Developer Acceleration Program Spotlight: Rocket Adrift
This week, we’re highlighting Rocket Adrift, creators of the Developer Acceleration Program title Psychroma.
.png)
In 2023, the ID@Xbox Developer Acceleration Program was officially announced, with the mission to empower underrepresented creators with the resources and information needed to bring their creativity, innovation, and originality to Xbox. By removing longstanding barriers to entry for creators and normalizing diverse storylines and characters in gaming, both players and developers win.
The Developer Acceleration Program seeks to support developers who are led by those from Black, Indigenous, Latino or LGBTQIA+ communities, women, developers with disabilities, developers from emerging markets or teams with unique perspectives, and several other communities. This also includes independent developers working on a game that responsibly centers the experience around diverse characters or that prioritizes accessibility.
Since the program was announced, dozens of games have been released on Xbox to both critical acclaim and commercial success. With that in mind, we believe it is only fitting that we spotlight some of the creators behind these titles in a new recurring series on Microsoft Game Dev blog.
This week, we’re highlighting Rocket Adrift, developer of the Developer Acceleration Program title Psychroma. We had the chance to chat with Co-Founder and Character Artist Lindsay Rollins about the studio’s experience with the program and how DAP helped them successfully develop Psychroma.
Tell us about Rocket Adrift.
Rocket Adrift is a small Toronto-based indie game studio made up of Lindsay Rollins (she/her), Titus McNally (he/him), and Sloane Smith (she/her). To date, Rocket Adrift has released 3 games, beginning with Order a Pizza: A Visual Novel in 2019, then Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance in 2021, and finally Psychroma in 2024.
What can you tell us about Psychroma?
Psychroma is a narrative-driven side-scroller where you play as a digital medium. Confront the past by piecing together the broken memories of a cybernetic house and exorcise the ghosts in the machine. Investigate a haunted cybernetic house as a drifter with the ability to experience nonlinear time. Regain your own memory of what brought you here and find out how to break the loop. Uncover the events of a harrowing psychological experiment gone wrong through fragmented memories.
Any hints on what might be coming next from Rocket Adrift?
Yes! We are currently working toward a prototype for our next game, which will be a narrative-driven horror RPG with combat and branching paths. We don’t have a title for it yet, but we will reveal it soon!

What accomplishments are you most proud of as an independent studio?
We are proud of our ability to continue to release and work on games together after 5 years. It took a lot of perseverance and hard work to get here. We are also proud of the impact our games make with the players who benefit the most from marginalized representation. Psychroma was really a labor of love in which we put ourselves fully into and continue to be amazed by who is touched by it.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an independent studio?
Sustainability in an ever-changing market. Also support from industry veterans, publishers and investors is still extremely difficult to establish. In such a competitive industry, it’s difficult to foster a sense of support and community, and part of our studio mission is to push back on that and create a space where we can collaborate with and help mentor our peers.
How did you learn about or connect with the Developer Acceleration Program?
We learned about the program through a recommendation from a small indie publisher that had turned Psychroma down for funding, funnily enough.
How has the Developer Acceleration Program impacted your game’s development?
The DAP had been instrumental in helping us get Psychroma to Xbox. The funding has made it possible for us to take the time to learn the Xbox pipeline and testing environment, and what it takes to get certification.
Why do you feel that programs like DAP are important to the health of the game industry?
Programs like this are what allows smaller studios to survive in this economic environment, as well as this industry as a whole. Resources are too few and far between and DAP is actively working towards correcting that disparity.