Black Salt Games, the studio behind the hit title Dredge, has announced the formation of a fresh development house called Team Trifold, alongside a newly created white‑label publishing arm named Saltworks Entertainment. Saltworks will act as a shared services hub for Black Salt, Team Trifold and another New Zealand indie outfit, Disc 2 Games, offering collective expertise in areas such as production, marketing, quality assurance, localisation, audio, business operations and publishing. All three teams occupy the same Christchurch office building, yet each will retain full creative autonomy.
According to Nadia Thorne, executive producer at Black Salt Games, the company is financially backing Team Trifold’s debut project, Nothing Lost, leveraging the momentum generated by Dredge’s commercial 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 developers, helped studios across the country increase combined revenue by 17% to $829 million over the past summer. Thorne emphasised that long‑term 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.
This collaborative model aims to keep development costs lean while preserving the artistic freedom that indie creators prize. Team Trifold itself is a tight‑knit trio: artist‑writer Jed Uy, production‑and‑QA lead Wilson Teo, and programmer Carl Johnson. Each member brings years of experience across the gaming pipeline, from original IP work to contract‑based projects. "Each of us have long careers in the game industry (at all rungs of the ladder, working on original and work‑for‑hire alike)," Uy noted, "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." For Uy, establishing firm design pillars is non‑negotiable.
"It’s absolutely necessary to set solid 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," he explained.
Wilson Teo echoed this sentiment, stressing the need for rigorous validation of the core gameplay loop. "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 added.
The creative spark behind Nothing Lost stems from the 2001 anime Shaman King, which inspired the team 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 that Shaman King’s portrayal of life after death and the supernatural abilities it unlocked resonated deeply with him.
Combined with diverse cultural mythologies drawn from the team’s backgrounds, this influence helped shape a premise that the developers describe as both sensational and wholesome. Teo highlighted the crowded nature of the roguelike market but argued that clear communication of design intent can set Nothing Lost apart. "Players resist losing, so we need to clearly explain our design intent that dying is part of the game," he said.
By framing death as a constructive tool—allowing players to craft new items, unlock abilities, and reshape the game world—the team hopes to subvert typical frustration associated with permadeath and instead reward strategic risk‑taking. Beyond the core loop, the studio plans to integrate a robust crafting system that scales with each player’s demise, creating a multiplicative effect where subsequent deaths yield increasingly valuable resources. This approach not only deepens replayability but also encourages players to experiment with different death‑driven strategies, fostering a sense of ownership over their progression. Saltworks Entertainment will support Team Trifold with marketing campaigns, localisation for multiple regions, and quality assurance testing, ensuring that Nothing Lost reaches a global audience while retaining the intimate, hand‑crafted feel of a small indie project.
The shared services model also means that any technical hurdles—such as engine optimisation for lower‑spec hardware—can be addressed collaboratively, drawing on the combined knowledge of all three studios under the Saltworks umbrella. In summary, Black Salt Games is leveraging its recent success to nurture a new generation of indie talent through Team Trifold and the broader Saltworks ecosystem.
By pooling resources, maintaining creative independence, and embracing a bold design philosophy that reimagines death as a mechanic for growth, the studio aims to deliver a fresh, compelling experience with Nothing Lost, while demonstrating a sustainable path forward for small‑team game development in the coming years.