Have you ever stopped to think about how your right elbow has never been touched by your right hand?
This is just one of the many thought-provoking unanswerable questions in life you’ll be forced to ponder in Questkeep, the charming tile-based dungeon crawler from Kuyi Mobile. In this adorable roguelike, you play as Hope, the determined protagonist tasked to save the world of Questkeep by reclaiming all the lost artifacts and ridding the land of monsters to restore it to its formerly peaceful state.
Hilarious NPCs and sneaky Easter eggs (there’s a Mace of Windu artifact!) aside, you can also bump into merchants who will sell you artifacts that will greatly tip the scales in your favor for your next run. Being a roguelike, Questkeep is meant to be played over and over again as you start from the beginning each time you die, but you don’t exactly start from scratch - you’ll have the option of equipping three artifacts you previously acquired either by purchasing them or by winning them when you do finish the game. There is also a level where you can recharge your health - this bonus round gives you 10 steps in a level filled with health-regenerating potions or shields in every tile.
This is where your precious artifacts come in. They can give you useful buffs from higher beginning HP to immunity to status ailments. One artifact I find particularly useful is the Bottle of Ilog Maria, which turns previously stepped tiles into flowers. This guarantees that any path you pass through won’t suddenly turn into monsters you have to fight when heading back, but this also means they won’t generate potions when you’re low on health. It’s all about strategy and it’ll all depend on your play style. Plus, I especially appreciated the name of the artifact - “Ilog Maria” has a popular reference here in the Philippines, so I’m really curious as to why the devs decided to name this artifact such.
“Hello everyone! I'm a Dad and this is my first game project with my 10-year-old. School was abruptly cut early this year because of the pandemic so she had a lot of time and she keeps telling me she wants to be a game developer/designer someday so I figured why not start our own passion project and take it from there. The game is "kind of" finished but we will be adding more content (levels, bosses, etc.) as we move along.
HAPPY PLAYING! :)”
Now, I may be totally biased, but I have a soft spot for little dreamers who want to be game developers someday, so this game description alone made me instantly buy the game without a second thought, and I’m pretty happy with my decision.
Overall, Questkeep is a simple but highly engaging game that proves you don’t need overly complicated mechanics to make a hit. I honestly spent too much time replaying the thing over and over again (the final bosses change too!) just so I could collect more artifacts and marvel at my own sub-par stats without even realizing that two hours had gone by and my eyes had started to hurt.