A new Questly retro game discovery platform has arrived on Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, built by two individuals known as James and Lewis, promising a taste-driven approach to finding your next favourite title without ads, trending lists, or algorithmic noise.
The retro gaming world has always had a cataloguing problem. There are thousands upon thousands of games spread across dozens of platforms, many of them genuinely worth your time, but surfacing them has historically meant trawling through forum threads, asking on Discord servers, or stumbling across something by accident on a late-night emulation rabbit hole. Questly is an attempt to solve that properly, and from the ground up.
How the Questly Retro Game Discovery Engine Works
At its core, Questly operates like a deck of cards rather than an infinite scroll. Each session surfaces a finite set of recommendations, learning your preferences the more you interact with it. You can filter by platform, year, and genre, so if you have an hour spare and fancy something short on Game Boy, the app narrows accordingly. Games you have already played disappear from the deck, meaning you only ever see fresh picks.
James, one of the two creators behind the project, put the philosophy plainly: ‘Finding your next favourite game shouldn’t take longer than actually playing one. Questly is built around your taste, not what’s trending. No ads, no algorithms working against you, no agenda.’
That commitment to restraint is worth taking seriously. In an era when recommendation engines frequently serve what is profitable rather than what is genuinely good, a system that explicitly refuses advertising is a different proposition. The algorithm adapts to you rather than to a commercial interest, which for retro gaming in particular matters enormously: a C64 hidden gem and a current AAA release have very different discovery problems, and only one of them gets surfaced by a trending feed.
Library Tracking, Achievements, and the Depth Beneath
Beyond discovery, Questly functions as a full collection tracker. Steam and Xbox libraries can be imported automatically, pulling in playtime and achievements, including retro achievements for those using compatible emulation setups. The app tracks both time to beat and time to master, treating completion and mastery as genuinely distinct milestones, which any Spectrum owner who has cleared Jet Set Willy versus truly mastered it will immediately appreciate.
Logging is flexible in a way most trackers are not. Replays can be recorded as fresh entries without overwriting the original run, and statuses cover the full honest vocabulary of a collector’s backlog: Playing, Completed, Mastered, Retired, and the ever-familiar Backlog. A public profile displays only the categories you choose to show, so your pile of shame can remain private.
There are also 40-plus console themes available, ranging from PS1 boot screen aesthetics to Game Boy green, all selectable as yours-only customisations. A community section lets users engage with one another, showcase stats, and unlock rewards through a quests-and-progression system tied to genuine engagement rather than purchase history.
According to Retro Dodo, the project was built by James and Lewis, though the original Retro Dodo piece does note that the byline credits a single individual named James as the primary voice behind it. Either way, the level of craft on display suggests a small team with a very clear idea of what they are building.
Free to Use, with an Optional Pro Tier
The core Questly experience costs nothing. A Questly Pro subscription, priced at approximately £3.99 a month, unlocks extended posts, extended lists, and pro cosmetics for those who want to support the project and access additional features. There are no adverts at either tier.
For anyone with a large physical or digital collection across multiple platforms, or simply for anyone who has spent twenty minutes trying to decide what to play next, Questly is available now on Apple‘s App Store and the Google Play Store. Download is free, and the Pro tier is there if you want to keep the lights on for something built with genuine care.
