Harry Potter: House Cup Competition

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 7 out of 10

   rexology

   Solid, though not pretty, light worker placement game. Theme is there...ish but relies on players paying attention to task names and bringing something with them. I enjoy the game, but feel like there was something left on the table here graphically that would have escalated the game some and added a thematic connection.

2. 7 out of 10

   wildestnacatl

   We’ve played 3x at 2p. The idea of leveling up your workers so they aren’t all the same is interesting, but there really isn’t any reason to level them differently each game. Would be nice if there were some bonus cards that incentivized this (e.g. “you get 30 points at end of round if all students are at least level 3 in x”). The theme doesn’t come through as much as Hogwarts Battle or Death Eaters Rising, but is enough that we’ll continue to play from time to time.

3. 7.2 out of 10

   ronrubin

   This is a fun game for Harry Potter fans. First game felt a bit disorienting, but after we got the hang of it, the next plays became much more enjoyable. The game itself is pretty simple - you basically have a bunch of goal cards ("challenges") laid out to collect, and at the end of each of 7 rounds, you will have the chance to score as many of them as you can. These goal cards keep refreshing as they are collected, which makes the game interesting and dynamic. With good planning you will often be able to pull off multiple goals between your three characters, which feels very satisfying. At the same time, there are smaller intermediate goal cards ("lessons") which you can collect and fulfill during the round, and these give you various goodies and special powers. What makes the game interesting and unique (but also a bit confusing) is the worker placement spots, which all give you a mix of benefits. Most spaces will give you a trait upgrade or one or more tokens (which have several uses in the game), and ALSO a lesson or challenge card. So, you may be interested in a specific upgrade or token, and the extra card may not be relevant to that plan at all. Hopefully, later on you will figure out a plan for that card as well. Or you may be particularly interested in some card, but you also have to decide which additional benefit to get that will be most useful for some future plan. In some cases the two benefits might combine towards the same goal, which is great but rare. In any event, once you wrap your head around these multi-action worker placement locations, the game becomes much more interesting and enjoyable. Overall, we like this game quite a bit. It is fun, there is good tension, and the choices are meaningful. Player interaction is at the right level for us - no direct conflict, but there is a clear race for the worker placement spots and the cards on offer, and you always must prioritize your actions. Scoring has been very tight for us so far. As Harry Potter fans, the theme definitely plays a large role in our enjoyment of the game, and I can say that just the raw mechanisms would probably not be as compelling to us with another theme. So if you are not a HP fan, this may just be another (somewhat dizzying) worker placement point race game for you. One BIG negative about this game is the obvious lack of IP rights for the production. In contrast to The Op's previous Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle board game, here it is clear they did not secure sufficient rights to use the Harry Potter IP. In fact, other than the logo and mini character tokens, there are no photos from the movies whatsoever. The artwork is simplistic and generic, and could fit any random wizarding world. Even the house logos have been redrawn, and are reminiscent but different from the movie, which just feels odd. The character names are there, the setting is there, as are references to several events from the books and movies, however, many cards use vague generic wording which does not always mention the specific characters from the HP universe. Even the four house names are not mentioned anywhere in the rulebook or the player boards. The whole thing is very weird. That alone reduces its score by 0.5 a point. In summary - fun game, interesting mechanisms, good theme. However, underwhelming artwork and a lack of references to the Harry Potter IP reduce the score for us. Also, replayability is decent but not great. On the whole, a fun game recommended for Harry Potter fans who enjoy medium-weight worker placement games.