A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux

- Chapter 1 Demo -

A Pulp Adventure Thriller - A murdered drifter awakens. Alive again, seconds before his death. Hunted and haunted, help him untangle a mad web of conspiracy in this fast-paced point 'n click thrill-ride.

Play Chapter 1 here on Itch...


Then check out the full game on Steam!



  • Pulp Adventure Thriller from the minds that brought you Peridium and Crawl.
  • An engrossing roller-coaster of a story- Drawing on King, Crichton and Carpenter, with a dash of 70s Aussie grindhouse.
  • Point 'n Click or Controller- Unique twin-stick controls make The Drifter as comfy to play on the couch as at your PC.
  • Bursting with raw crunchy pixel art and high-impact animation.
  • Professionally voice acted, with a brooding dark-synth cinematic score.

Mick Carter's been drifting a while now- moving from job to job, never staying one place long. Jumping a box-car to his old home town, he witnesses a violent murder, is pursued by hi-tech soldiers, thrown in a reservoir and drowned.

And that's just the start of Mick's problems.

His consciousness ripped away, thrust back into his own body seconds before his death...

Framed for the killing he witnessed, tormented by his own past, and haunted by the feeling that something followed him back from the other side...

Follow Mick as he's sucked headfirst into a lunatic web of shadowy corporations, murder, and the thousand-year obsession of a madman.

The Drifter is our take on a classic 2d point and click adventure, with the brake-lines cut. The focus is on fast-paced storytelling, with puzzle-solving being the glue that ties it together. Mick's a practical guy, and so puzzles are down-to-earth too, designed to be unobtrusive, and give an investigative feel.

We're keeping the pacing quick and lean, you'll never be wandering around lost or confused- Mick is propelled through the story at a good clip, from one situation to another, with barely a moment to catch his breath. One minute you'll be crafting a Molotov cocktail from a bottle of over-proof rum, the next interrogating a crooked neurosurgeon before swinging from a high-rise window by a fraying extension lead.

Made with PowerQuest!

Dave's 2d adventure game toolkit for Unity. 

Try it out yourself!

Check out our other adventures:


StatusReleased
PlatformsWindows, macOS, Linux
Rating
Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars
(77 total ratings)
AuthorPowerhoof
GenreAdventure
Made withUnity
TagsHorror, No AI, Point & Click, Sci-fi, Thriller
Average sessionAbout a half-hour
LanguagesGerman, English
InputsMouse, Xbox controller, Gamepad (any)
AccessibilitySubtitles
LinksSteam, Steam

Download

Download
the-drifter-demo-windows.zip 338 MB
Download
the-drifter-demo-osx.zip 348 MB
Download
the-drifter-demo-linux.zip 353 MB

Development log

Comments

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Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 68 · Next page · Last page

Shut up and take my money! (done)

Any chance of selling the full game directly here, rather than only on Steam?

yes please!!! some of us just want to stick to itch

(+2)

This game is coooool! After I played the demo, I bought it

(+1)

This looks absolutely amazing! Just impulsively bought it on steam. Didn't even check out the demo.

Lo mejor del mundo

(+1)

Linux version. Here it goes. So far so good. 

(+1)

Dear dev, i'd like to offer you a completly free translation to brazilian portuguese, please dm me if you're interested, my dc: Izot368 

my email: drkoulbr@gmail.com

(+2)

Wooah looks great! I'll get it on steam

UPD: got it on steam, played it, liked it. Some tasks are quite far-fetched, as it almost always happens in this genre, but overall a very cool game!

Very nice game. A little morbid, but just enough to be entertaining

Haven't played yet, but I gotta say, this looks damn amazing! 

(+1)(-4)

Looks awesome! But $20 feels a bit steep. I think I’ll wait for a 50% off sale on Steam.

(+2)(-1)

Tell me you have never made a game before without telling me you have never made a game before

I did. And $20 pretty high price for indie point and clicker.

you're free to wait, but I gotta agree: $20 for an indie game isn't steep if the game is good. $20 for a non-indie conveyor-produced garbage would be steep though, I agree.

