing a particularly hard level so will click the ad to extend. The game will fail or lock up immediately after the ad plays or the ad will play through but will fail to provide the reward once the ad completes. It is also ridiculous that although I touch nothing on screen while the ad is playing the game will still try to kick me to HarryPotter Store for the ad that just ran. If I exit out via the Done button THEN the game will fail and force me to restart thus losing the reward and my progress on the ridiculously hard level that prompted me to suffer through the ad to begin with. I shouldn’t be surprised since this tends to be typical of Zinga games in general but this one is frustrating enough to force me to write this review. Hope this helps someone avoid this frustration in their lives and I will be deleting this one from here.

by Ackj1234

Dear Zynga, Did you know that if you actually let players win few levels in a row on the first try you’ll make more money in the end? You do this for about 100 levels or so, and then you make it extremely frustrating for the player. I am good at these types of games, and when level after level requires multiple paid power-ups to beat them, players lose interest really fast. But, if you actually let players win more often in one or two tries, they will keep playing the game and pay for power ups in order to keep momentum. You are making it so difficult to pass levels that the game is no longer fun. This could be a five star game if you would balance the levels more. I’m tired of it and about to delete it for good. Test my theory and you will keep your customers and actually make more money in the end. If your players are constantly hitting a wall that takes multiple plays to finally conquer, they will lose interest and move onto games that provide more excitement. Excitement comes with winning often without breaking the bank every time.

by 9231988

I would love to give this game five stars but due to coming across so many cheaters and zynga not doing crap about them is so upsetting when someone has almost 20,000 trophies in less then 3 days then obviously they are cheating I spend over $100 a week usually more and play many many hours and have not come anywhere near this I can get around 2,000 trophies and I have a 95 win streak and when I see people with a thousand win streak or more and outrageous amount of trophies I report but this person who is making more then any other person and is making the amount of trophies an entire club of 30 makes in a week in just a couple days all by himself and has been making first place every week then somethings up and zynga ain’t doing their job this persons all time record is almost 40,000 trophies it’s so obvious that this person is cheating and zynga does nothing just says they take it seriously and cannot say what actions were or weren’t taken it’s to the point that I won’t be spending my money on this game until zynga bans benny he gets more trophies then others I have reported and were banned and I will keep reporting cheaters I hope everyone else does too mayb then zynga will stop being lazy and actually take us seriously we want a FAIR game zynga and until zynga starts getting actively involved in looking for and banning cheaters then this game will be just that a place where cheaters get away with cheating

by Judy Hartley

First I have to say I absolutely love this game! It’s challenging and creative and the graphics are phenomenal. But here comes the sad reality of this game and why I finally had to review it and only give 3 stars…lately all I do is shell out A LOT of money to play with nothing in return. There are no more magical creatures yet I still earn stars for them. Give me coin instead. Stop being so greedy! You can barley play multiple games without having to shell out money to finish every single time. Maybe I finish one in every 20 without having to pay to finish. And it gets frustrating because at my level I shouldn’t have to be doing that. It’s also shady when you have spent a lot of coin to try and finish a game yet that one lightning bolt or color gem you need to win is suddenly moved out of place. Its becoming less and less “fun” and more like a bad habit I need an intervention for.
But the pranks are the absolute worst! I can’t stand them. Please please please don’t bring them back. Ever!
I’d love to give you more stars and I feel 3 is being generous and that’s is because it is a great game. And I understand the monetary aspect of these, I don’t have my head in the sand about that. At all! But when you have to spend over $50 to finish a game or 2 EVERY DAY that’s taking it to far. As with most of Zynga’s games I’ve played I’m finding greed is eventually outweighing the fun and I have to stop playing them all together.

