Questionary review

Questionary is a new Facebook game from Kobojo. It's been around since late January and has been seeing some slow but steady growth since, and is also currently featured in the "New Games" section of Facebook's App Center. The game is also available for iOS and Android devices. This review is based on the Facebook version. Questionary is an asynchronous quiz game that does not deviate significantly from the successful format established by titles such as the immensely popular SongPop. Players challenge one of their friends or a random opponent fo a trivia battle, and are then tasked with answering five questions. At the end of the five questions, they receive a score according to how many questions they got correct and how quickly they answered. Whoever earns the most points is declared the winner of that round, and a rematch can then be requested if desired. The game keeps track of the total number of wins and losses between each pair of opponents, and invites players to post on their opponents' Timelines after they have completed a round. Normally, each question has a choice of four possible answers for players to choose from, but there are also three "Boosts" available on each question. "Audience Vote" works in a similar manner to the "Ask the Audience" lifeline on the popular TV show Who Wants to be a Millionare, suggesting a possible correct answer for the player; "Multiplier" doubles the points for a single question; and "Remove 2" eliminates two incorrect answers. Each of these boosts costs a particular number of Stars to use. Stars may be earned either through beating opponents in the weekly tournament -- for each defeated friend, the player earns a Star, meaning that more social players will be more heavily rewarded -- or acquired via in-app purchase. Before each game, the player spins a wheel to determine the topic they will be answering questions on. The wheel may be spun again by spending a Star if desired. Initially, the topics available are a very limited selection, but by spending the game's "coins" currency players can unlock new topics to appear on the wheel as they desire. When a topic is first purchased, it is automatically chosen as the next category of questions, so players will be guaranteed at least one immediate game on their chosen topic. If the selection of topics on the wheel is not what the player wants, they may spend a star to pick a new selection of four from their currently-unlocked bank of subjects. The game monetizes primarily through sales of Stars and coins, but also carries advertising from Applifier to one side of the game canvas. If the game is left idle for a few minutes, a larger Applifier window pops up promoting a number of different games in an App Store-style layout. The monetization is non-obtrusive and the game does not throttle how much the player can enjoy the game in a single session, meaning that there's no feeling of obligation to make any in-app purchases -- instead, the purchases simply allow the player to customize their experience and perhaps gain an advantage over their friends if they desire. Questionary is a solid, if relatively straightforward and unremarkable game. Its asynchronous play is implemented well, and the fact it is cross-platform will be of benefit to the game's community in the long run. The questions cover a wide variety of topics, though players from outside the United States may struggle with some of the more America-centric categories. The game's simplicity and ease of finding an opponent means that it's likely to enjoy at least modest popularity in the short term, though we're yet to see another quiz title to capture the public's imagination in quite the same way as SongPop did. Questionary currently occupies the 100,000+ MAU tier with a rank of 2,173 and the 10,000+ DAU tier with a rank of 2,438. Follow its progress with AppData, our tracking service for social games and developers. Play A solid, if relatively unremarkable, cross-platform asynchronous quiz offering from Kobojo.

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Questionary review

Pete Davison

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Pete Davison