Video interview for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Part I); more new details revealed

From today up until May 18, we will be bringing you a three-part series of a video interview with the creators of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game. It’s really interesting what the creative team has to say about this video game version of J.K. Rowling’s ultimate ticket to stardom.

But more interesting than that is the fact that Producer Justin Manning and designer Chris Roberts have finally revealed what their team has been up to in the last eight months, working with Harry and his pals. So far, this is what they’ve accomplished:

• Built 70+ Hogwarts locations, Little Whinging, Grimmauld Place, and the Ministry of Magic from movie blueprints and set photographs
• Designed and implemented 60 missions (examples include finding a book on healing balms in the Library after a detention with Prof. Umbridge, and playing games such as exploding snap, gobstones, and wizarding chess).
• Created 90+ characters to meet and interact with. Over 9,600 lines of dialogue have been recorded and 22 actors from the movies are voicing their characters. The dialogue includes a mixture of lines from the book, the movie, and some new material written by a professional scriptwriter (which they’ve tried to ensure is in character).
• Made the game on eight platforms in 23 languages.

And then, they also made sure to take note of what the fans actually want to see in the game. Included in the list would be for us fans to see some of the characters we love from the fiction, for the video game version of Hogwarts to have the actual feel from the movie, ghosts and the ability to talk to portraits, even go to classes, and those elements that the film left out.

However, of course, it is understandable that the developers still weren’t able to do everything they wanted to do for the game:

• Swapping between characters; there are selected points during the game when it will be possible to play as a different character (e.g. Sirius), but swapping to other characters seemed to detract from the essential plot of OotP which is Harry-focused and about Harry becoming a leader.
• More classroom games and taking your O.W.L.s; there are some classroom games but the devs haven’t had time to do as many as they would have liked. On the handheld versions there will be some O.W.L.s revision but there won’t be exams.

To find out more about the newly-revealed details for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, please apparate to Full Article. You will also find the video interview over there.

From today up until May 18, we will be bringing you a three-part series of a video interview with the creators of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix video game. It’s really interesting what the creative team has to say about this video game version of J.K. Rowling’s ultimate ticket to stardom.

But more interesting than that is the fact that Producer Justin Manning and designer Chris Roberts have finally revealed what their team has been up to in the last eight months, working with Harry and his pals. So far, this is what they’ve accomplished:

• Built 70+ Hogwarts locations, Little Whinging, Grimmauld Place, and the Ministry of Magic from movie blueprints and set photographs
• Designed and implemented 60 missions (examples include finding a book on healing balms in the Library after a detention with Prof. Umbridge, and playing games such as exploding snap, gobstones, and wizarding chess).
• Created 90+ characters to meet and interact with. Over 9,600 lines of dialogue have been recorded and 22 actors from the movies are voicing their characters. The dialogue includes a mixture of lines from the book, the movie, and some new material written by a professional scriptwriter (which they’ve tried to ensure is in character).
• Made the game on eight platforms in 23 languages.

And then, they also made sure to take note of what the fans actually want to see in the game. Included in the list would be for us fans to see some of the characters we love from the fiction, for the video game version of Hogwarts to have the actual feel from the movie, ghosts and the ability to talk to portraits, even go to classes, and those elements that the film left out.

However, of course, it is understandable that the developers still weren’t able to do everything they wanted to do for the game:

• Swapping between characters; there are selected points during the game when it will be possible to play as a different character (e.g. Sirius), but swapping to other characters seemed to detract from the essential plot of OotP which is Harry-focused and about Harry becoming a leader.
• More classroom games and taking your O.W.L.s; there are some classroom games but the devs haven’t had time to do as many as they would have liked. On the handheld versions there will be some O.W.L.s revision but there won’t be exams.
• Flying; the main reason for not including flying is that Harry is banned from playing Quidditch in OotP. However, Quidditch has been included for the handheld platforms.
• The thestrals are not present as it was decided that there was little steering to be done there, and the initial movie scripts also appeared to be playing down the appearance of the thestrals.

But regardless of what’s lacking in the video game version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it certainly is looking like the game will be just as fun as the fiction and the movie, and hopefully, even more. We’ll keep you posted on more details and development for Electronic Arts‘ take on the fifth part of Harry’s adventures in his fight against Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is set to invade your PC, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, and Wii. In the meantime, here’s the first part of the video interview with the creators of the game. Enjoy!