Leaky’s Early Review of Pottermore Beta Experience

As readers will recall from the post below, this morning Leaky received early beta access to Pottermore, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter online reading experience. After spending the last few hours going through the the first part of the experience and checking out some of Pottermore’s features, here is a early review of the experience. As always, those wishing to see Pottermore with fresh eyes, do be cautioned as this post will contain information about the details and functionality of the experience.
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As of this review, I have gone through only the first ten chapters of Pottermore but can all ready attest to the site’s overwhelming creativity, user accessibility and magical spirit. The visual nature of this side-along rereading of the series is melded beautifully with the never-before-released canon written by J. K. Rowling to accompany the story. We all know the general background of character like Professor McGonagall, but having her introduced into the series and then be presented with paragraphs of information previously locked up in Ms Rowling’s mind makes the character all the more meaningful. The same is true of other bits of information about phrases, moments from history and even magical laws hidden throughout the moments in each chapter.
Pottermore structured through a series of moments for each of the seventeen chapters in the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. From the first moment for Chapter One, a familiar tabby cat reading– looking– at the sign for Privet Drive, it is clear that each following moment will offer a memorable and detailed visual accompaniment to the text of the first chapter in Harry’s story. Small details such as the flick of the cat’s tail and the break lights on Mr. Dursley’s car show the kind of creativity and care throughout Pottermore.
With so much to see, it is not surprising that it may take days to fully explore each moment from the books. You almost don’t want to go any faster. Clicking on random objects on the screen oftentimes yields clues or new bits of canon hidden throughout the story. It’s little things like this that allow Pottermore to be something more than just a retelling of the story or a game with her characters. Each layer of detail gives us, Harry Potter fans, something more to love about the boy wizard.
As a user, you are presented with a wand and sorted into a Hogwarts House based on a series of questions at the same time in the story when Harry first went to Ollivanders and, later, to the Great Hall for the Sorting Ceremony. At each step, you are given another tome of backstory about your wand and House selection. In my case, this life-long Ravenclaw-identifier was sorted into Slytherin with a Hawthorn wand. After reading the descriptions and details of both, I felt at home within my house and with my wand.
Once sorted into a house, you are welcomed into your Common Room where the community elements of Pottermore start to come into place. The Great Hall, with its stunning background art, is where users go to track house point standings and see the leaders in points. You can make friends with fellow Pottermore members, give them gifts, duel and see more details about your friends. You are now also able to cast spells and brew potions with ingredients purchased with Galleons in Diagon Alley. Both features do require skill and patience, and one or two restocking’s from Diagon Alley. The difficulty of spells and potions make the experience enriching because it may take three or four times to get what looks to be a simple potion correct.
Even though users are currently making their way though the first book in the series, glimpses can be seen of future books by way of locked areas. These areas are most prevalent in DIagon Alley where Quality Quidditch Supplies and Madam Malkin’s have storefronts but are inaccessible. Technically, Pottermore works well, even though there are some instances where moments lag or freeze. This was the case mainly when brewing potions or casting spells. It is my guess that the lag experienced on certain moments will be fixed as Pottermore comes out of beta. The feedback features are specific to each page and give a good range of feedback questions to answer should there be issues.