The Drifter Review — If You Had A Second Chance…

With their experimental couch-PvPvE game Crawl, the whacky Regular Human Basketball, and the numerous Game Jam games you can find on the developers website – Powerhoof has proven to be one of the most exciting developers to come out of Australia. With the development of their Unity Power Tool, PowerQuest, and multiple shorter point-and-click adventures, this Melbourne duo are tackling a larger release. The Drifter is approachable and exciting, and one that’s been on my wishlist for quite some time!

Playing Mick Carter, a drifter returning home after leaving abruptly years prior, you awaken on a train carriage next to another sleeping stranger. The Drifter wastes no time in dropping Mick into the thick of it, having him jump from the train to save his own life from trigger-happy soldiers, then quickly finding himself embroiled in a mess of murders, black-bagging, and people seemingly losing their minds.

The Drifter is a pulpy, unashamedly Aussie sci-fi thriller at its core. A story about grief and denial, I was enthralled by this mystery from start to near finish, despite a bit of a weak ending. The game’s inspirations permeate everything, with clear inspirations from horror legends like King and Carpenter, along with sci-fi author Michael Crighton. After a brief epilogue, Carter is thrown to the fishes, only to wake up moments before his death. The Drifter’s engrossing premise is kept alive by a fantastic voice cast filled with Aussie talent. Adrian Vaughn’s performance as gruff and surly Mick, narrating his thoughts in such detail, works alongside a great supporting cast that all deliver convincing, honest performances themselves.

Accompanying The Drifter’s narrative is a slew of stunningly detailed environments and a banging new age electronic soundtrack by Mitchell Pasmans (KILLBUG, Justice Sucks). Dark blues and greens shade a dingy alley housing a group of homeless folk, overhead streetlamps beaming light down atop a jetty. The soft glow of a flickering flame ebbs and flows along damp walls, all meticulously drawn with pixels. Not only are the static backdrops beautiful, but the animation of all the characters is so shockingly smooth. Every movement is emphasised, adding to the weight of movements and actions alike. 

Foregoing the obtuse puzzles that you’d find in regular point and click, The Drifter opts for a more straightforward approach to challenges, alleviating frustrating moments of stagnation that can ruin the pace of the story. Made with PowerHoof’s own Unity Tool, PowerQuest, you can control the game with both the mouse and keyboard or controller; both of which work splendidly. Additionally, there are some basic, handy accessibility options that help with readability and point-of-interest discoverability.

There are these moments throughout the game where you’re thrust into tense, fast-paced events where you breathlessly try to find a way out of danger. Not only were the puzzles straightforward enough to be figured out fairly quickly, but I found the game kindly nudged me toward the solution if I had gotten stuck. This is all in service to an approachable but exciting advancement of the genre.