Hello castaways. This patch features another good round of bug fixes, new wrecks and the long-awaited system to include new resources on old saves, without the need of starting new games.


New

• Added shark bite sound effect.
  
• Added notification when trying to place a second airplane chassis.
  
• Added 6 wrecked ship containers scattered on multiple islands.

Fixes

• Fixed metal barrel stove impact effect being wood instead of metal.
  
• Fixed crafted airplane impact effect not being metal.
  
• Fixed water collector water getting stagnant on multiple scenarios.
  
• Fixed inconsistent vignettes and chromatic aberration effects, had noticeable jumping values when the player hunger or tired state changed.
  
• Fixed quest items going through meshes sometimes.
  
• Fixed inability to interact with quest items sometimes.
  
• Fixed quest items not rendering sometimes.
  
• Fixed floating tapes and other quest items.
  
• Fixed scarecrows not colliding with player.
  
• Fixed radio tower not updating its repaired state correctly.
  
• Fixed inability to pick up things with the tape player out.
  
• Fixed tape player playing the narration without a "radio" effect when you play the tape player via wheel menu without discovering any additional tapes.
  
• Fixed no tape player on hand and stuck interaction when you pickup a tape while carrying something (like a log, treasure or metal sheet).
  
• Fixed an issue causing any item to become uninteractable under certain heights. Most noticeable on the top of the radio tower.
  
• Fixed extension belt not visible on prep table or disassemble table.
  
• Fixed nodes toggling on and off when you press the backpack toggle button while on a prep table or disassemble table.
  
• Fixed broken backpack input (dragging things from backpack) when destroying a prep table or disassemble table.
  
• Fixed tape player UI stuck when selecting arms back and forth.
  
• Fixed some saves getting stuck on loading screen.
  
• Fixed some boulders and other objects from the environment having no collision.
  
• Fixed quest items not considering if the backpack is full. On old saves, missing quest items will be respawned.
  
• Fixed inability to place flower on grave.
  
• Fixed some placeables not able to be placed on buildings.

Quality of Life

• You can delete individual saves.
  
• Updated tape player color.
  
• Removed tape player cord.
  
• Tape player spindles move when there's something playing.
  
• You are now able to eat while on prep table or disassemble table.
  
• Updated the airplane sequence skip spawn point.
  
• Updated built sound effect.
  
• Structure preview rotation value is reset to default when changing control scheme (from gamepad to mouse).
  
• Any new "prespawned" manually placed resource (like treasures, wrecks, ores, etc) will be available on old saves.

Developer notes

There are some changes that couldn't make it to this patch, but are mostly done and will be ready to be deployed next patch. These include:

• Added pop-up confirmation when saving, deleting saves and exiting to the main menu or desktop.
  
• Added new and improved health conditions.
  
• Fixed sharks spawning too close to the shore.
  
• Shark delay before respawning. An area is now able to be cleared (for example, to freely explore a wreck).
  
• You shouldn't be able to swim through sharks.
  
• Sharks will fight back.

We have an ongoing content poll[forms.gle] to help us shift our focus. While we want to work on everything towards our full release, we also want to make sure the patches are always something everyone is looking forward to.

There's a 35% discount available from December 19th to the 2nd of January!

Happy holidays,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. We have deployed a quick patch to address some issues present on specific scenarios.

• Added localization when hovering over mushrooms, lemongrass and seaweed.
  
• Added localization on notification when picking up backpack items.
  
• Fixed rafts floating in strange ways and inability to be moved upon save load when they contain storages.
  
• Fixed inability to place non-craftable carriables (turtle shells, signs, treasures, etc.). Present issue could have brought up other issues due to the nature of the code stack.
  
• Time is no longer forced at a specific hour or frozen when playing the airplane sequence. This is to scrap out the possibility of it affecting stuck times.
  
• Fixed "blue screen" when unloading a game with a repaired tower and loading anything else.

Developer notes
I'm sorry.

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. This patch features several bug fixes and the ability to skip the airplane sequence.


New

• Added slanted palm roof.
  
• Added smoke particle to the crafted airplane.
  
• Added a prompt when trying to board the plane while the quest is not yet completed.
  
• Added sound effects when adding crafted airplane materials.
  
• Added toggle to skip intro, available when tutorial is completed.
  
