Helpful Tips and Tricks | Hogwarts Cafe

Introduction

Hello everyone! We’ve been playing Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery ever since its release, and decided to share the knowledge obtained with fellow Witches and Wizards by giving them some useful tips and tricks.

The aim of these tips is to help players get a better understanding of the game and its mechanics. These tips will be divided into several sections: Gameplay Tips, Energy Tips, and Spending Tips.

Disclaimer: I started my main Hogwarts Mystery account as a completely Free-to-Play player. Over time, I purchased Gems and Coins numerous times to speed up my progression and have the Walkthrough up to date as soon as possible.

My second account (the one I am using to update some old and outdated content of the Walkthrough) was rushed through the game by purchasing a LOT of Gems and Coins in order to speed up my progression and update the outdated parts of the Walkthrough as fast as possible. Because of that, on some images in the Walkthrough, you will see that the Main Character has a lot of Gems and Coins.

Still, I am fully aware that most of the players don’t have the same amount of in-game resources at their disposal, which is one of the reasons why I am making these tips and tricks.

Gameplay Tips

This section contains some tips that should make your gameplay experience smoother and help you with your progression.

GT 01: Don’t rush through the game.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery is an extremely long game, and you should take your time with it. Rushing through the main story of the game is almost always a bad idea, and it can potentially result in you getting to a point where the attribute requirements for certain tasks are too high for you to progress any further.

You can prevent that by pausing the main story tasks and focusing on repeatable study sessions to level up your attributes. These sessions will become available once you get to Year 2, and you should take advantage of them to level your attributes up.

GT 02: Prioritize the side content.

This includes side quests, adventures (aka Time-Limited Side Quests, or TLSQ short), Quidditch, and in-game events. Most of the side content has decent rewards for their completion, and you’ll be able to gain some attributes, resources, friendship experience, and some other rewards by completing the side content.

It is worth mentioning that the entirety of Quidditch (all four seasons) can be completed as a Year 2 student. However, this is not recommended, for three reasons.

Firstly, attribute requirements for dialogues for later seasons of Quidditch are quite high for Year 2 students unless they spend a lot of time leveling them up.

Secondly, some events of the main story or other side content will be referenced at certain points of the Quidditch, and if you haven’t completed it, you’ll potentially miss out on some parts of the Quidditch story.

Thirdly, you won’t be able to access some dialogue options unless your friendship level with certain characters (mainly Charlie and Andre) is at a specific level. Both Charlie and Andre are unlocked during Year 4, so you might want to consider delaying some Quidditch chapters until you unlock them and level their friendships up. However, if you don’t care too much about those dialogue lines, completing Quidditch during Year 3 is still a very viable option.

GT 03: Check the requirements for the following few chapters.

Before you finish the final story task of the chapter, always check the attribute and friendship level requirements for the next one. This way, you can stay in the chapter you’re in, and increase your attribute and friendship levels to meet those requirements.

GT 04: Check the triggers for side content.

All of the side content of the game (adventures, side quests, etc) will become available when certain conditions are met. In most cases, this means that it will unlock when you reach a certain point in the main story.

While playing the game, always check if progressing past a certain point will unlock some of the side content. If it will, make sure that you meet the attribute levels and friendship requirements to complete it.

In the case of the adventures, most of the time, they will unlock after you reach a certain chapter. This can oftentimes be bad, because you’ve just completed the final story task of the previous chapter, and in many cases, your energy will be empty.

However, there is a trick you can use to always have full energy when starting the adventures. Whenever you reach a trigger chapter for an adventure, simply stay in the place where you completed the final task of the previous chapter. Then, save the game, exit it, and wait for your energy to fully recharge. Once your energy is recharged, you can come back into the game, change location, and start the adventure with full energy.

GT 05: Know where to level up attributes.

In terms of energy requirements, Year 2 is by far the most optimal to level up your attributes. However, certain events are not available for students of Year 2, and they also cannot gain Charisma bonus, which significantly boosts friendship experience gained.

It is also worth mentioning that Year 2 students cannot gain access to the Library, nor can they drink Butterbeer with their friends in Hogsmeade. Because of all those reasons, Year 3 is the most optimal for leveling up your attributes.

