Not every indie studio needs to be Hollow Knight: Powerhoof's quiet success story

The makers of The Drifter have achieved something many others in the games industry are chasing: A sustainable business.

Just one example of the incredible pixel art that defines The Drifter. Source: Steam.

Powerhoof’s Dave Lloyd has a new rule for his next project: never spend six years on a game again.

His latest game, The Drifter, a dark point-and-click adventure, took more time to pull together than the studio’s two prior games, and one year shy of the extended development time we saw with Hollow Knight: Silksong.

But, it paid off. Excluding developer salaries, the game covered its entire development cost — around $AU220,000, — within its first week on sale, selling 28,000 copies in its first month. Recently, it swept three major trophies at the Australian Game Developer Awards, including Game of the Year. Sales from The Drifter are now funding the salaries of Lloyd and his co-founder, artist and animator Barney Cumming, as they move on to new projects.

Yet, remarkably, the pair were already paying themselves full-time, senior developer wages throughout most of the game’s long development — a rarity in …