Brooms Online:
Check out this Flash game based on
Broomsticks. It does require registration and is
multiplayer (so you'll need at least one friend to send a link to)
-- but it's simple and comprehensible (if only all games could claim
as much).
Quidditch 3D is in its
final stage of completion, but unable to proceed with the release as
the sound effects and animations are unfinished. They're looking for
modelers, animators and sfx designers who would be willing to
contribute a short portion of their time to completing the game. If
you're interested, please contact
graham@dissendium.com as soon as you can. They'd be grateful to
have you on board.
September 19, 2004: Yep --
Quidditch played a role in the
New York Times
Sunday Magazine acrostic (site probably requires
registration).
European
Quidditch League is looking to fill positions this summer.
World Quidditch
League is looking to fill rosters to start competition in the
Fall of 2004.
Farsi speakers: Merlin Kabir
("Merlin the Great") has a Farsi
site and Blog
devoted to Harry and Quidditch (though I can only look at the
pictures).
My
review of the Prisoner of Azkaban: It's certainly far better
than the previous two -- but it still doesn't grab me like the
books. Given that why write any more about it?
Crazy Quidditch is an
IRC-based RPG looking for players.
Hogwarts060 is an
RPG looking for a Quidditch referee.
Hogwarts Express
is a role playing site that sets the Potter universe in the 60's.
Researchers at the University of California at
Berkeley (no joke) - have developed
this personality test to determine which Hogwarts House you'd be
most at home in.
RJK Knits makes Quidditch
sweaters, etc.
Believe it or not, there are people out there selling
Quidditch
armour inspired by the movie.
Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup: I think these guys might
be getting their act together on a decent Quidditch game. In
any event check out the images and trailer. From
EA Games for the PlayStation 2 with PC, XBOX, GameBoy Advance,
and GameCube coming.
Check out The
Quibbler.
Scholastic's
Harry Potter Essay Contest -- if I were you I'd enter.
You do not need to be Kreskin to figure out that I love
the quirkily creative (how many RPGs with sorting hats does the world
need?). Unicycle
Quidditch definitely fits into that category. A little
creativity here and you can play it on bikes, scooters, or with pogo
sticks. Just go out and try something!
Sholomo's
Quidditch Chess site has a new home. He's also looking for
Daily Prophet reporters. Sholomo, if you're out there and you moved
again, drop me a line about where you are!
The Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom from Mattel. You know....
every so often I see something so obviously beyond the pale of reason
that I wonder why anyone likes it. The Mattel
Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broom
is just such a thing. I have linked in to it in Amazon so you can
see it -- but I do not want to encourage anyone to buy it. For $20 I have a
suggestion: BUY YOURSELF a $5.00 BROOM AND PRETEND. Find
yourself a stick (I hear there are plenty of them in these woods
places.....) and pretend. You do
not need a $20 toy with a flashlight and a vibrator to live the Potter
world. You need something much rarer than money: an active
imagination. The parents who are writing glowing reviews of this
thing really need to ask themselves what they want to be encouraging: the
growth of their children or the growth of their Amazon stock portfolio.
Alfonso Cuarón (A Little Princess) is
directing the Third Potter film? I'd rather have him the than the
director responsible for Home Alone. Y
tu mamá también had a great edge to it.
Visit Noah's
Quidditch. He finished his Chaser game and
updated the others for consistency.
One of the coolest flying broomstick games (are you
listening, Time-Warner?) is 3V
Broomsticks for the PalmOS. Check it out! My prediction:
Look for the next Potter books to have Trademark notices on them that look
like Microsoft licenses (proposed wording: reading this book means you'll
never be able to use the words Hogwarts, Harry Potter, Hermione, potions,
transfiguration, Muggle, the word "Platform" followed by any
number with a fraction in it, etc. ever again without paying royalties to
the publisher...."). Yes - this is not a Quidditch game,
this is a flying broomsticks game.
Check out Noah's
Quidditch Page. Noah's updated the layout and it definitely has
improved.
Pepe Valdes has sent me an email and is soon going to put
up Quidditch: A Board Game once more! Like a bolt from the blue this
has jolted me out of post-winter late spring doldrums. Pepe's game was
AWESOME! He brought it down because he was worried someone was going
to take his idea and make money with it -- any of you guys who have ideas
for keeping this from happening please email
him.
Hogwarts
Hangout has no Quidditch, but I like the "Bookcovers from around
the world" section.
North American readers: A&E's flagship Biography
program did JK
Rowling on Friday March 22. Check out her bio online!
HP Galleries, is
a well-tended and organized board with a variety of topics, including
Quidditch.
The Zone
has a variety of Harry Potter games (though "Harry Potter in Vegas"
seems kind of a strange concept). Currently they have a two-player
version available. They're working on a full, Flash-based
Quidditch game, with 'bot opposition, for which they kindly provided me a screen
shot.
The Birmingham
Bullets are starting their season this week. I like this site -- it
doesn't exude 'tude but instead respires heartfelt enjoyment and simple, love
of the sport. The British and Irish season starts Saturday for these
guys -- check them out.
Ever eaten at a fast food place or (*shudder*) worked
in one? Read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser -- really
opened my eyes to a lot. Best non-fiction book I've seen in years.
Hogwarts eXtreme
is up -- thanks to Ripcord Sk8er for sending it along to me.
The Real
Hogwarts is another RPG that will be offering Quidditch.
Brazil's
Academy of Magic, (has anyone done a Haitian or Jamaican Academy of
Magic? That would be interesting.....character names like Baron Samedi
and Obayeah Man) is looking for players. Brazil gave the world Ra-Tim-Bum
Castle, which is a very cool mythos.