GT 06: Know how far you want to level up your attributes during each year.

If you don’t mind pausing the story every now and again, you should stay in any given year until you are sure that your attribute and friendship levels are high enough to progress further.

The attribute requirements are fairly low during the first five years. Players can quite easily progress until the end of Year 5 without spending much time to level their stats. However, they will eventually reach the point where the attribute requirements are too high to progress further without leveling them up.

Unfortunately, the energy requirements for study sessions are much higher in later years, and anyone who rushed the first five years will eventually have to level up their attributes, and spend much more energy than the players who decided to level up their attributes in Year 3.

The safe way to be sure you’ll always meet attribute requirements is to have them at least ten points higher than the highest requirements for the following year. For example, the highest requirements for the main story of Year 4 are 22 of each attribute. This means that you shouldn’t progress past Year 3 unless each of your attributes is 32 or higher.

GT 07: Focus on completing events.

During Year 3, most of the in-game events will become available to you, and completing them will often grant you useful rewards. Try your best to fully complete them, and don’t worry too much about having to pause the main story to do so.

GT 08: Remember to feed your max-level magical creatures.

Feeding your max-level magical creatures will often grant you useful rewards such as Attribute Points, Notebooks, Coins, Gems, Energy, etc.

GT 09: Don’t start adventures until you are done with the events.

If you have an active event that requires spending energy, such as full marks or house pride, you don’t want to start any adventure until you finish that event. Once you do so, you can trigger the adventure and you won’t have to worry about missing out on the events while completing it.

GT 10: Be sure to login every day.

By logging in every day, you will increase your Charisma bonus up to level 7, which will grant you a significant bonus to your friendship experience.

Also, be sure to finish at least one daily task each day to complete your Stamp Card. This will grant you various useful rewards, which is another reason to play the game every day.

Energy Tips

Here you can find some tips that will help you optimize your energy usage.

ET 01: Understand how energy works.

Your initial energy cap is 24 energy. Each Flying Lesson you complete will permanently increase your energy cap by 1 point.

Each point of your energy bar takes 4 minutes in real-time to replenish. This means that every hour, your energy bar fills by 15 points, up to your energy cap.

Each energy point you spend will grant you 1 Experience point, and 1 Coin. Certain actions will grant you bonus progress (this will be explained later in ET 04).

ET 02: Keep track of the tappable energy refilling spots (tappies).

Nearly every location has at least one tappie in it. Once you tap on that spot, you will receive one energy point (or different rewards in some specific cases) and you won’t be able to use that tappie until it recharges.

The energy you receive from tappies other than pets will be wasted if your energy is already full.

Each tappie has a specific recharge timer, and keeping track of those timers is crucial to optimizing your energy usage.

ET 03: Remember to wake up your pets.

Each pet that you own will be placed inside your dorm room, and occasionally, you can wake them up by tapping on them. This will grant you 1 energy point for each pet. This energy can go over your energy cap, which can often come in handy.

ET 04: Prioritize bonus progress actions.

Bonus progress actions are actions that grant you additional progress and rewards. Each bonus progress action will fill the star meter as if you spent an extra energy point. It will also grant you 1 extra point of experience and 1 additional Coin.

During story tasks and new lessons, the bonus progress actions are actions that cost 5 Energy. During repeatable study sessions, starting from Year 3, bonus progress actions will be labeled ‘Bonus Progress’, and they will grant you additional progress and rewards. These can be 4, 5, or 6 energy actions, depending on the study session subject and your current year.

ET 05: Optimize Waiting Times.

During the game, you will often encounter waiting times between tasks. This means that you need to either wait until the timer runs out, or use Gems or Time Toffees to skip it. In most cases, waiting until the timer runs out is better since your energy will still regenerate while this timer is running.

In case you encounter a waiting period, and your energy is full (this can happen if you level up during the task), you should do a quick 1h study session to spend your energy, and then let it recharge while the waiting timer is running out.

ET 06: Understand how the star meter works.

The star meter fills up whenever you complete an action. Each action will fill the star meter proportionally to the number of energy points spent. Bonus progress actions will fill the star meter by an additional point.

