A Surry Hills gaming blog
Salt-crusted controllers, honest verdicts.
We review games between surf sessions from a driftwood shack off Albion Street — long-form playthroughs, retro console restorations and the Sydney esports scene, minus the hype.
Our story
From a beach shed to Australia's saltiest games desk
Six years of playing, restoring and arguing about games — here is how the shack came together.
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2019
A blog started on a rainy Bondi weekend
Two flatmates posted a 4,000-word Sekiro diary and it out-traffic'd the rest of the site in a night. The tone — patient, first-person, no scores until we finish — stuck.
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2021
Moved into the Surry Hills shack
We rented a sun-faded workshop on Albion Street and built a retro bench — CRTs, capacitors and a soldering iron — so restoration guides could be filmed where they happen.
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2023
Launched the Tide List newsletter
A weekly Friday dispatch of one long review, one restoration log and one local esports note grew to 18,000 readers across Australia and New Zealand.
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2025
Opened the shack to members
Members now vote on review queues, join monthly LAN nights above the café, and get our test benchmarks in raw spreadsheet form. No paywalls on the reviews — ever.
What we cover
Four things we do properly
Restoration desk
Before & after, straight off the bench
Drag the slider on each restore to see the grime go. These are real jobs we filmed for the blog.
Before
Before
From the readers
What the tide list says
Membership
Support the shack, get more from it
Every review stays free. Membership just funds the bench and unlocks the extras. Prices in AUD, billed monthly, cancel anytime.
Beachcomber
Free
Always will be
- ✓Every review and restoration guide
- ✓Weekly Tide List newsletter
- ✓Comment and suggest games
Shack Local
$9/month
Cancel anytime
- ✓Everything in Beachcomber
- ✓Vote on the monthly review queue
- ✓Raw benchmark spreadsheets
- ✓Ad-free, faster-loading site
Bench Crew
$22/month
Limited to 100 seats
- ✓Everything in Shack Local
- ✓Monthly LAN night above the café
- ✓Name in the credits of restore videos
- ✓Discounted repair-clinic slots
Say hello
Pitch a game, book a repair, or just chat
Drop by the shack, email us a tip, or send a game you want covered. We read everything, usually within a couple of days.
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Phone
+61 2 9380 1234 -
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Email
[email protected] -
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Studio
56 Albion Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
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Shack hours
Wed–Sun, 11am–7pm AEST