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Guess Who? is a board game staple for families everywhere. Whether you love football, Animal Crossing, Batman, or even Ru Paul’s Drag Race, there’s a version for you. And now there’s one for Harry Potter fans to enjoy! So, take a swig of Polyjuice Potion, grab your wand, and make sure you’ve studied up for your OWLs. It’s time to take a look at Harry Potter Guess Who? and figure out which witch, wizard, or magical creature your opponent has disguised themselves as.
Swish And Flick: Setting Up The Magic
Much like any good spell, you have to lay the groundwork before you can make magic. Wands at the ready!
Set up is quick and simple, especially after the first time you play. In the box, you’ll find 2 game trays, 24 mystery cards, and 48 character cards encased in cardboard sheets. The character and mystery cards have pictures of an assortment of popular Harry Potter characters for you to impersonate and guess.
First, you’ll need to carefully pop out each character card from the sheets. Next, insert the cards into the game tray by sliding the card down in front of the bar and tucking it into the bottom edge. There’s a handy diagram in the box if you need it. We’d recommend leaving this task to the adults to avoid bending the cards as they are inserted. Once unwrapped, the mystery cards can be put to the side, ready for your first wizarding duel.
To prepare the game, choose a game tray and open all the windows by tilting the board backwards. Once the mystery cards have been shuffled, each player draws a card and places it in the space at the front of the game tray. Make sure to stop your opponent seeing your card—if you have an invisibility cloak hidden in your wardrobe, it’s best to use it now! The other mystery cards can then be set aside, ready for your next game.
Now the game can truly begin!
Accio Rulebook
It’s time to try to see through your opponent’s Polyjuice Potion and uncover their mystery character.
The youngest player goes first and asks the first YES or NO question to their opponent. This could be “Do they identify as female?”, “Are they wearing a hat?”, “Are they human?”, or any appearance-based question you can think of. Depending on the answer, the player must close the window, or windows, of the characters that they are sure are NOT their opponent’s mystery character. Then, the opponent asks their question, puts down any windows as required, and then it’s the first player’s turn again.
When you know who your opponent’s mystery character is, you must wait your turn and give your answer instead of asking a question. If you guess correctly, you win the game. If not, the other player wins.
If you want to take it a step further, you can invoke Championship Mode. Just increase the score indicator on your board by 1 point each time you win. The first player to win 5 games is the champion.
Alohomora: Unlocking House Rules
As an avid Harry Potter fan, there were a few things I could see as potential issues right off the bat.
Guess Who? is a game that, at its base level, requires players to ask questions that are appearance-based. If you’re playing with adults, this is incredibly easy, and you may want to change it up for a bit of variety.
If you own a Harry Potter game, chances are you’ll want to use your Wizarding World knowledge to ask more specific, interesting questions to spice up your play. However, if you want to ask questions around the characters’ particular personalities or professions, what if you’re playing with someone with a different level of wizarding expertise to you? Does that matter? …Not necessarily.
Coming up with your own set of house rules to suit you and your opponents is half the fun. Otherwise, why not get any old game of Guess Who? After a while, we started banning questions around species and gender, and asked more interesting, vague questions that we could answer informed by our knowledge of the characters.
“Would they be the life of the party?”
“Would they brag about their academic achievements?”
“Do they like animals?”
These questions mean that anyone with a basic knowledge of the franchise would be able to imagine the characters in Riddikulus situations and answer YES or NO based on amusing assumptions. Even those with no Harry Potter experience can make decisions based purely on what the characters look like in their pictures. These types of questions are particularly funny when your mystery character is Hedwig or Buckbeak!
Make sure that you don’t get too specific with your questions, though. It might be useful sometimes to ask whether the character is a Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher or is killed by You-Know-Who, but there are two problems to think about. If your opponent knows less about the franchise than you and doesn’t know the answer, you’ve potentially squandered a turn. It could also make the game far too easy if you pick a question that could only relate to one or two characters, like “Do they turn into a werewolf under a full moon?”
These tweaks make the game infinitely replayable, and altering your playstyle makes it accessible for both children and adults to jump in and have a laugh.
Finite Incantatem: How Will You Play
Whether you want to play the game straight or laugh about whether Ron Weasley would adopt a Doberman or if Luna Lovegood would run for office, Harry Potter Guess Who is a fun twist on a classic board game. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it’s adaptable, making it perfect for the Potterhead in your life.
That concludes our guide on how to play Harry Potter Guess Who. Did this help you? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames.