Project Castaway News

[p][/p][p]We are happy to announce that Project Castaway has entered its 1.0 version out of Early Access, and co-op is now available![/p][p][/p][p]For those that haven't played the game since our Early Access launch, you can view the list of major changes we've had since then here:[dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p][/p][p]List of changes from 0.2.7 to 1.0.0[/p][p][/p][p][/p]

• [p]You can now play with friends! Up to 4 players.[/p]
• [p]Added creative gamemode. No craft requirements? Infinite health? We got you covered.[/p]
• [p]Enabled cloud saves.[/p]
• [p]Added Steam Achievements.[/p]
• [p]Added camera animation when starting a game with no plane sequence.[/p]
• [p]Added underwater wrecked research ship.[/p]
• [p]Added craftable oxygen tank.[/p]
• [p]Added craftable queen bed.[/p]
• [p]Added a new quest.[/p]
• [p]Added a craftable fuel motor for the raft and a wrecked fuel cannister.[/p]

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• [p]Fixed sail state not saving and loading correctly.[/p]
• [p]Fixed small stick and furnace, having wrong impact effect.[/p]
• [p]Fixed sanity resetting to default after loading a save file.[/p]
• [p]Fixed Claire's letter duplicated entry on journal.[/p]
• [p]Fixed time only saving time of the day, instead of a full date-time format, causing endscreen to show incorrect session length.[/p]
• [p]Fixed weapon durability not updating UI after loading a save file.[/p]
• [p]Fixed sleep button not completely clickable.[/p]
• [p]Fixed scroll of storage UI too slow.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a type of small tree giving loot on the wrong position.[/p]
• [p]Fixed biome branches not giving any loot.[/p]
• [p]Fixed unintended physics force when harvesting palm trees, which could cause logs to clip through the sand.[/p]
• [p]Fixed mint having strange textures.[/p]
• [p]Fixed carry sound of metal sheets, fuel drum, metal barrels , old tires and signs.[/p]
• [p]Fixed standing torch not showing "Cannot ignite" message when it's raining.[/p]

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• [p]You can move built non hammer-based structures using your hammer.[/p]
• [p]Yucca tree gives a small stick when chopped down.[/p]
• [p]Banana tree gives a large stick when chopped down.[/p]
• [p]Added craft-one and craft-all-possible options when crafting arrows.[/p]
• [p]Decreased black widow chase speed by 50%.[/p]
• [p]Decreased scorpion and wolf spider chase speed by 25%.[/p]
• [p]You can now hover over a specific part of a hammer-based-structure and add material or cancel it.[/p]
• [p]Ores are queued for respawn when they are completely depleted.[/p]
• [p]Metal sheets and fuel barrels are queued for respawn on the closest shore when you use them as material for a structure.[/p]
• [p]Fuel barrel is queued for respawn if it clips through the world.[/p]
• [p]Updated fuel barrel color, to differentiate from metal barrel.[/p]
• [p]Scavengables (wrecked broken cabinets, fans, lamps, etc.) are queued for respawn when destroyed.[/p]
• [p]Players are able to move the rafts by walking towards them, even if the raft ends up on sand.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]What's next?[/p][p]We are polishing our entire game loop. For example, we are revisiting our underwater graphics and the plane intro sequence.[/p][p][/p][p]We will also be working towards PS5 launch and official Steam Deck support, which indirectly improves the game in multiple ways for the rest of the platforms.[/p][p][/p][p]Working on the development of co-op for a game that was not made from the ground up for co-op was definitely an experience. We hope you enjoy your shared moments, make sure to join our community Discord to look for friends to play with![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Warm regards,[/p][p]The project castaway team[/p][p][/p]

[p]Hello all.[/p][p][/p][p]We are happy to announce Project Castaway 1.0 is finally coming on March 16th 2026.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]What are the major changes since our Early Access launch on September 2024?[/p]

• [p]Co-op. You can play with your friends, and even load save files with them that existed prior 1.0! [/p]
• [p]Complete localization.[/p]
• [p]UI has been overhauled. It now has the same style across the entire game.[/p]
• [p]Added UI-based storage, where you can store any item, and a mobile cart version that you can move around.[/p]
• [p]Added challenge gamemode. Complete tasks on a limited time.[/p]
• [p]Added creative gamemode. No craft requirements? Infinite health? We got you covered.[/p]
• [p]Added animal and resource respawning.[/p]
• [p]Added snakes.[/p]
• [p]Added Steam achievements and cloud saves.[/p]
• [p]Added customizable keybinds.[/p]
• [p]Added several start options, allowing you to customize your gameplay.[/p]
• [p]Added several conditions, like poison and infections.[/p]
• [p]Added several new plants. trees, craftable items and structures.[/p]
• [p]Added wrecked underwater containers you can scavenge and a craftable oxygen tank.[/p]
• [p]Improved terrain textures and general graphic fidelity.[/p]
• [p]Improved performance, loading times and memory footprint.[/p]
• [p]Fixed raft physics on several scenarios.[/p]
• [p]And a lot of other bug fixes![/p]