by Tory Forberger

I love this game, I’ve been playing it for months. But lately I’ve been discouraged to play because I am not able to unlock new magical creatures. When I first started the game I unlocked two pretty quickly, but I am now at level 631 and I have only unlocked 3 animals out of maybe 10. You have to beat 8 levels to get 3 cards, then you reveal the cards and collect them to unlock certain creatures. Each creature requires 5-6 cards to be unlocked. I have received so many duplicates of cards, and if you get 50 duplicates you can redeem them to open one card but even then I get duplicates. I feel that after collecting 50 duplicates you should be guaranteed to get a card that you do not have. I have even spent money trying to pay for the packs and “legendary” card collections, but I still am stuck with the same 3 creatures that I unlocked hundreds of levels ago. I am quite disappointed with this part of the game and I hope they make some improvements soon or else I will most likely delete the game and stop spending money on it. Just my own opinion, but I do believe this to be a fun, entertaining game overall.

by Acami_

I love this game. It is fun and I love that it follows the movies (if not the books). What I HATE are the “pranks”. It isn’t funny to have hard won trophies lost for no reason. It isn’t funny to wait for a creature meter of 65+ to charge up so it can be used at the best time just to lose it and the level as a result. Pranks are not harmful. In a game like this, these so called “pranks” ARE harmful. It isn’t fun and makes me not want to play when this particular event is going on. I had hoped it would only be a one off event.

Also, for new players, this is a game designed for new players to boost a team. The more advanced levels are harder to complete but still earn the same number of trophies. This means the low levels earn more trophies faster than the higher levels. Be prepared, if you are on a team, to be kicked out if you get too high. Kicked members out of a club encourages more new players to join and this keep the trophy count high so the club can get those rare pets.

Otherwise, this game is really fun.

by Taeleigh

Absolutely love this game. My whole family plays. The graphics are stunning and never fail to please. Specialty puzzles keep you from monotonous play. The one issue is being cheated out of stars/ trophies/points. I love the extra moves given if you watch an advertisement, however, many times the game won’t come back on and the game ends. This past week I haven’t been able to click any “play” or receive the 3 free moves. I was given instructions to restart WiFi, which can’t be the issue as my wife plays at the same time and her games load just fine. Although thats frustrating because you would have won with those moves, it’s still just a game and so much fun to play. The only other thing I hate is getting the same 3 random cards in a pack, over and over. I’m only at level 26. I’m thinking the only way to fix the issue is to delete the game and download it again. I hate to loose everything and start from the beginning, but I love playing and I’m tired of replaying the same game over and over because of one move.

by Music Player 101

Game is designed well and really fun for the first 300 or so levels. At around level 400 it becomes intensely frustrating. I’m almost at level 500 but nearly all the boards take over 10 tries to win. So you get stuck in the game and don’t go anywhere without buying special moves. These are too pricey, I’m not spending 1-2 dollars every time I get stuck on a board, especially when practically every board at this level requires you to either spend 20 minutes to beat it or 1-2 dollars. The group leader is over level 1000 so it’s not like I’m about to beat the game.
Also the card collection only gives you duplicates after you win your first two pets, and it’s set up so you have to win 80 boards to get a new card. You need 6 for each pet and there are 7 different pets that are available.

Short of it it’s okay to have a hard board that’s challenging to beat once in awhile but when it’s every single board the game is no longer fun. Also this has nothing to do with skills because I’m good at match 3 games.

by Dfiles

Firstly the game is very fun. Love Harry Potter. I enjoy the magic spells.
Secondly, the have creatures you can unlock by getting certain cards you can only get after beating eight levels. Then you only get 3 random cards and you need 8 to unlock a creature. I have about 6 or 7 creatures I can unlock now and I’ve only been able to unlock 2 after getting to level 517. All I ever get now is DUPLICATES! They even have limited time creatures. How am I supposed to unlock anything if all I get is duplicates. Stop making the duplicates populate so much. Give us a chance to unlock other creatures then just the first two. Please!
Thirdly, the daily puzzle. The daily puzzle can only be started by leaders or mvps. There always seems to be the issue of someone starting the puzzle to late or to early, an unconvenient time. I think a simple solution, that every other puzzle game with daily puzzles I ever played has done, should be that the game automatically starts the ‘Daily Puzzle’ for the day maybe at midnight or 6 am. The the ‘Daily puzzle me lasts ‘All Day’ until 11:59 pm. Then everyone will have a chance to play it. No more complaints about puzzle starting to late or to early because it won’t be one or two person’s responsibility to start it. A ‘Daily Puzzle’ should be available ‘All Day’ not just 6 hours. This game could be great, buts it’s just ok right because of these simple issues just being overlooked. Please fix.

