itch.io

I've had time to read through some of the posts but not all, so sorry in advance if any of these have been mentioned or already planned.

• Great start! This is an amazing idea and fun so far. Survival at sea is fascinating and challenging and there is tons of un-tapped potential in this scenario. Please make it your own and not an armor wearing/shark fighting MMO style game (unless that's what you had in mind lol.)
• Immersion: Personally I would like to see more realism, immersion and challenge by including the following (for starters):
  1. Materials: Most metal doesn't float. Instead of floating scraps of metal, plastics are much more common to find at sea and water can be distilled in plastic containers (even boiled). Metal would be extremely rare and attached to wood or plastic. Fish bones can be used for making tools or building materials such as nails.
  2. Scarcity: I loved the traps but after an hour you have so many resources you never have to worry. Rather than tons of metal and wood planks it would be more challenging and realistic if you got a couple plastic bottles, a dead fish, some seaweed and eventually a coconut. Coconuts can be planted and the trees could become your main source of wood and fiber for base building. Barrels (crates would be more realistic) would be extremely rare.
  3. Water: You can survive several days without water. Instead of frantically boiling can after can and drinking 50 cans a day, make it about actually getting any drinkable water, and perfecting realistic water collection and storage. Also building pots/cooking stations from miraculous floating metal and starting fires from waterlogged wood as a bit off-putting. A more realistic scenario would be finding 2 plastic bottles and a trash bag and making a solar desalinator (evaporation from bottle #1 collects on trash bag, drips clean water into bottle #2.) Not only would this be more realistic, it would be more challenging and stressful since it takes all day to get a glass of water.
  4. Food: You can live for weeks without food. Food collection is too fast, catching food at sea without the right equipment is difficult and time consuming. I'd love to feel challenged just to provide a meal a day. If lost at sea, realistically you would almost starve to death before catching your first fish. After you have one you can use the guts for bait so it becomes much easier. Most fish (and many birds) can be eaten raw, which can hold you over till you can dry out some driftwood to make a fire. Managing spoilage by making fish jerky adds another dimension.
  5. Atmosphere: As anyone who has played Minecraft, Doom or 7 Days to Die knows, atmosphere can make even an average game great. I'm sure you have plans for this but even just adding quality sounds of waves, wind and creaking boards would give it that stranded and alone feel. A day/night cycle is also necessary as others have mentioned. Seasons would be interesting for heat/cold management as well as for weather. Severe weather could damage base walls or capsize poorly built boats.
• Diving: I never dared jump into the water because, why, but there is a lot of potential in building masks and snorkels out of plastic bottles. Breathing surface air from rubber tubes (would be very rare to find) could maybe get you to the ocean floor where you could gather food, shells, sand etc. Also fending off sharks with your spear while diving makes for some great game play.
• Boats: Depending on the direction you want to take with the game, if you want to make it more than a base building game then boats/exploration would be a lot of fun. I'm not a fan of island hopping (ala Don't Starve: Shipwrecked or Salt,) so I wouldn't want to see islands personally, because then surviving at sea just went out the door. However, boats would make resource collection much more proactive and there could be areas that contain resources not available near your raft etc.
• End Game: Building a base at sea is a lot of fun but is pretty one dimensional. Personally I would never want to get rescued or sail home, and those types of games always end up being too short. Maybe make a backstory similar to Waterworld (the Kevin Costner movie) and people could eventually build large boats and make long and dangerous excursions to look for rarer supplies, or possibly just live on their boat and become explorers or traders.