The Masthead
A Small Desk in Grenfell Street with a Large Opinion of Jesters
The reviewing desk, Level 2, 25 Grenfell Street. The marionette is named Bartleby and outranks everyone.
The Motley Post began in 2023 as a running joke between three Adelaide friends — a former community newspaper sub-editor, a puzzle setter, and a games writer — who noticed they were forever recommending each other the same small, silly, jester-themed games and never anything with a storefront attached. The joke acquired a domain name, then a style guide, and finally the broadsheet layout you are reading now.
We publish from a small rented office above a coffee roaster at 25 Grenfell Street, Adelaide. The marionette on the bookshelf arrived in a reader's parcel in our first winter and has supervised every verdict since.
Why jokers? Because the jester is the patron figure of games that do not take themselves seriously — and those, we find, are the games worth a person's spare minutes. Every title on our pages is playable completely free. We review nothing with real stakes, nothing with storefronts dressed as gameplay, and nothing we have not personally played for at least ten hours.
Marjorie Quill — Editor
Twenty years sub-editing suburban weeklies taught Marjorie that every page needs one good laugh above the fold. She files the arcade reviews, defends the Wednesday crossword spike, and writes the Opinion column nobody is permitted to cut.
Desmond Tanner — Puzzles Critic
A crossword setter by trade, Desmond reviews everything with a grid in it and keeps the office ledger of "fool's squares" caught on the first guess. He maintains, against all evidence, that the pigeon in The Daily Jester arrives exactly on time.
Priya Anand — Cards & Systems Critic
Priya writes the card game verdicts and the annual "state of the jester" essay. Formerly of a Melbourne games studio, she reads patch notes the way others read racing form, and her ten-hour minimum is usually a forty-hour habit.
The Reviewing Charter
1. Free means free. We review only games whose every reviewed feature is available without spending. If a game changes its model, the review is re-opened and re-filed.
2. Named critics, real hours. Every verdict carries a named critic and a minimum of ten logged hours. No pooled bylines, no skim reviews.
3. No consideration accepted. Developers cannot commission, expedite or influence coverage. Review copies are unnecessary — the games are free — and gifts are returned with a polite engraving.
4. Free play only, ever. This journal does not cover real-stakes products, simulated or otherwise. Jesters juggle newspapers here, nothing else.
5. Corrections in ink. Errors are corrected prominently on the page where they occurred, with the date and the sub-editor's initials. Bartleby watches.