Quidditch
Illustrated. What's REALLY cool is when someone pulls out all the
stops, sits down at the keyboard, and delivers the Toccata and Fugue in
D-Minor. Such is the case with Quidditch
Illustrated. This is everything you want to see: vibrant, funny (Gred
and Forge's Joke Shop?), and wonderfully self-consistent. It passes the
hardest test you can give it: You enter this site and suddenly you really DO
feel like all this stuff is REAL down to the fake ads and the link to Muggle
Sports (i.e., ESPN). I love the graphics (which are a delightfully kooky
mix of photo-realism and South Park simplicity), I love the sound, I love the
Quidditch games (they have a trivia game and a Catch the Snitch game).
All of this is done with tongue firmly planted in cheek in a wonderful
wrapping -- the closest I've seen to a Chocolate Frog for the real
world. AND it's lightning fast! You're never waiting for a
pretentious Flash download that doesn't really do anything except hog your
bandwidth. Warner Brothers should hire Danny and Lisa to breathe some
life into their moribund web presence. I hope these guys just do not stop
working on this site!
Check out the Quidditch.com
Incomplete Guide to Lemony Snicket Allusions. I love A
Series of Unfortunate Events. It's the anti-particle of Harry
Potter: it has the same mass but an opposite charge. Also the use of
alliteration in titles is an odd parallel between the two: Wide Window,
Reptile Room vs. Year with the Yeti, Travels with Trolls.
I love multilingual sites. Check out Juegos
de Quidditch in English and Spanish. Most of the images were having
a hard time loading but I've informed the site owner and I'm hoping it gets
corrected.
Now the TRON teaser
is cool! I'll post more of this as I get it.
Quidditch
& Harry Potter Group on Yahoo. Now these guys used some brain
power. They actually put together a discussion group -- which is
significantly different from the endless "me-too" RPGs that I feel
it merits mentioning here. Hope they get something going!
Check out the January 11, 2002 New York Times
article Which
Wizard Beats 'em All? (may require registration). Very
amusing.
The Onion has published a
biting and
perceptive satire on the Harry Potter craze. Needless to say, I love
satire.
You want something as unspellable as Quidditch and lots
funnier? The answer: 43-Man
Squamish. Writer Tom Koch and Artist George Woodbridge created a
satire of the scale and beauty of a Faberge Egg in Mad # 95 from the
mythical year of 1965. The ball is called the Pritz, the pitch is
five-sided and called a Flutney, nuclear physics is easier to understand than
the scoring. Look for it in an anthology somewhere. I quote:
- A Squamish team consists of 43 players: the left &
right Inside Grouches, the left & right Outside Grouches, four Deep
Brooders, four Shallow Brooders, five Wicket Men, three Offensive Niblings,
four Quarter-Frummerts, two Half-Frummerts, one Full-Frummert, two
Overblats, two Underblats, nine Back-Up Finks, two Leapers, and a Dummy.
Potterz Realm is
a new, improved site by the guy who brought the world Muggle Quidditch -- which
I still think is one of the coolest ideas to come down the pike and WAY better
than any of the Harry Potter merchandise you can buy from major corporations.
I
mean, $15.00 for part of a glorified chemistry set called "Potions
Class?" Really -- go to the library and figure out how to do some of
this stuff on your own. On exactly that note check out the RECIPES section
at this site. They're do-able and simple and let you do novel things like
cooking your own food and teaching you how to use a kitchen.
The Birmingham Bullets.
The great thing about this site is how "normal" it looks as it
chronicles the season of this Quidditch team, down to team photos and a logo
reminiscent of Buckaroo Banzai's. Good site, with my main wish being
that it continues to evolve and give us an insight into the team's quirks --
that is, we see the team, and we know where they play and how they've done --
but some additional reporting or sections that make them come alive would make
the experience more immersive.
New Hogwarts is a
role-playing site with clue-based Quidditch, starting up on October 25, 2001
"in time for the Halloween feast."
Noah's Quidditch
has just completed his Keeper game. It requires a plug-in (which my
browser doesn't support). But please try it out and let me know what you
all think of it!!!
Sarah's Hogwart's is
up and looking for Quidditch players. Check out some of her own artwork
for the Quaffle, Snitch, and Bludgers. It's got a nice style.
Noah's Quidditch Games.
One of the things that really impresses me is continuous improvement.
Noah has continued to add capability to his Quidditch suite, with Beater and
Seeker games complete and Keeper coming soon. The games do require a
plug-in which he directs you to.
Preview of the Harry
Potter Playstation game coming from Electronic Arts. You can also
pre-order
the Harry Potter videogame from Amazon, which will not affect my eventual
review of the game. I am donating my Amazon referral fees on orders taken through my site to the American Red Cross.
Has anybody tried the Harry
Potter Quidditch Card Game from Mattel, yet? I have -- I like the
Trivia Game a lot more. I've gotten feedback
on the game.
Matt's Hogwarts
has just come on line and is looking for Quidditch players. As with all
Role Playing Game sites he's also looking for teachers.
Hogwarts 4000: The Future of Magic.
They are undergoing renovations, and making a Version 2. The old RPG members
list will be wiped and the RPG will start fresh, for a new term. All old
members please go back and sign up again, with the new sign-up form. Site
allows you to compete against other houses, take classes, chat in the Great
Hall, play Quidditch and more.
What Quidditch team are you in?
Has a chat-based trivia game system and is looking for players.
Enter Hogwarts RPG has
Quidditch (enter Hogwarts and proceed to the Fourth Floor).
DiagonSoft.com is has been producing
Quidditch 3D. Version 1.0 will be released in September as a downloadable including
weather conditions, the bludgers and snitch, and various broomsticks. They are looking for BETA testers for version
1.0. Only 50 places are available and we have already received far more
applications. To apply, users should fill in the application form at their
website, http://www.diagonsoft.com/