[p][/p][p]See you very soon. ❤️[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Warm regards,[/p][p]The project castaway team[/p]

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• [p]Added all missing localization. Now the entire game is fully localized.[/p]
• [p]Added a mobile storage cart. You can store anything on it.[/p]

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• [p]Removed unsupported gold arrows from the game, which was making the bow to not work correctly when using them.[/p]
• [p]Fixed a scenario where a previous challenge data would still be present and executing completion checks on another challenge.[/p]
• [p]Fixed several typos on item descriptions.[/p]
• [p]Fixed UI layout broken the first time you open the hammer building UI.[/p]
• [p]Fixed items being consumed when adding materials to a structure has failed due to player standing on it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed some palm trees having smaller loot scale than normal.[/p]

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• [p]Re-translated the entire game's text to be more accurate on certain languages.[/p]
• [p]Biome generation math has been improved to harness the power of multi-threaded CPUs. This has improved the loading times by 1.7x - 1.8x on our systems.[/p]
• [p]Adjusted the way loot of skinning animals and chopping down plants is generated, improving memory footprint and island generation times.[/p]
• [p]Increased respawn times to 1 hour, previously 20 minutes. Ongoing queued respawns from previous save files will continue their 20-minute-based timer.[/p]
• [p]Names on hammer built structures no longer have brackets.[/p]
• [p]Added missing icons on hammer building UI.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Hello castaways.[/p][p][/p][p]We hope you enjoy this month's patch. As usual, we'd like to talk a little about what's in progress for the next patch.[/p][p][/p][p]We are finally including achievements and cloud saves on the next patch.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]We are also adding a creative mode, where you can choose exactly how you want to play. This design was greatly inspired by the modding community. [/p][p][/p][p]Also, some updates from co-op 🎉:[/p]

• [p]You authenticate to the server through Steam.[/p]
• [p]You can play on single mode (offline mode). You do not require an internet connection or a successful authentication to play the game.[/p]
• [p]You can choose from multiple relay regions.[/p]
• [p]You can start an empty session or join an existing one by code.[/p]
• [p]Only the host can start a game, but anyone can edit the start options.[/p]
• [p]There's a male and female character you can choose.[/p]
• [p]When in-game, you can choose to take the whole party with you (if you are the host) or leave alone.[/p]
• [p]Character positions and animations are synchronized.[/p]
• [p]Island generation is synchronized.[/p]

[p]We are working on synchronizing the biome generation and all of the item's "lifetime ids". After this, we should be ready to start rolling out the first alpha accesses.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Missed the boat so far? Project Castaway is 55% off through the end of January. 🔖🔥[/p][p][/p][p]Warm regards,[/p][p]The project castaway team[/p]

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• [p]Added a notification message when you have added items on unbuilt structures.[/p]
• [p]Localization progress:[/p]
  • [p]Added confirmation pop-up localization (saving, loading, deleting a save, exit to desktop, exit to main menu, etc.).[/p]
  • [p]Added journal skill section localization.[/p]
  • [p]Added lore localization on journal and its progress notifications on the top middle.[/p]
  • [p]Added blueprint collected notification localization.[/p]
  • [p]Added missing localization of the crafting sections of the journal.[/p]

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• [p]Fixed player sent underwater when exiting the rudder sometimes.[/p]
• [p]Fixed inability to add items to storage when loading a game after having full storage.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue that was causing save files to not load correctly on some rare edge cases, but could load when exiting the application completely and reloading it.[/p]
• [p]Fixed challenge failure screen enabling when playing a survival game but previously played such challenge.[/p]
• [p]Fixed double sided axe not breaking down.[/p]
• [p]Fixed double sided axe lost in storage.[/p]
• [p]Fixed stump-based trees not being able to be chopped down if it was partially chopped down on a save file that existed before vegetation respawning (0.2.5), and got loaded on 0.2.5. Respawning won't be queued for this specific tree, but you'll be able to continue chopping it down.[/p]
• [p]Fixed some languages on the dropdown selection not appearing.[/p]
• [p]Fixed an issue that was causing certain items to duplicate every time you loaded a save file, stacking their amount every time (1 -> 2 -> 4, etc.), affecting framerate, memory usage and loading times to the point that the file could no longer be loaded.
  
