Powerhoof
GOG and Steam
$20US/$26CDN MSRP
Contains no spoilers except very minor ones at the end, which will be marked.
Here's an audio version if you prefer. It's my first time doing one of these in a while so pardon my rust.
The first genre of PC game I played growing up was point and click adventures and I came up on all the classics from the likes of Sierra and LucasArts. Like many aging gamers though, as I got older, I didn't tire of the stories and art of these games, but of the slow gameplay and moon logic puzzles that started to make them feel more like work than fun. They never went away though and kept quietly chugging along, making new games for a dedicated niche of fans, and slowly finding their way to being more accessible and approachable without losing their charm and wonder. In fact, point and clicks have made somewhat of a comeback and the audience is growing again, which is great to see.
Drifter has multiple meanings in this game.
The Drifter first came on my radar way back in 2019 during one of the first Steam Next Fest events. Yeah, they've been cooking this one for a while. It's not the first game from Aussie duo Powerhoof, but it's their first point and click, which is quite the departure on its own. On top of that, it's fully voiced, has some amazing pixel art and animation and they made it alongside their own adventure game framework for Unity, which they released for free and has already been used in over 80 games. A little ambitious there mates?
I'm happy to say that their ambitions have paid off as this is one of my favourite new adventure games and one of my favourite games of 2025 so far.
Though it never says so, you're in a fictional early 2000s Australia. You play as Mick Carter, a literal drifter who has spent the last several years riding the rails and living a minimal, frequently homeless lifestyle as he tries in vain to escape a darkness brought on by trauma that still weighs him down. You start riding a train car with a fellow compatriot and the story wastes no time in popping off, throwing you into chaotic intrigue within a couple of minutes.
You'll have no idea what's going on at the start, but new discoveries are doled out at a nicely measured pace throughout the story, so you aren't left scratching your head for too long at any point. Amnesia, getting framed, betrayal, surprise reveals, all the normal mystery story tropes are here and used to good effect, with a generous scoop of paranormal sci-fi thrown in later on. In the 8 or so hours it took me to finish The Drifter, it never left me hanging or feeling like I didn't know what I was doing or the character's motivations driving it.
Every character you meet is voiced and all very well. I haven't heard of any of the actors, but there are several and many play multiple roles, which I never knew until I saw the credits. There's some real talent on show here and I hope this leads to a fruitful career for them. Most of the characters are native Aussies, though there are a couple that break from that, never to immersion's detriment.
This is all complimented by some top tier pixel art and animation, something Powerhoof has experience in. If I were to compare this to games of the past, I'd say it's closest to the earlier LucasArts titles like Loom, Sam & Max Hit the Road and The Secret of Money Island. The overall presentation really feels like something you could have bought on CD-ROM back in the early 90s.
Streamlining was clearly a major design tenant for Powerhoof. The interface is not like anything I've seen before, but I dig it. The entire game can be played with the mouse alone and both conversions and the inventory are icon driven, which makes them easy and intuitive and I suspect will make localizing to more languages easier. It could also allow for touch controls, which aren't yet here but would be great for something like the Steam Deck.
It's easy to see at a glance what conversations you've already had with a character and what those were about. You're also not overwhelmed with inventory items and it's easy to try different combinations of items on different things quickly. It's also quick to get around the world and you can double-click the edge of a scene to transit without waiting for Mick to walk there.
Many modern adventure games include a function to highlight everything in the environment that's interactable and that's notably absent here. However, most scenes don't have that many interactable points in them and they all have decent size boxes so you won't be pixel hunting. It would still be a nice accessibility feature to see though.
Where I think The Drifter might turn off some adventure game purists is just how streamlined they've made questing and puzzles. The story is quite linear and there are a couple of more open segments, but I never got lost. The puzzles are also few and quite straightforward, usually involving just doing things in a certain order that you can figure out easily. You'll never be scrounging looking for the one key item you missed, nor will you have to backtrack to areas from hours ago to trigger a missed event. There were only two times I got "stuck" and both were because I was playing late at night and missed something obvious one or two screens over. There are only a few situations where death is possible and if you die, you just go back a few seconds. I enjoyed this because the story and the characters were the main draw for me. However, if you are one of those adventure players who likes tough puzzles and having to take notes to track things, you're probably going to find this too simple. This is also a one and done experience with no incentive to play again, other than missed achievements.
MINOR SPOILERS HERE - Hover/tap to unhide
My only gripe with the story is the ending, which has been mentioned in other reviews. The final boss sequence is full of plot holes, where things previously explained that would cause it to make no sense are conveniently ignored. Between the art, animations and acting, it clearly wasn't rushed, but it also feels disconnected from the broader narrative and some of the parts after the fight had me facepalming at how detached they were. It felt more like the ending to a cheesy 80s action movie than a story with serious themes. It wasn't enough to ruin the game, but it was very noticeable.
Even if you aren't into point and click adventures because you found them too impenetrable before, but do like good stories with good characters, I definitely recommend checking The Drifter out. Unfortunately, the demo is no longer available, but you can find plenty of playthroughs online or just use Steam's refund policy if you aren't sure. And if you are a fan of more hardcore adventure games, this story might still be enough to hook you in, even if the game play's been simplified.
Powerhoof is an indie dev to watch because they've now shown they've got chops in several different genres. Since they wrote their own adventure game framework, I hope this isn't the last one of these we see from them. I also hope they're able to get this out on more platforms too.
Need to go make a cuppa now.