The star meter works differently for lessons and story tasks. During lessons and study sessions, every time you earn a star, any excess energy you spend on the action that earned you a star will be refunded to you. However, you will still get to keep the Coins and Experience points you obtain from completing that action. Because of that, it is always useful to do a high-cost action just before you earn a star while doing lessons and study sessions.

During the story tasks, any excess energy that you spend on the action that earned you the final star will NOT be refunded to you. Because of that, you want to be careful not to spend too much energy on the last action you do during the story tasks.

ET 07: Know which sources of energy can go over the cap.

Some of the energy you collect through the game can fill your energy bar up to your current energy cap, and some of the energy sources can fill your energy bar over the cap.

The energy sources that can only fill your energy up to your current energy cap are:

Tappies you collect from various locations.
Tappies from the Club Rooms
Daily Planner Tasks rewards
Star rewards

Here are the energy sources that can fill your energy bar over the cap:

Leveling up your character
Leveling up friendships
Leveling up Magical Creatures
Leveling up Clubs
Winning duels in Dueling Club
Completing Quidditch Matches
Hogwarts Record rewards
Waking up pets
Feeding max-level creatures
Creature Expedition rewards
Daily Deal energy ads
Energy purchased with gems
Daily Planner reward for completing all of the daily tasks
Chocolate Frogs Duplicates
Chocolate Frogs Event Rewards
Magical Milestones Rewards
Various Event Rewards

ET 08: Stack up some energy before new adventures get released.

New adventures for the game get released approximately once a month, and you can anticipate their releases by checking the developers’ social media as well as some fan groups and sites.

If you know that a new adventure is getting released on a specific date, you can stack up some energy in advance. You can do so by collecting energy from sources that can fill up your energy bar over the cap. That way, once the adventure gets released, you will already have a hefty amount of energy to spend, and you’ll likely be able to complete several tasks, which will make it easier to finish the adventure in time.

However, if you do decide to stack up on energy, you won’t be able to take part in any event that requires spending energy, nor will you be able to attend repeatable study sessions, or progress through the story until the adventure gets released, so bear that in mind.

ET 09: You can save energy by intentionally letting the tasks expire.

During adventures or story tasks, you can save quite a bit of energy by starting the task and letting it expire. Once that happens, you can restart the task, and it will take you significantly less energy to complete it.

This can be particularly handy in situations where you know you won’t be able to play the game for a period of time (for example, just before you go to sleep, school, work, and so on).

ET 10: You can use Coins and Pages to get some energy.

If you are short on energy to complete a task (especially during adventures), you can get some energy by purchasing Chocolate Frogs with Coins or Pages. And since Chocolate Frog duplicates get converted into energy, you can use this method if you need to get some energy.

Bear in mind that this can be quite expensive, especially for Free-to-Play players. It is only recommended to use this if you are running out of time and need a bit of extra energy to finish an adventure that is soon expiring.

ET 11: Have some of your friends ‘ready’ to level up when starting adventures.

Every time you level up one of your friends, you will receive rewards. Oftentimes, leveling up a friend will grant you some energy, so you can use this to your advantage when starting adventures.

Simply get one (or more) of your friends close to leveling up, and when you start one of the adventures, you can increase their level by completing one of the friendship activities, and gain energy in the process. This will make it easier to complete the adventure in time.

Spending Tips

Here you can find some tips for spending your in-game resources.

ST 01: Save your Gems for pets until you unlock them all.

If you are a new player or a Free-to-Play player, the Gems you can obtain will be fairly limited. Because of that, you want to use them in the most optimal way.

By far, the best options to spend Gems are pets. There are four pets you can purchase with Gems: Owl (320 Gems), Cat (215 Gems), Rat (160 Gems), and Toad (160 Gems). Bear in mind that you can obtain a Toad for free during Year 3 if you complete Audition for the Frog Choir adventure, so prioritize spending Gems on the other three pets first.

ST 02: Use your Gems for Magical Milestones keys after unlocking pets.

Once you unlock all of the pets that are available for Gems, it is recommended to use the Gems you obtain to buy Magical Milestones keys. In general. Magical Milestones usually offer good rewards, so you won’t want to miss out on those.

ST 03: Take advantage of Brilliant Bargains.