  Since this issue was caused by the save file system, bloated files can not be undone, but they will no longer keep bloating. Below is a table of affected items:[/p]
  [p]Affected item[/p]

  [p]Effect[/p]

  [p]Wreck container levers[/p]

  [p]Old save files won't contain chopped down levers floating near the wreck.[/p]

  [p]Sunken ship metal door and breakable boards.[/p]

  [p]No data was saved on the door, nothing changed on it.
  
  The breakable boards did save data, but loaded incorrectly. This indirectly fixed boards re-appearing on save and load. Old saves will have this same behavior, but will no longer happen.[/p]

  [p]Nodes on furnace and prep table.[/p]

  [p]These nodes did save data, but also loaded incorrectly - for example, items placed on the nodes not getting "linked" to it. Old saves will have this same behavior, but will no longer happen.[/p]

  [p]Wall tool rack and submarine closed hatch.[/p]

  [p]No data was saved on these items, nothing got affected.[/p]

  [p]Node on grave buildable from the lore.[/p]

  [p]There should be no visible change.[/p]

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• [p]Removed the "slept too much" lock. You are now free to sleep as much as you want, as long as you don't have insomnia condition. Note that you can die on your sleep, so be careful of how long and in what state you are sleeping.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Hello castaways.[/p][p][/p][p]We have cut short the things we wanted to include on this patch (which got mentioned on previous developer notes) to focus on some bug fixes.[/p][p][/p][p]On the side, we have been working on improving the procedural vegetation generation math to harness the power of multithreaded code. Our preliminary stats are showing 30% to 50% of decreased loading times.[/p][p][/p][p]We would also like to show progress of the new mobile storage. It will be treated like the new UI-based storage, where you can store any type of backpack or carried item, and you will be able to move it around by interacting on its handle.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Warm regards,[/p][p]The project castaway team[/p]

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• [p]Added a new UI-based storage:[/p]
  • [p]Dropboxes have been removed from the journal. Old dropboxes that you may have previously crafted are still available, but you are highly advised to use the new storage instead.[/p]
  • [p]Added a small and large UI-based storage that supports any type of item.[/p]
  • [p]Previously reported jumping items seems directly related to the old physics-based dropboxes. Please let us know if the issue still persists.[/p]
• [p]Added co-op window, enabled only on the beta channel. Beta channel password will be shared later this month. A coming soon version is displayed on retail.[/p]
• [p]Added Good Health and Mr Durable challenges.[/p]

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• [p]Fixed UI scaling not working as intended on languages that use commas instead of points for decimals.[/p]
• [p]Fixed inability to open journal when the tape player is out.[/p]
• [p]Fixed certain new objects, including snakes, not spawning on old saves.[/p]
• [p]Fixed unintended behavior if you double click confirm start game.[/p]
• [p]Fixed hardcore restart game stuck on loading and save file not being deleted if you have saved or loaded a file during hardcore mode.[/p]

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• [p]Mushrooms, plants and trees can now respawn if the respawning toggle is enabled; using the same toggle as the animal respawning.[/p]
• [p]Leopards, turtles and sharks now drop skin, which can be tanned into generic leather.[/p]
• [p]Added challenge description under start game confirmation pop-up.[/p]
• [p]Added some missing localization:[/p]
  • [p]Main menu.[/p]
  • [p]Options (main menu and in-game).[/p]
  • [p]Challenges (main menu selection, in-game HUD and journal description).[/p]
  • [p]Discoveries (notifications and journal description).[/p]
• [p]Updated lore unlocked GPS device to be more accurate with the lore's timeline.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Hello castaways.[/p][p][/p][p]As promised on our previous post, we have completely overhauled the raft storage. While the physics-based one sounds good on paper, the reality is that it adds an unnecessary layer of complexity on both the technical aspect and the user experience. It had technical, gameplay and performance limitations. With this in mind, in addition of player feedback, we decided to create an UI-based storage that does not rely on physics and that can support all objects (weapons, resources, treasures, etc.).[/p][p] [/p][p]The next patch should have the remaining localization included, a small-scale co-op beta (with access rolling out to more players in the coming weeks), mobile storage cart and improved randomized biome math, which will improve performance and open doors for more islands.[/p][p][/p][p]We’d truly appreciate a review if you’re enjoying the update. For those who left negative feedback before, we invite you to give the game another try and check out the latest changes, as our updates has taken shape with player feedback in consideration.[/p][p][/p][p]Warm regards,[/p][p]The project castaway team[/p]