Full-playthrough reviews
Every review is written after the credits roll — 20 to 60 hours logged, no exceptions and no early-access verdicts.
Gaming blog · Surry Hills, Sydney
Where every quest gets melted down and studied.
No hype scores, no press-kit copy. We play to the credits, break down the frame data, and tell you whether it's worth your weekend.
New drops every Tuesday.
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The story
From a share-house LAN to a Sydney gaming desk.
ScarletQuestOdyssey started as a group chat arguing over review scores. It's now a small independent blog read by players across Australia and beyond.
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2017
First post published
A 3,000-word teardown of a JRPG's combat loop, written on a laptop in a Surry Hills terrace.
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2019
Speedrun science begins
We started diagramming routes and frame windows, turning runs into readable breakdowns.
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2022
100k monthly readers
Our indie spotlight series crossed six figures without a single sponsored score.
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Today
Five writers, one desk
A tiny editorial team shipping three long-form pieces a week, funded by readers not publishers.
What we cover
Columns we publish, week in week out.
Speedrun science
Route maps, frame-window tables and tech explainers that make world-record runs actually readable.
Indie spotlights
We hunt the itch.io backwaters and Aussie indie scene for the games the big outlets skip.
Performance deep-dives
Frame-time graphs, upscaler comparisons and settings guides so you know what to actually turn off.
Gaming culture
Essays on preservation, community drama and the odd corners of fandom — reported, not rage-baited.
Hardware & retro
Handheld shootouts, CRT tuning and cartridge archaeology for people who never sold their old consoles.
Latest reads
Fresh off the editor's desk.
Review
Ashfall Reverie — 47 hours, one honest score
A gorgeous open world with a second act that nearly loses the plot. Here's where it earns its ending.
Speedrun
The 4-frame skip that broke a WR
How a single mistimed jump was turned into a routing revolution by the any% community.
Indie
Six Aussie indies you slept on this year
From a Melbourne farming sim to a Perth-made horror gem, the local scene is quietly on fire.
Performance
Stop turning on this one setting
We benchmarked the usual suspects — the frame-time cost of volumetric fog will surprise you.
Retro
The handheld that refuses to die
Two decades on, this cult console still outputs the cleanest sprites we've ever tested.
Culture
Who's actually preserving your saves?
Cloud saves vanish when servers do. We spoke to the archivists racing to keep them alive.
From the readers
Why players keep the tab open.
Finally, reviews written by someone who finished the game. The Ashfall breakdown saved me $90.
The speedrun frame tables are unreal. I shaved 12 seconds off my PB using one of their route maps.
Their indie spotlight put my tiny studio on the map. Honest, generous, and zero pay-to-play.
The performance guides are the only ones I trust. No fluff, just frame-time graphs and clear advice.
Reads like a friend who actually knows their stuff. The Tuesday drop is my favourite email of the week.
Get in touch
Pitch a story or say hello.
Got a tip, an indie game, or a correction? We read everything. Studios welcome — we just don't trade coverage for codes.
- Phone
- +61 2 9699 1234
- [email protected]
- Studio
- 57 Mary Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
- Desk hours
- Mon–Fri, 10am – 6pm AEST