Sir Questionnaire review
:: AIRY AND LITEPrice: $2.99
Version: 1.1.2
App Reviewed on: iPad Air 2
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Mobile devices—by their very nature—are primed to be the best venues for lightweight experience, so it makes sense why something like Sir Questionnaire would hit the App Store. It’s a distillation of a roguelike down to its most basic elements, so much so that it can seem pretty mundane compared to others, but that’s kind of the point. Sir Questionnaire’s ultra-light approach makes it great for casual play, though it’s still not ideal.
This or that
Sir Questionnaire is basically a stripped down dungeon-crawler. Your hero wanders from room to room, with each one posing a simple choice. Do you stay, and interact with what’s in the room, or do you try to move on to the next one?
Sometimes, the things you interact with are monsters that you must fight, but they can also be things like items, puzzles, or stores. Your primary goal in all this is simply to get as far as possible without dying, which is a mission that gets harder and harder the further you venture into the depths of the dungeon. As with all roguelikes, when death eventually ends your run, you have to start Sir Questionnaire over again from the beginning in hopes of making it further on your next run.
Roguelike randomization
In addition to merely surviving, Sir Questionnaire provides procedurally-generated missions, most of which involve fighting a certain amount of one type of monster or gathering a certain amount of an item in exchange for a reward. Given the random way rooms are generated in Sir Questionnaire, it is pretty tough to complete these goals, but they do give you a little extra something to work toward on any given play session.
In addition to these side objectives, Sir Questionnaire also mixes things up by having a pretty deep set of loot for you to gather on your journey. All of this loot helps you last longer in the dungeon, and a key aspect to doing well in the game is equipping and using loot at just the right time. You have to be careful though, as most pieces of loot are limited-use items. Things like food obviously disappear when you eat them, but things like swords, shields, and amulets even have a limited number of turns before they break.
Bantamweight, but buggy
There’s a few layers to Sir Questionnaire’s gameplay, but the core of it is dead simple. This might pose a problem if you’re looking for a game that you want to play for hours on end or in dedicated sessions, but not if you’re looking to just clear a few rooms while waiting for the bus.
That said, if you’re just looking for a light roguelike experience, Sir Questionnaire still might not be a completely ideal choice. The game suffers from some odd bugs, like resuming your runs in completely random rooms and an issue that can cause the game to think you’re pausing the action when you’re really trying to equip an item. These things aren’t completely game-breaking issues, but they can be annoying, especially if you’re trying to play in short bursts.
The bottom line
Sir Questionnaire would be a perfectly fine roguelike for quick, on-the-go sessions if not for a few unfortunate bugs. Even so, its boiled down, choice-based gameplay can be pretty fun, so long as you aren’t looking for anything more than a shallow dungeon-crawler.