Black Salt Games, the studio behind the hit title Dredge, has announced the creation of a fresh development house called Team Trifold, alongside a newly formed white‑label publishing arm named Saltworks Entertainment. Saltworks will act as a shared services hub for three New Zealand‑based studios – Black Salt Games, Team Trifold, and fellow indie developer Disc 2 Games – all of which occupy the same office building in Christchurch. While the three entities will benefit from pooled resources in production, marketing, quality assurance, localisation, audio, business operations and publishing, each studio will retain full creative autonomy.
According to Nadia Thorne, executive producer at Black Salt Games, the company is directly financing the development and publishing of Team Trifold’s inaugural title, Nothing Lost, leveraging the commercial momentum generated by Dredge. "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 supported numerous studios over the past summer, helped the sector’s combined revenue climb 17% to $829 million, underscoring the financial incentives available to local developers.
Sustainability sits at the heart of Saltworks Entertainment’s multi‑studio strategy. Thorne emphasised that the company believes small, ambitious indie teams that target modest hardware specifications can form a resilient model for the next five years and beyond. By linking the studios under a common umbrella, Saltworks aims to share expertise, infrastructure and operational support without forcing any single studio to outgrow its natural size.
Team Trifold itself is a tight‑knit trio consisting of artist‑writer Jed Uy, production‑and‑QA lead Wilson Teo, and programmer Carl Johnson. All three bring extensive experience from various levels of the industry, ranging from original IP work to contract‑based projects.
Uy reflected on a lesson that has guided his career: "Iteration and playtesting are essential, and we must stay attuned to the needs of the end‑user." He added that establishing solid design pillars is non‑negotiable, even though individual details may shift frequently. Teo echoed this sentiment, noting that validating the core gameplay loop through rigorous testing and internal discussion is crucial, and that staying true to the established design pillars should never be compromised. The creative spark behind Nothing Lost draws heavily from the 2001 anime series Shaman King. The team intends to "turn the roguelike loop on its head" by making death a central progression mechanic rather than a mere setback.
Uy described their approach as a "multiplicative death‑based crafting system that actually rewards the most unpleasant part of the roguelike genre." He explained that Shaman King’s portrayal of life after death and the accompanying supernatural powers resonated with him, providing a thematic foundation that, combined with the diverse cultural mythologies represented by the team members, resulted in a "sensational and wholesome premise" they are eager to develop. While the roguelike market is crowded, Teo believes differentiation will come from clear communication of the game's design intent. "Players resist losing, so we need to explicitly explain that dying is an integral part of the experience," he said.
By framing death as a constructive tool that unlocks new crafting possibilities, the team hopes to shift player perception from frustration to curiosity. Beyond the core concept, the developers plan to flesh out a world where each death yields unique resources, enabling players to experiment with emergent item combinations and abilities.
This system will be layered with narrative fragments that reveal more about the game's lore each time a player succumbs, encouraging repeated playthroughs to uncover the full story. The art direction, led by Uy, will blend hand‑drawn illustrations with subtle animation to evoke the mystical aesthetic of Shaman King while maintaining a distinct visual identity. From a technical standpoint, Johnson is focusing on building a flexible engine that can handle the procedural generation of environments, enemies, and crafting recipes without sacrificing performance on lower‑end hardware. This aligns with Saltworks’ philosophy of targeting a broad audience without requiring the latest consoles or high‑end PCs.
The team also intends to incorporate robust localisation pipelines from the outset, leveraging Saltworks’ shared localisation expertise to reach global markets efficiently. In terms of development milestones, Team Trifold aims to release an early access version within the next twelve months, followed by a full launch after a period of community‑driven refinement.
The white‑label publisher will support the studio with marketing campaigns, community management, and distribution logistics, allowing the developers to concentrate on polishing gameplay and expanding the death‑driven crafting loop. Overall, the formation of Team Trifold under the Saltworks Entertainment banner illustrates a growing trend in the New Zealand indie scene: small, collaborative studios pooling resources while preserving creative independence.
By marrying a bold reinterpretation of roguelike mechanics with a clear, culturally inspired narrative, Nothing Lost seeks to stand out in a saturated genre and demonstrate how thoughtful design, rigorous testing, and shared infrastructure can produce compelling, sustainable indie experiences.