Suggestions For Beginning Gameplay

[MajesticKarLyn]

i have been reading many comments on both here and on Project Castaway Discord regarding the challenges first time players of the game are having. Do you have suggestions on how to make the beginning of the game more intuitive to play? This is specifically directed at learning the game mechanics, journal options, quests etc. Things we have learned along the way that would have made our journey in the game easier when we were first starting out. Please let's keep this positive and helpful, this is not meant to be a venting/negative post. Thank you.

Some suggestions I have already:
1. Make a separate tutorial gameplay option to learn the basics. It can me a choice to play it or just jump right in.
2. Make a tutorial page in the journal that gets ticked off as you learn a skill,
3. Pause/stop time when you are using the journal so that you have time to figure out what you are looking for/learning.
4. I suggested putting in to make the palm bed for saving the game right after cutting down the palm tree and eating/drinking the coconut. That just makes sense and you then have already saved the game and can explore without dying from a Komodo or falling from the Radio Tower: hands up to anyone that this has happened to, multiple times!
5, Or make the game save automatically so you don't lose your progress. Maybe make saving the game part of a Difficulty setting.
6, If not in the tutorial, find someplace to teach how to use the items in the game like the furnace, prep table, disassembly table etc.
7. I just got this one from a conversation here on Steam: Give more detailed keybind/controller options. There is one in the options menu, but it does not include all of binds you can use.

That is all I have for now, I hope to hear some more great ideas. The Devs do read these post, so let's be helpful to make this game great for new and old players!

[WillieSea]

The game beginning is difficult for a new player, trying to figure out what you are supposed to do before you die.

I had to watch a youtube video for beginners from MajecticKarLyn which really helped me out in the beginning. If the tutorial could do the same that would be great!

Beginner:
1. Find a rock, and smash it on the ground to get stone shards, pick them up.

2. Find a stick on the ground and pick it up.

3. Press "b" to enter the build/journal and click on the tools icon on the left side, then click on the stone axe.

4. Chop 2 palm trees and collect the coconuts and based on your hunger/thirst press "e" and hold "e" while hovering your mouse over the coconut to eat/drink it.

5. Press "b" and start the build of a palm bed on the ground. Now you will need to collect the palm fronds from when you chopped the palm trees down, you can carry 4 at a time. Collect them and bring them to the palm bed and press "r" to add the palm fronds to the palm bed. Repeat until it has been built.

6. You can 'e' use the bed to sleep and also to save your game.
TIP: Always set the sleep time to 12 hours and use the 'wake up' button (was the 'sleep' button) to get up when your energy is full again.
TIP: Save in two slots so if something goes wrong you have two saves you can go back to.

7. From the build menu find the camp fire (with rocks) and place it on the ground next to your bed. Find rocks (you can carry 3 at a time) and sticks to finish the build of the campfire.
TIP: Kill a small crab or bird for their meat which you can cook on the campfire. The campfire has three locations you can drag from your backpack to the little circles on the campfire stones. Now you can start the fire and press "f" really fast to start the fire.
TIP: When done cooking, put the fire out to conserve fuel.
TIP: If your body temp gets to 96F you will start to die. Use the campfire or standing torch to keep warm by bringing your core temp back up to 98.8F.

8. From the build menu find the lean-to shelter and place it over the bed and campfire. This will protect you from the weather while sleeping and it will also keep the campfire from going out. You will need to chop down more palm trees.
TIP: Big sticks can be made by chopping a log, or by finding chop-able 'branches' on the ground, or by finding small "trees' that you can chop down for 2 big sticks.

9. You will need rope so from the build menu find the spinning wheel and set it down for building. Find all the items you need and bring them to the wheel to build it.
TIP: The yucca plant is a smallish plant with spiky leaves that point upwards.
TIP: Find Yucca plants and chop them down and pick up the yucca leaves. Go to the spinning wheel and press "e" to load the leaf, then press and hold "e" to spin it into rope. Press "e" again to pick up the rope.

10. From the build menu find the water capture item from the 'gear' icon tab. Place it and find the things you need to build it.
TIP: You need banana trees which are shortish trees with big dark green leafy fronds. It will also drop 3 banana's that you can eat. Eat them before they go rotten.
TIP: You will also need a turtle shell, use the axe and follow them around until you kill one. Hover your aiming reticle over it and press and hold "e" until it breaks apart. Bring the shell to the water capture.

TIP: Your tools will wear out, so you will have to continue making more. Once you build a disassembly table you can deconstruct your tools before they wear out, then pick up the resources and rebuild the tool for 100% tool health.

11. Make your raft base, a good size being 2 or 3 by 2 or 3.
TIP: The tire base requires 2 tires each, don't bother making until you have the tires. The same is true with the barrel base.

12. Build a sail or two on your raft.
TIP: Two sails give the best speed ratio. Having more sails is actually slower.

13. Build a raft rudder on your boat.
TIP: It does not need to be in the back, I build mine in the center of the boat with raft base all around it and it still turns the raft.

14. You can build a canopy on your raft if you like. It can be used in "free" advanced materials storage.

Intermediate:
*Such topics as a pickaxe and mining ores. The how to smelt the metal ores into ingots.
*Making a stone hammer and building your first buildings.
*Farming, composting, planting, bug repellents, harvesting.
*Making tool racks, standing torch in your buildings.
*Using the Hammer to break down junk items found in the game for their parts.
*Finding quest items and using the Journal to advance the quests so more quest items will appear.

[MajesticKarLyn]

Good information!

[WillieSea]

Farming needs a total rework. Because of infestations it is unreliable especially to a new player as I have no idea how to make pesticides in the beginning and I could not figure out if the cans of insect spray would help or not. I still have not figured out what those cans are for and I have collected quite a few of them...

I should be able to use a 'dose' from the insect spray can to kill bugs on an infested plant. Each can should hold at least 10 uses.

Since so much time passes looking in the "B" key menu I never look in there. But I am guessing there is a spray you can make but since you cannot "harvest" the fruits of plants, you have to "destroy" plants to harvest them in the wild, you would soon run out of ingredients for homemade insect sprays.

Wild plants and plants in your garden should be able to be harvested once every two to four weeks.

And infestations should be based more off if you are attracting dragonflies and your killing the other bugs you find crawling around. Like those beetles, butterflies, and snails.

The scarecrow and windmill should also help lower the chance of infestations.

This would make the mechanic much more useful to the player.

Or add some insect traps you can build around your farm.

[MajesticKarLyn]

So far for me, just making sure that the plants are watered and you have used compost in the plots has stopped them from getting bugs. Another thing to keep checking out I suppose.

[heidi2854]

der insekten-spay ist für den spieler, spühe dich damit ein, also benutze es und du wirst sehen wie spinnen und andere insekten sofort kehrt machen und dich nicht mehr verfolgen,

[MajesticKarLyn]

Originally posted by heidi2854:

der insekten-spay ist für den spieler, spühe dich damit ein, also benutze es und du wirst sehen wie spinnen und andere insekten sofort kehrt machen und dich nicht mehr verfolgen,

Thank you for posting. This is already a function in the game. We are looking for suggestions for something they should add to the game for when you start out that would help the player to learn how to play the game and how things work.