• Added quest tracker UI to the GPS tablet.

Fixes

• Fixed inability to harvest shark bodies upon save and load if you left them unharvested.
  
• Fixed no sharks roaming around after killing them all.
  
• Fixed nodes not reappearing if you cancel a partially built structure.
  
• Fixed placing a metal barrel stove under a tent making raft flip over.
  
• Fixed fire unable to be started on the raft under a tent while it's raining.
  
• Fixed rotten fish flying away from its cooking position.
  
• Fixed structure material requirement counter label not showing everything beyond the 2 digit mark.
  
• Fixed bug repellent falling off the world upon drag.
  
• Fixed tower repair not taking more than one type of material at a time, even if you have the requirements.
  
• Fixed tower repair having no placement sound effects or visual effects.
  
• Fixed tower repair not available sometimes until you save and reload.
  
• Fixed extension belt missing number icon, like the rest of the weapon slots.
  
• Fixed airplane (and any big structure) not showing all required materials.
  
• Fixed an issue causing by dragging a tape into your backpack.
  
• Fixed unintended outline when you're not hovering the disassemble table.
  
• Fixed disassemble table not moving the camera towards the closest angle, making the player clip through walls in some scenarios.
  
• Fixed exiting from the rudder, and any other interactable that moves the camera, making the player jump high or go underwater.
  
• Fixed needing to double click an item on the backpack to drag it sometimes.
  
• Fixed palm leaves on meat rack white when it's raining at night.
  
• Fixed crafted airplane wings missing collision.
  
• Fixed unable to place a crafted airplane chassis sometimes.
  
• Fixed low framerate when airplane is built but tower is not repaired yet.
  
• Fixed airplane going through cliffs and other blockages when you built in a strange direction.
  
• Fixed sharks swimming under terrain (underwater)..
  
• Fixed sharks attacking you behind structures.
  
• Fixed sharks attacking you when they're not facing you.
  
• Fixed raft going crazy when you hit something with your backpack while opening it.
  
• Fixed some tools being able to be stored inside the backpack, making the slot unusable.
  
• Fixed parasites not curing with any liquid, only with coconuts.

Quality of Life

• Updated raft sail and roof to be taller.
  
• Raft roof can be placed anywhere.
  
• You are now able to plant lavender.
  
• Reworded treasure discovery requirement. It no longer prompts the player to take the treasures with him.
  
• Removed farming patch label, as its name is already on the top middle.
  
• Intro is always skipped when you restart a game via death screen.
  
• Centered subtitles and added an outline, instead of a background.
  
• Grass and other ground cover biome elements is reused from island to island and it's pre-generated. This results in slightly faster loading times, less vram and ram. Naturally it frees hardware resources, which could potentially be reflected as better framerate. As a side effect, the game size is bigger since it has to store such data beforehand.
  
• Farming harvest gives at least two seeds (gradually giving more depending on your farming level).
  
• Reworded tower lore's ending from "... I hid the deciphering book where the sun meets the sea. Use the GPS Satellites to track it down ..." to " ... I hid the deciphering book but I can't remember where. The island's secrets are beyond anything we imagined, and Mordonpol disturbed something ancient. Be careful, my friend ...". The open ending serves as a teaser for a future quest, rather than a direct instruction.

Developer notes

Thanks for everyone who has been submitting our bug reports through the main menu. It's the best way for us to analyze and fix bugs. There are multiple reports about quest items and blueprints going under the terrain and some cliffs. We had a fix for this, but unfortunately it gave some secondary effects that were too late to fix for this patch. A workaround is saving and reloading, as it's highly dependent on physics and the island you are on (some physics are disabled when jumping from island to island for performance). Another of our focuses for the next patch will be the raft storage (while it's there, it's not a smooth experience to use) and another round of bug fixes.

We have also started working on the required assets to get co-op going. While we can't share too much info about it - it's definitely in the works. We are hoping to start giving more info on Q1 2025.

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. We have deployed a small patch to address some immediately-needed fixes.


New

• Added a temporary pumpkin that you can harvest to build a pumpkin scarecrow. New resources are available on new games.

Fixes

• Fixed shark fin and teeth disappearing when leaving it somewhere else other than your backpack and saving and loading. The issue was that the objects contained no object ID, thus the save file containing no data at all.
  