(-1)

Yeah, I ll just wait for steam sale

(-1)

So, by default, all "indie" games should be cheap? I.e., Outer Wilds, Minecraft, and Hades should've launched at what, under $10?
...😒 Mmmkay.

see, it is already on sale $16 at GOG.

(+1)

Yeah honestly i'll do that too I'm poor as hell

(+2)

wonderful game!

(+1)

Awesome! If you want to localize into spanish I can be of some help.

(+1)

Awesome game ! But I can't make the Mac demo version work. Tells me the file is damaged.Others get this error 

(+4)

When an application gets downloaded from any source other than those that Apple seems suited, the application gets an extended attribute "com.apple.Quarantine". This triggers the message: "<application> is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Bin."

Remove the attribute and you can launch the application.

To do this, open a console and type:

$ xattr -c TheDrifter-Demo.app

Brilliant - that worked. Thanks, schauppm 

This is such a cool game. ^u^

(+3)

Please release the full game here so you can get a better cut of the money than on Steam!

Cool design!👌

The demo was fun and I would play the whole game when I have enough money.

Voice acting is always on point with the Powerhoof team!

(+1)

for some time i play old style adventure games and this came along.

Really interesting story and art. I really like every minute of it. 

I had a fun time with this game and i like the Aussie touch, though i don't even know where the devs are located. 

Thanks for making this game.

(+1)

it was really fun
(+2)

Perfection!

(+2)

That was incredible.

(+3)

Hands down one of the best point and click games I have played in a long time. The mystery horror really sucks you in immediately!

(+2)

You guys went crazy w the game! STILL CANT believe I was able to record gameplay on my potato tho…😭

Tried out the demo and just wondering if there's a Borderless Window option in full release? 

Yeah the default "Fullscreen" option in there is Fullscreen Window (borderless). 

(+9)

A Game I would buy but not on Steam... make it available here on itch.io!

(+4)

Yup. Some of us like to own games instead of renting them for an unknown period of time. :)

(+4)

I normally don't comment on games, but I have had my hand forced by this game.

tl;dr; buy this game, I have no affiliation to it, just buy it and your welcome.

The itch version of this game is absolutely horrible in the way that every game developer hopes their demo will be, in that it makes me want to know what happens next and makes me want to pay to do so.

The great parts of the demo:

  • it's engaging and well paced, with a gentle intro to the mechanics
  • the art work is brilliantly executed showing a beautifully rendered world in a pixel aesthetic
  • the voice acting is nicely synced to the actual animations and carries the personality of Mick well
  • the story line has a good pace with when information is revealed
  • the main character isn't 1 dimensional and has depth shown through effective environmental story telling, dialogue, his internal monologue and the narration.
  • the post edit scenes showing the gameplay set a nice tone of what is to come.
  • Super controversial part: All the voicing and the backdrop is Australian, and being an Aussie, and one who knows Sydney, makes me very happy.

With all those compliments, there were a number of small things that I felt could be done better but don't detract from the overall great quality and polish of the game. Even if these small quirks weren't changed I wouldn't hesitate to buy this game still, so ignore this if you want (but I do try to give constructive feedback where I think it isn't obvious):

