Flagship
RPG deep-dives
5,000-word breakdowns of builds, branching quests and lore — from CRPGs to JRPGs. New long-read every second Thursday. Free.
Collingwood-brewed gaming blog
Where every siege becomes a legend
Deep-dive RPG guides, patch-note autopsies, indie gems and reviews you can actually trust — published from a small studio on Smith Street.
420+ reviews shipped
Weekly patch breakdowns
No paid scores, ever
How a piece is made
Our reviewing ritual
Nothing goes live until it has survived all four stages. No exceptions, no shortcuts.
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01
Full playthrough
We finish the campaign — 20 to 90 hours — before writing a single word. Impressions from a demo never count.
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02
Bench & benchmark
Every title is measured on three rigs — a Steam Deck, a mid-range PC and a current console — with real frame data.
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03
Second opinion
A second writer replays the tricky sections so a verdict is never one person's bad night with a boss fight.
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04
Publish & revisit
We ship the review, then update the score after major patches so it stays honest six months later.
What we publish
Coverage that goes deep
Free to read, funded by a small members' guild. Here is where our hours go each week.
Weekly
Patch autopsies
Every Monday we translate dense patch notes into what actually changed for your main. Reads in 4 minutes.
Indie
Indie gem hunts
We surface three under-1,000-review games each fortnight, straight from itch.io and the Aussie dev scene.
Members
The Guild — A$9/mo
Ad-free reading, a monthly review-club voice chat, and early access to our verdicts 48 hours before public.
Before / after
Our settings guides in action
Drag the handle to see the difference our optimisation walkthroughs make — same rig, better frames.
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Elden-like at 1440p: 44fps stock → 71fps after our tuning pass.
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Battlestation makeover from our "cable gremlins" column — same corner desk, one weekend.
From the community
Readers of the guild
★★★★★
Good to know
Frequently asked
Reviews & scoring
Do studios pay for a good score?+
Never. We buy most games at retail and any review code is disclosed at the top of the article. Scores are set by the writers, and no advertiser or publisher sees a verdict before it publishes.
Why do some scores change later?+
Games ship and keep changing. When a major patch, expansion or server fix meaningfully alters the experience, we replay and adjust the number, with a dated changelog at the bottom so you can see what moved and why.
Membership & pitches
What does the A$9 guild get me?+
Ad-free reading across the whole site, verdicts 48 hours early, and an invite to our monthly review-club call. It is the main thing that keeps the blog independent — you can cancel any time from your account page.
Can I pitch a guest article?+
Yes, especially from Australian and New Zealand writers. Send a two-line pitch and a link to something you have written through the contact form below. We pay a flat A$220 per accepted long-read and reply within a week.
Say hello
Pitch, join or just chat
Drop into the studio, send a message, or catch us during open hours. We read everything.
✆Phone+61 3 9376 4428
✉Email[email protected]
⚑Studio58 Smith Street, Collingwood VIC 3066
◷Open hoursTue–Sat, 10am–6pm AEST
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Smith Street, Collingwood