• Fixed metal shelves disappearing and having corrupted textures.
  
• Fixed ring treasure disappearing (lagoon island).
  
• Fixed tutorial wrongfully getting enabled and getting stuck, and inability to complete it.

Quality of Life

• Tutorial, crafting, blueprints and quest entry titles localization.

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. This week we bring you another round of fixes and quality of life updates. Happy Halloween!


New

• Added cassettes localization.
  
• Added support pillar on the hammer building menu.
  
• Added large and small metal shelves to the blueprint system.
  
• Added more scavenging resources. You are now able to get enough resources to fully complete the quests.
  
• Added trophy throne for Wilson.

Fixes

• Fixed missing characters in simplified Chinese.
  
• Fixed turtle shell (standalone) not displaying localization correctly.
  
• Fixed disassemble table UI overlapping with each other.
  
• Fixed crafting requirements not drawing more than 4 requirements on the journal.
  
• Fixed inability to place granite axe on the disassemble table.
  
• Fixed teleporting to the ocean when you use the crafting tables.
  
• Fixed player slipping from the raft when sleeping and waking up.
  
• Fixed tool and weapon rack giving infinite materials when you demolish it while there's something stored.
  
• Fixed drop preview in dropbox storage on raft being misplaced as you move.
  
• Fixed blueprint weapons and tools not being able to be placed on storages.
  
• Fixed quest items being teleported to the default location when you drag them without picking them up first.
  
• Fixed locket and necklace quest items not being tracked by the quest tracker UI.
  
• Fixed wooden bow having an additional visible arm on max FOV if there's no arrows equipped.

Quality of Life

• You are able to plant coralberry.
  
• Cooking is 35% slower.
  
• You can turn off fires, saving fuel.
  
• Stagnancy is cleared when water is boiled.
  
• Improved basic crab trap visuals.
  
• Non-essential vegetation (like grass and non-interactable debris) is generated with the same seed it was saved on, essentially looking the same through your saves.
  
• Thumb doesn't cover journal pages.

Developer notes
For those that haven't snatched the game, there's a 20% week-long discount available on Steam!

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. In this week's update we bring you fixes for the unobtainable quest items and blueprints, and a UI to show nearby quest items.


New

• Item pickups, carriables, low vitals alerts, AI harvesting and loading screen localization.
  
• Added quest items UI: Items closer than 25m on the horizontal axis and 40m on the vertical axis will have a pop-up UI, guiding you towards it.

Fixes

• Fixed quest items and blueprints going under meshes sometimes. The fix is also applied on saves, you can load a save file and it will correctly reposition itself to the nearest spawn point.
  
• Fixed blueprint not visible if looked from above water.
  
• Fixed meat getting huge upon rotting on rack.
  
• Fixed standing torch fire not following torch correctly on raft.
  
• Fixed bug reports input: Moving the mouse or pressing WASD no longer unfocuses the input field.
  
• Fixed tutorial directional arrow not showing when loading a save file.

Quality of Life

• Improved bug reports API: Players no longer have to manually share save files or contact the developers on Discord or Steam - You can fully take advantage of the report system. Keep in mind that no follow-up can be made, but you may leave a contact (discord or email) when reporting.

Developer notes
For those that don't know, we have enabled a channel on our discord that has up to date status for the next patch, which includes a release ETA and key things that are under progress and will be included. The next patch is scheduled for next weekend, which will include loads of fixes and the highly requested ability to extinguish fires.

Would also like to mention that the playtests are coming back soon in the form of "channels". It's a separate version of the game within the same app, instead of a separate one (where you had to request access on the store page). Anyone with access to Project Castaway will be able to choose the unstable work-in-progress version.

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. This week we are bringing you some fixes mainly apparent on saved games.


New

• Added voice slider to the audio settings.
  
• Added more clear messages when something can't be added to the compost bin.

Fixes

• Fixed infinite immortal sharks.
  
• Fixed wrong far island calculation, causing framerate drops near the shores.
  
• Fixed missing playable button on the Escape quest upon loading a previous save.
  
• Fixed death screen UI calculating survived time wrongly, which also caused times to go into negatives.
  
• Fixed inability to add fuel to fires sometimes.
  
• Fixed extreme speed when jumping, more obvious when bunnyhopping.
  
• Fixed progress bar appearing on the water collector when you build a campfire near it.
  