  • No option to go back to the main menu was a bit frustrating
    • honestly I wouldn't have noticed had I not decided to do this comment and needed to restart the game a bunch to double check I'm remembering stuff right
  • Black screens instead of animations, there were several times when a black screen is used to transition to the scene after Mick has done a thing, this did feel like it broke the flow of the scene at times. An example without spoiling anything is when you remove the tarp at the beginning.
    • I recognise this is likely a limitation of dev resources, drawing up all the frames is costly in both the art and the time to add the animations and transitions, and I say this all to make it clear I understand the reasoning, I just think omitting it is disingenuous.
  • This may just be me, the help arrow at the beginning to denote where the inventory was, I mistook the arrow as the border of a hot-zone initially expecting the inventory to come from the corner.
    • Since it could just be me, the only fix I would thing is making the arrow point slightly wider.
  • The help arrows for when you use your first item I feel have 2 friction points:
    • The arrows move with the inventory drawer, which can impact readability a little.
    • They disappear when you click on an empty space, so it's possible to miss them through a mis-click (guess who did that). I think ideally for UX this could be rendered:
      • When you click on the item in your inventory when there isn't the chance to use it on anything.
      • When you click on the item in your inventory when there is a chance to use it on something, and keep the help text till you use it
  • I accept this is being a PITA and I only noticed since I have been replaying it a bit to write these comments, the backpack in the car, vs the one that's torn, the fact one is a duffel and one is a backpack is something I can no never unsee.
    • No need to change it, minor continuity error isn't the end of the world :)
  • The colour scheme used for the torn pack and the ground after the car makes it blend into the background, where I did't even notice it until I needed it, though when looking for it it wasn't hard to identify.
    • This comment is more along the thought the backpack could benefit a very small bit from being a fraction brighter to contrast better against the ground.
  • Being unable to recover dialogue already said can be a bit frustrating, it does help to not let the user go over the dialogue repeatedly expecting something different, but it would be nice if there was a way to "flashback" or get conversations repeated.
    • I do recognize that hovering over the option gives a summary from Micks point of view but having maybe a tab at the top of each option with a repeat icon to rerun the dialogue would be nice with a help text explaining it's purpose on first display
  • It would be nice if there was a way to make Mick run or walk faster within a scene
    • This is more for navigating a scene, rather then moving between scenes which I recognize has the double click feature
  • Going through the accessibility options to figure out what was available, I noticed the Lock Cursor defaulting to on, was annoying, especially when using on window mode.
    • Also it didn't feel like it's an accessibility feature.
  • Not 100% sure why having the end-periods is a thing
    • To those unsure what it does, it did exactly as I though, in the subtitles, when enabled, it makes it so that sentences where appropriate end in a full stop
  • The Options interface is probably the weakest part of this game, which is not bad. Things that probably could be done better:
    • Accessibility isn't really Accessibility, it's a "more" option which has accessibility features and more audio controls
    • Changing the language only changes the text, not the audio
      • This is again likely limited dev resources, and is understandable and forgivable by all measures, just something noted
    • Inability to map the hotspot highlight button is frustrating, as I can see this being a big accessibility pain point given you can't guarantee the device someone is using has either the H key OR a middle mouse button
      • Potentially when enabled request to set with a sensible default
    • End-Periods is such a weird option ... I don't hate it, and don't want it removed, but ... weird
    • Font scaling would be a useful accessibility feature that I'm surprised wasn't included in the HD dialogue font.
  • No confirmation when restoring to a save meaning you could accidentally restore to the wrong save
    • Not the end of the world, but could also be bad for those who click quicker then they thing and accidentally lose progress.


I haven't gotten to the full game, but I have high hopes and look forward to continuing the story and if it carries on the quality of the demo (which all the steam reviews suggest it has) I know I have a good time ahead.

(+1)

Loving the art style! The story sounds thrilling.

Super cool all around! 

(+1)

This is incredible pixel art! 

(+1)

This game is a definite 10/10. Check out the demo for yourself. Here is our full review of the full game: https://geekgasm.org/2025/07/17/the-drifter-review-a-modern-classic-in-point-and...

Grats on release!

Full Demo NO Commentary

(+1)

Bought with soundtrack as well!
Let's goooooo
ps. Any chance to get the OST in FLAC??

WHAT A GAME

incrivel mano is fine

(2 edits)

I have really enjoyed the demo! Great visuals, story, voice acting, music, gameplay. Looking forward to the game! Wishlisted!

(1 edit)

What do you mean by "unique twin stick controls"?
Does that mean the game uses both WASD and mouse movement?

You can use either mouse, or a gamepad. Gamepad has left stick to walk, and right stick is a radial menu around the character to look around (like you do with the mouse)

Great game and story! Loved the voice acting!!

Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 68 · Next page · Last page