by Elisa Reed

Overall, this game is great. I normally get bored of other match 3 type games, seeing as they’re not interesting enough or at some point they’re the same thing over and over, but this game does a great job of keeping it new and interesting. What it doesn’t do a great job of? Oh my god the spiders. When the event hit me this week, I thought I could probably make it through the week, seeing as my arachnophobia is only mild and I’m generally fine with spiders as long as they don’t come near me or touch me. However, I was wrong. The spiders were too much for me, and I think I’ll have to sit this week out if this game legitimately causes me this much stress. According to other friends who play the game, the spiders make a reappearance later in the game, and at that point I don’t know what I’ll do. I also have many friends who are arachnophobic and play the game, and their arachnophobia is much worse than mine.I would like to make a request for the spiders to be eliminated, made less realistic, or at least add an option in the settings to replace them with harmless stand-ins. I would love to keep playing this game, I really would, but a game shouldn’t cause me this much stress.

by Minion Mark

This is a very entertaining app, and although some of the levels are frustratingly difficult, I eventually get past them without spending money on upgrades. That being said, I do have three main complaints that kept me from rating it five stars (and I hope the developers read this): First, I CAN’T STAND the new “Magical Mischief” promotion that allows random players to “prank” me. This game is hard enough without some stranger taking away a power-up in the middle of a puzzle. It’s just extremely annoying. Second, it’s still too hard to collect cards and get new animals. All I ever get are duplicates, and it takes forever to exchange those and possibly get something new. And finally, I wish there was an option to use my gold to buy just one more turn instead of 900 gold for five more (gold being extremely hard to come by). If I had a dollar for every puzzle I’m ONE MOVE away from solving and run out of turns, I could buy the HP franchise. Again, it’s a fun app, but these three things keep me from giving it a perfect rating. Please see what you can do, devs.

by Saclark65

I have over 2,500 levels played. I have read some of the 4 star reviews, and feel I can give an objective look and honest perspective as someone that has played this game for over a year:

1) As a club officer, we had struggles initially with the Daily Puzzle being started either too early or too late. The way we resolved this issue was taking into account (using the club chat) of the general time zones of our club members. We then made sure all officers and leader were able to start the Daily Puzzle at a specific time of the day. This shot up our daily participation in the puzzle. Our MVPs are given a warning if they start the puzzle over an hour and a half before the specified time. I have recommended the idea of a feature allowing officers and the leader to set a specific time for MVP to start the puzzle, or a daily auto start time for the puzzle that officers and the leader and override.
2) Creature cards show as “duplicates” after you first get one, but the key part is the + number. So if it says +4, then you received 4 duplicates toward the 30 needed for the purple decks. The creators have actually made it easier to get every creature card. Once you have gotten every available creature album, the stars stack up quick and you can quickly get the latest albums.
3) Ad complaints I don’t understand as I very rarely watch them.
4) I have found progressing in this game is far easier than in other games without making any purchases.

by Thisislexi2

This game is great fun. I love the leagues. It adds a whole new level of competition to the game. They've done a great job cracking down on the teams who were cheating, which I'm very thankful for. I think my biggest gripe is with the special creatures. When you complete puzzles, you have a choice to pick a special creature to help you. They come out with these new special limited time creatures and feature them for a whole month. It's hard enough that I have 3 creatures that have 5/6 cards needed to complete them, but now with the special creatures every month all my new cards go toward that creature. I've been playing this since it came out and I still haven't unlocked all the basic creatures. Who actually thinks I'm going to unlock the special creature in 1 month? It's impossible and a way to get money from us. Cool it down on the special creatures and allow us to get all our other creatures please! I'm tired of saving up all my cards until the end of month and opening them at the same time. I'm not patient enough for that

