Black Salt Games, the studio behind the hit fishing‑roguelike Dredge, has announced the formation of a fresh development house called Team Trifold, together with a new white‑label publishing arm named Saltworks Entertainment. Saltworks will act as a shared services hub for Team Trifold, Black Salt Games, and fellow New Zealand indie developer Disc 2 Games, offering pooled expertise in production, marketing, quality assurance, localisation, audio, business operations and publishing. All three studios occupy the same Christchurch building, yet each will retain full creative autonomy. According to Nadia Thorne, executive producer at Black Salt Games, the company is financing both the development and the publishing of Team Trifold’s debut title, Nothing Lost, capitalising on the momentum generated by Dredge’s success.
"We also benefit from New Zealand's Game Development Sector Rebate, which gives Team Trifold the stability to focus on making Nothing Lost as strong as it can be," Thorne explained to GamesIndustry.biz. The rebate, which supports local studios, helped the sector’s overall revenue rise 17 percent to $829 million over the past summer. Thorne emphasised that sustainability lies at the heart of Saltworks Entertainment’s multi‑studio strategy.
"We believe small teams making ambitious indie games that don't require the latest and greatest hardware can be a really resilient model for whatever the next five years brings. By connecting these studios, we can share experience, infrastructure and support across teams without any one studio growing beyond what it actually needs," she said.
Team Trifold is a tight‑knit trio: artist‑writer Jed Uy, production‑and‑QA lead Wilson Teo, and programmer Carl Johnson. Each member brings a long‑standing career in game development, spanning both original IP work and contract assignments.
Uy reflected on a lesson that has guided his work: "The enduring lesson that we all carry forward to this day is the importance of iteration and playtesting, as well as the value of being sensitive to the end‑user's needs." He added that establishing solid design pillars is essential. "Each of us have long careers in the game industry (at all rungs of the ladder, working on original and work‑for‑hire alike), but the enduring lesson that we all carry forward to this day is the importance of iteration and playtesting, as well as the value of being sensitive to the end‑user's needs. It’s absolutely necessary to establish firm design pillars, with which you challenge every creative and technical decision. Individual details can and will change, frequently – but commitment to a vision is non‑negotiable," Uy explained.
Wilson Teo echoed this sentiment, noting that rigorous playtesting of the core loop is the single most valuable insight he has gained. "One of the biggest lessons that stood out the most for me is validating the core gameplay loop through rigorous playtesting feedback and internal discussions. Most importantly, to stay true to our design pillars," he said. The studio’s creative spark comes from the 2001 anime Shaman King, which inspired them to "turn the roguelike loop on its head" by making death a central progression mechanic rather than a mere setback.
"A multiplicative death‑based crafting system that actually gives a reward for the most unpleasant part of the roguelike genre," Uy described. He elaborated on the thematic influence: "The way [Shaman King] conveyed the idea of life after death – as well as the incredible supernatural powers that came along with that – always resonated with me. With this and many other inspirations (such as the varied cultural mythologies of our team members), we were able to arrive at a sensational and wholesome premise that we all are excited to develop." Teo acknowledged that the roguelike market is saturated, but argued that clear communication of design intent can set Nothing Lost apart. "It really comes down to how we communicate and reinforce our design pillars and core game loop.
Players resist losing, so we need to clearly explain our design intent that dying is part of the game," he said. Nothing Lost will therefore reward players for each death, feeding those experiences back into a crafting system that expands the protagonist’s abilities and options. This approach flips the conventional punishment model on its head, encouraging experimentation and embracing failure as a source of growth.
The team also plans to weave in diverse mythological references drawn from the cultural backgrounds of its members, adding depth and variety to the world‑building. Beyond the core loop, Saltworks Entertainment will support the project with dedicated localisation teams to ensure the game reaches a global audience, as well as audio specialists to craft an immersive soundscape that reacts dynamically to the player’s mortality events.
Quality assurance will be handled collaboratively across the three studios, allowing rapid iteration cycles and early detection of balance issues. The partnership model championed by Saltworks aims to keep each studio lean while providing the infrastructure typically associated with larger publishers. By sharing office space, server resources, marketing expertise, and business administration, Team Trifold can focus its limited manpower on creative development rather than overhead. In summary, Black Salt Games is leveraging its recent commercial triumph to nurture a new indie venture, Team Trifold, under the umbrella of Saltworks Entertainment.
With a clear vision to invert the traditional roguelike death mechanic, a small but experienced team, and a collaborative support network, Nothing Lost promises to deliver a fresh, death‑driven adventure that challenges player expectations while remaining grounded in sustainable, low‑budget indie production practices.