• Fixed inability to destroy water collector.
  
• Fixed angled rack having no collision.
  
• Fixed pepper and coffee plants being too bright compared to the rest.
  
• Fixed low framerates on saved games sometimes.
  
• Fixed an issue causing loaded saves to not start at all.
  
• Fixed an issue causing loaded saves to start with no grass and no quest tracker.
  
• Fixed an issue causing insta-death on loaded saves.

Quality of Life

• Fishing rod returns metal scrap when disassembled.
  
• You are able to decompose more things.
  
• You can slice banana leaves for decomposing.
  
• You get at least one item back when destroying things that have low requirements. This means you get Wilson back when destroying the scarecrow.
  
• Improved loot from wrecks.
  
• Lowered shark axe teeth requirement.

Developer notes
We are deploying another patch mid week to tackle things that didn't make it this patch: Rest of localization and unobtainable sticky notes and other quest items. Please keep the feedback coming, whether it's positive or negative, as it greatly influences the next patches.

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello castaways. Based on player feedback we have a small update mainly focusing on hunger balancing and raft fixes.

Fixes

• Fixed backpack not accounting full inventory, allowing the player to infinitely pickup things.
  
• Fixed cooked food giving the same stats as its raw versions.
  
• Fixed raw fish fillet not giving any proteins.
  
• Fixed raft physics going crazy when you place things on top, especially adding things to the storages or campfires.
  
• Fixed raft rudder causing raft physics to once again go crazy.
  
• Fixed raft sails continuous force even when it's out of water, causing a glitchy raft to never come back again.
  
• Fixed built structures inside the raft loading with strange rotation.
  
• Fixed an issue caused by demolishing campfires, smokers and barrel stoves.
  
• Fixed inability to craft bugnet.

Quality of Life

• Food replenishes roughly 50% more hunger.
  
• Low vitamins and proteins only affect 50% of the max hunger restore from an item. This means if you are low nutrients, you can at least partially satisfy your hunger.
  
• Proteins and vitamins are more balanced. Meat leans more towards proteins, while vegetables and fruits lean more towards vitamins.
  
• Hunger depletion rate is now 50% slower (full stomach lasts twice as long).
  
• Hunger starts at 75% instead of 50%.
  
• Increased meat rack longevity from 2x to 4x.

Developer notes
Next week we are launching an update with localization, auto-save, respawning instead of having to re-load, and a lot more quality of life updates. Our discord is the most active Castaway community, where you can also engage with developers directly, so feel free to join!

Happy surviving,
The project castaway team

Hello everyone, we have finally launched on Early Access!

Thanks to all the beta testers for the hundreds and hundreds of form feedback responses. They have truly helped shape Project Castaway for the best. The playtest is now closed, but we will re-enable soon as we begin preparing for co-op.

For the beta testers, here's the list of changes from 0.0.39 to 0.0.40

Added
New blueprint weapons: Double sided axe, Seagull hatchet, Cleaver, Jaguar knife, Shark Axe, Crab spear, Trident and Jaguar Spear.
New intro story audio.
Clay ore scattered through the islands.
Nourishment Crockery tab added to the journal.
Brewing cups (clay) added to the journal.
New locations for treasures.
Now the turtle shell can be used to collect rainwater and drink from it.
Airplane escape quest added.

Fixed
Fixed backpack not working after entering the ocean while it was opened.
Fixed an issue that was preventing some objects from being dragged into the world from a backpack sometimes.
Fixed a stutter/frame drop caused by AI pathfinding.
Fixed an issue related to items placed on Logan’s quest.
Fixed an issue that was causing the raft to be angled.
Fixed multiple issues that occurred when reloading the game after dying.
Fixed an issue that was breaking the physics on the raft when structures (mainly containers) were built on top.

Quality of life
You can now face forward while steering the raft.
Radio tower repair now requires scavenged items.
Added more keys to building UI.
Tutorial overhaul.
Infusions don't spoil.
Water pouch now is immune to becoming stagnant.
Fishing rod crafting requirements increased.
Increased fishing difficulty.
Sleeping restores more energy (from 7 to 11).
Spoiling rate reduced across the board.
Smokers and campfire times buffed.
Increased time before things burn.
Hunger depletes 10% slower.
Hunger warning shows at 10% remaining.