Every now and again, you will see Brilliant Bargains appearing in the shop. When they do, you will be able to get various in-game goodies at a discount or bundled up.

If you are planning to buy Gems, Brilliant Bargains will often offer bonus Gems when purchasing them. Make sure to check the offers, and compare them to the regular Gem packs. If you are planning to buy Gems, waiting for these bargains to show up before doing so is generally a good idea.

If you want to purchase energy for Gems, take advantage of the energy boxes

ST 04: Use your Coins to purchase cosmetics that will grant you the most attribute points.

Many of the cosmetic items you can purchase in the shop will grant you some additional rewards, such as attribute points or club experience.

In general, it is recommended to buy the cosmetic items that award you the highest number of attribute points per Coin spent. This will help you increase your attribute levels.

It is also worth noting that you want to make sure you still have a good number of Coins left after purchasing any cosmetic item. The last thing you want is to have no Coins to progress through some of the tasks, or level up friendships.

ST 05: Use your notebooks to unlock Magical Creatures needed for side quests.

When it comes to spending Red, Blue, and Yellow Notebooks, prioritize spending them on Magical Creatures that are required for completing side quests. These creatures have special icons near them, indicating that they are required for quests.

ST 06: Spend your Brown Notebooks to unlock pets that give the most energy per hour per notebook spent.

When it comes to spending Brown Notebooks, you should always prioritize the pets that will give you the most energy per hour per notebook spent. The recommended order for obtaining these pets is as follows:

Puffskein – 80 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 3 hours
Moke – 100 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 3 hours
Crup – 50 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 8 hours
Streeler – 50 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 8 hours
Owlet – 140 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 3 hours
Kneazle – 60 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 7 hours
Spider – 100 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 4.5 hours
Jackalope – 110 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 5 hours
Bat – 130 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 4.5 hours
Kneazle Kitten – 120 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 5 hours
Crup Puppy – 120 Brown Notebooks, 1 energy / 5 hours

However, bear in mind that some of these pets are required for certain side quests, so if you are looking to complete those quests, you might want to consider obtaining them sooner. Here is the list of side quests and the pets required to complete them:

Crup Puppy – Puppy-Dog Tales Side Quest
Jackalope – Winning by a Hare Side Quest
Puffskein – Puffskein Pinning Side Quest (not released yet)

ST 07: Take advantage of Pages Exchange feature.

Once you unlock the Library, Pages Exchange feature should become available to you. By using that feature, you can turn some of your Red, Blue, and Yellow Notebooks into Pages, which you can then turn into Brown Notebooks. You can then use those Notebooks to buy the pets that you are missing.

Early on, new players will need a lot of Brown Notebooks to obtain all of the pets. These pets can generate a lot of energy, and the energy you gain from them can go over the cap. Because of that, it is recommended to take advantage of Pages Exchange feature and unlock as many pets as possible.

However, it is not recommended to spend all of your Notebooks that way since you might want to keep some of them to unlock the Magical Creatures that are required for completing certain side quests.

Once you obtain all of the pets, you can turn your excess Brown Notebooks into pages, and use them to get the Notebooks you need for unlocking Magical Creatures.

ST 08: Use your Pages to unlock adventures.

Unlock triggers for certain adventures have been removed from the game, and you can only access them via Memory Book. However, in order to do that, you will need to have a certain amount of Pages, so you might want to make sure that you save the pages and trigger the Memory Book adventures when you are ready.

House Points Tips

Winning the House Cup is your main goal at Hogwarts each year. The house that wins the most points will receive 50 gems. You can check your house’s progress by clicking on your character’s picture in the top-left corner and selecting “Rank” to see the House Points leaderboard.

Here are some ways to earn House Points:

1. Class Participation:

Engage in classes, and the longer they last, the more House Points you’ll earn.

1 hour: 2 house points.
3 hours: 4 house points.
8 hours: 10 house points.

2. Quidditch Master:

Score House Points by playing Quidditch, and if you nail the match perfectly, bag even more House Points!

For Winning the Match: 30 house points.
For a perfect match: 45 house points.

3 . Story Choices:

Throughout the game, you will be faced with different situations and choices. Choosing options that support your home’s values can earn you home points.

Thank you for reading.