About

The Missing Quests is written and produced by Alex Guichet.

The Site

What is it? This is a game blog/magazine/experiment. The Missing Quests covers new games published by small indie developers on itch.io. These games often have impressive design, art, or mechanics. However, many of these games are missed due to the nature of small creators. The Missing Quests seeks to cover and amplify these games so they can be seen by more people.

…the Missing Quests? Yeah. We all have missing quests, but we may not realize these quests are missing until it’s too late. Sometimes, games forget to give us quests. Other times, we lose track of our targets. One of my missing quests while developing this website was, surprisingly, coming up with a name. But what is the true meaning of “The Missing Quests”? Well, answer that one yourself.

When do you post? Roughly, I try to post three times a week—on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sometimes more—we’ll see.

Are these reviews? No. I only want to post games that people will find to be worth playing. Game reviews on big games journalism websites also need to be critical and turn people away from games that miss the mark. I prefer, instead, to cover games that are solely worth playing, and celebrate creations from small creators. (However, I think it’s essential to be real. If I encountered struggles in a puzzle game, perhaps from poor puzzle design or strenuous player movement, I want to be able to express that, yet still cast a light that you can enjoy this game despite any issues.)

Do you have RSS or JSON feeds? Yes! here you go:

RSS: https://www.themissingquests.com/feed.xml
JSON: https://www.themissingquests.com/feed.json

There’s an issue with the site! Yeah, that can happen. Send me an email at issues@themissingquests.com. If you can, sharing URLs, browser version, and a screenshot always helps.

The Games

Why itch.io games? 
Games published on itch.io have always interested me, as they come in all levels of skill and polish, and you never quite know what you’re going to get. It’s a lot of fun to pick one up, play through it, and figure out if it does something well.

How do you find new games? I most often browse the New and Popular tab of itch.io. I’ll play a bunch of them, find the interesting ones, write about them, and then schedule them to post here.

Do you play all the games? Yes. Any game that gets posted will get a mostly complete playthrough (though, what that means depends on the type of game). The Missing Quests seeks to share games that are worth your time to play, not about posting links to games enmasse, so we will not post about games without playing them.

Can you check out my game? Sure! Hit me up at gamesubmissions@themissingquests.com. I tend to focus on cross-platform games with great use of narrative or art, or innovative mechanics. I’m looking for things that are new, with a decent level of completeness and polish (beyond a one or two level demo), and it needs to be something I can have an interesting take on. (Also, I shy away from games with violent mechanics, and also won't promise to post about all submissions, sorry!) If you feel like your game is a good match, reach out!

Can I write a review? Now, this is interesting. I’d really love to have other contributors here, but, this blog is primarily an experiment so far. If the site grows in a manner that allows me to provide a stipend to writers who want to contribute, you bet this paragraph will change. So, for now, share out this site, engage with me, work on your voice, and we’ll see where things go.

Alex Guichet

Who are you? I’m a designer turned engineer and writer. You can read more about me on my personal website. I love books, games, design, and writing.

What experience do you have? I have experience doing a large amount of writing, but mostly in avenues where I can’t share what I’ve written. The Missing Quests is a creative outlet that will help me hone my editorial voice as well as cover a subject I’m interested in—games.

Why a new blog, in 2019? I think the web is a charming home for content, but independent blogging has been in a sad and steady decline. This site lets me put a new voice on the web in a unique niche, with content formatted the way I want.

Can I follow you on twitter? Yeah, you can follow me on twitter here.