As a late-starting fifth-year, you will need to learn new spells and then practice them regularly in order to catch up with the rest of the students in your class. Don't worry, we have faith in you. However, in order to help you grow as quickly as possible, Hogwarts has set up a few mini-game events where you have a chance to hone your craft.
Broom Balloons
Skill Trained: Broom Flight
Throughout the world there are at least a dozen places where the user can find floating balloons with stars on them. It is presumed that this is a broom-flight mini-game where the user must pop those balloons in sequence in order to unlock some sort of prize. While most of these floaters are located in remote places that are hard to describe, broom balloons have been found at the following locations:
- heading south from Hogwarts on the right about halfway to Keenbridge
- in the valley next to the as-yet unidentified windmill village due south of Hogwarts
- next to the Hogsmeade train station
Lockpicking
Skill Trained: Alohomora
Ironically, the spell Alohomora does not actually unlock a magically locked lock. Instead, it launches a mini-game where you must spin two dials at once until the red indicator turns green and then hold them in place while the spell does its work.
Summoner's Court
Skill Trained: Accio
This mini-game was first revealed during the gameplay reveal trailer back in March 2022. The rules are simple:
- Three large balls are placed on a flat playing surface.
- That surface is divided into "zones", each of which has a progressively larger point value the closer it is to the caster.
- At the start of a round, balls are placed in the starting zone at the furthest zone away from the caster
- The caster attempts to pull the balls using only the spell "accio" toward themselves, releasing the spell when they think the forward momentum of the ball will allow it to come to rest in the most valuable zone
- However, if the caster uses "accio" for too long, the ball will fall off of the playing surface and no points will be awarded at all
- Play alternates between players, score is kept, and a winner declared after all the rounds are played.
Potion Brewing
Skill Trained: None
The developers have confirmed that the brewing of potions is "like" a minigame. As a result, I'm adding it here for now until the game comes out and we can evaluate it for ourselves. With that being said, they have confirmed that they decided against a simple GUI screen for the combining of ingredients.