Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery vs Linda Brown: Interactive Story
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is a story-driven, “choose your own adventure”-like, adventure-RPG where you get to attend the renowned School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Featuring a whole new storyline but with many familiar characters, you'll get to learn how to cast spells and brew potions, make new friends (and rivals) along the way, and get drawn to the many mysteries that the ancient school hides within its depths. The game even backs up your own adventures with an intriguing story about your missing brother who apparently was expelled as he had broken school rules when he was searching for the fabled Cursed Vaults.The gameplay is pretty casual and straightforward for the most part - as long as you have enough energy points, you can complete actions, tasks, and subsequently quests. However, it's unfortunate that the game doesn't use a more reflex-based gameplay during intense scenes that obviously call for more rapid actions. This is the only thing that truly breaks the immersion of the game.
Nevertheless, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is still a very well-made game and it is worth playing for the visuals, the experience of being an "actual" Hogwarts student, and the mystery-infused storyline. The game is free to play and is available on both Android and iOS.
Linda Brown: Interactive Story
Linda Brown: Interactive Story is The Other Guys' forey into the interactive storytelling business after their pretty good sucess with the Sherlock-themed hidden objects game, Sherlock Holmes: Lost Detective. Similar to the latter, this game features an intriguing and immersive, romance-and-mystery-filled story where you'll be playing as Linda Brown herself. Meet a host of interesting characters (and you can even date some of them), travel to various locations as you follow the trail of clues, and make important decisions that will change the path of your narrative.However, unlike games like Episode or Choices, Linda Brown: Interactive Story has a gameplay that is a lot similar to any of the games Telltale Games produced. This means that characters in the game will remember your reactions or responses and act accordingly the next time you meet.
The only major downside in this game is that, like Episodes and Choices, there are special "premium decisions" that you can make to further deepen the storyline, but the diamonds needed to buy these special decisions can be pretty costly - $3 per premium decision. Due to this, it might be great to have the option of earning diamonds by watching video ads.
Overall though, Linda Brown: Interactive Story is still a very well-written interactive story that doesn't only have romantic elements but also an intriguing mystery that rivals most hidden objects games. If you enjoy a good mystery with a dash of romance, this is the game you should play.