by Pokbwuslandh

Great game with a lot of creativity, but I believe there are some features that could be tweaked for a better experience. My biggest suggestion is the unlimited lives when you log in. I like to play at night and my league has a set time they usually activate our challenge. That is when I want to use my unlimited lives since it’s a timely occurrence. Throughout the day, I am fine with just giving my normal levels a go, and then waiting till my lives refill. If being able to activate our unlimited rewards whenever we want, I think that’d be great even if they expire after 24 hours so you can’t stack them. Also, the price of power ups is a little high with gold being so hard to collect without paying. I know games like this need to make money but I would more willingly make a purchase if I felt like the gold was worth it, but right now you can only buy a few power ups, extra turns for a high cost.
Overall, great game. Just needs some adjustments.

by NerdyMomtality

I love that making a cube is a move you can do. The Potterverse references, clubs, character bonuses, & bonus "classes" are great! I hope more get added as we move through the years. The Gameplay is simple but the levels are challenging.

Suggestions: Need more stars &/or trophies awarded based off points or more ways to earn them. (For Ex: clearing the board should have more benefits as far as points go. I shouldn't have to clear the board 5 times & still lose on a level that requires 6 books to be gathered.) Also, it would be nice if we could save the power ups earned from the clear gems. Maybe set an option to “use now” or “use later” and then set a 3 move save limit before it’s automatically activated or disappears or something? I keep setting up for a specific move just to have a fanged frisbee blow up all my pieces. It’s so frustrating (but not a deal breaker).

by Sammie Girl 87

Love playing the game. The only problem I have is that when I win a board I have to go back and play it again. I’m really tired of it. Please fix and put we where I should be I spend lots of money for coins. Takes them away when I win so there for I lose them. PLEASE FIX THE BUG. FIX BUGS would give it a 5 star, but only a 3 because of the wrong doing on the game.
I had to delete my game and reinstall it. Because when I got my update it didn’t give me everything it should have. My husband plays the same game he got all the updates. Another thing on the cards it take for ever to get all six you get more duplicates then anything. We both love this game. I’ve spent a lot of money for coins and so on. They try to make it impossible to win some of the games. Love the challenges don’t get me wrong but having to play sometimes more then sixteen times on one game is crazy when they don’t even give you enough of the color you are trying to get. Having to start all over again and all ready getting the two cards on the toad is crazy.

by Daylym3

This game is super fun! It is absolutely so beautifully done in detail and looks straight out of the movies! I love how the puzzles directly relate to scenes from the movies and how each one is an individual challenge. The amount of creativity poured into HarryPotter is insane. If I had to change just a few things, though, it would be that when you are gifted unlimited lives for a certain period of time, I wish that you could choose when to start the timer for it. Sometimes I open HarryPotter just to check in with my team or something, but then I’m suddenly gifted unlimited lives for 15 minutes and I have to drop everything I’m doing in order to try and make use of that 15 minutes at a super inconvenient time. Rather, I think it would be better if players could activate it themselves when ready. Also I wish we were awarded more coins because it feels as if they’re kind of hard to come by, especially since repurchasing power ups costs so many coins. Other than those things, I have zero complaints with this amazingly fun and entertaining app! Thank you Zynga for another amazing game!

by Jmmdteacher

So, I have been playing this game for at least 6 months and spent too much money on it for sure, but overall have enjoyed it. That is until they came up with a new feature: for a couple of days at a time, your puzzle wins earn you points to be able to play pranks on other teams. After the first prank event, my team just felt an annoyance from having other teams prank our team every few hours. How irritating. Someone in game development must have decided that the prank event was the best idea ever because suddenly there is a prank event every week. However, the other fun features like the card collecting and new levels have slowed down dramatically. I would like to express to the developers that prank events are annoying because they pit all of the teams against each other. And deciding to have prank events be the only interesting thing or event is just plain lazy. There are loads of different things that could be done, secret items hidden in games, duels, rewards. I always learned as a teacher and parent that punishment doesn’t motivate, positive reinforcement does. Why not try to add a reward event not a punishment one like the prank events?