Survive And Thrive: The Ultimate Guide To Raft Gameplay!

Hi there folks! Welcome to my post about the Raft gameplay. Raft is a unique survival game in which you must stay alive on a raft in the middle of the ocean! Sounds quite challenging right? Wait until you read the rest…

You will have to face many enemies like relentless sharks, aggressive boars, intimidating screechers, and much more! So be prepared!

One of the main objectives of the game is to survive, as I mentioned above. You will have to manage your hunger and thirst, and protect your raft and yourself from enemies! Other objectives are important too, like gathering resources from islands and the ocean, to maintain and expand your raft, craft items, and gathering food and water as well.

Exploration is also a very important objective as you will explore the open ocean, underwater locations, and islands. Once you gather enough materials you can start to go to missions and go to special islands, but more on that later on!

If you want you can share your thoughts about Raft and your experience in the game below in the comments section!

Now, I will show you a gameplay video of the beginning of Raft and how to survive the early stages of the game. Stay tuned!

The beginning gameplay of Raft!

If you watched the video or a part of it, you can see that I am playing with a friend. We were on a call at Discord so we could communicate better!

The basic controls of the game are: “tab” to go to the crafting mode, “WASD” to walk, space to jump, and “control” to crouch or dive deep into the ocean.

So, we started in the middle of the ocean in just a tiny space of a raft, with a shark in the water waiting for us just to go for a swim so it could take a bite!

What could we do? We started the game with a hook (which I am a bit clumsy using) so we could grab materials in the water by throwing them. A lot of materials float in Raft like leaves, planks, plastic, etc.

That is going to be the essence of the early game, collecting these materials so we can build the basics like the water purifier and the cooking pot, which are going to be very important to sustain your hunger and thirst bars!

In the early game, me and my friend were very lucky. Our raft got stuck on a small island and we didn’t need to use an anchor because the tide was pushing us to the island. So I crafted an axe to loot the trees and caught some food, and planks and even found a chest with some metal materials in it! Awesome right?

Shame that I didn’t try to get any metal ingot or seaweed there! I was afraid of the shark too, but should have tried it.

Like nothing is completely perfect, my friend died twice going for the ocean trying to grab the loot… the shark bit him a couple of times and it was enough. Well, at least I got in time to grab him and I lay him on the bed restoring his health, or else he would lose every item he had in his inventory if I didn’t save him!

At some point in the video, my thirst bar got pretty low, and I began to cough and even walk slower. This happens if you have a low hunger bar too. when the bar reaches the end and you don’t drink or eat, You start to lose health until the point that you may die! So be cautious with the food and water you have and don’t eat or drink everything at once!

I tried to go to another island but this time the raft didn’t get stuck on the island. We had two choices: We make a provisory anchor so we can stop at the island, or we loot the island pretty fast without making an anchor.

Well, I checked before building it and I didn’t have the materials to build one, so my friend kept on rowing the raft against the tide using a paddle. I try to loot the bottom of the island because it usually has great materials like seaweeds, metal ores, clay, and more…

But I didn’t have enough time and the shark would probably come after me so I gave up on completely looting that island. On my way from the island to the raft, almost couldn’t reach it because I stayed on the island for a while, and my friend’s paddle was almost broken! Also, I passed by seaweed and didn’t catch it, my bad!

Beneath and Beyond the Ocean’s Surface: Challenges in Raft!

In this topic, we will discuss the challenges you will find in Raft! Whether it will be on an island, beneath the water, or in the middle of the ocean there will be a lot of challenges up ahead! I will make a list and explain the dangers you have to face in different locations:

• Surviving in the open ocean: the biggest challenge you will have to face in the open ocean is the annoying shark. He won’t let you gather materials from the water without trying to bite you in return!

This will make the game challenging because sometimes the materials are scarce in the ocean, so you must carefully manage your resources, especially food and water! It would be a great idea to craft a cup and a water purifier if you have the resources for it… Also, a fishing rod to catch fish, which is expensive, but worth it!

You can also create chests to fill them if you want, to organize your materials, or if you simply need more space! Cool, right? You can even craft some banners and write the name of the resource you have in store, or the type of resource!

• Exploring underwater: This exploration method only works better if you are close to an island because that is where you will find all the good loot in Raft! From the metal ores, which you can upgrade most of your materials, to the seaweed which you can craft an oxygen bottle and hold your breath much longer underwater, or flippers so you can dive and swim faster!

Of course, like most of the time, the shark will be there to bite you! So I believe the best strategy is, to kill the shark or do a shark bait which I don’t find the shark bait very useful because it doesn’t last long and it’s a bit expensive. the best method is to kill it. Once you can kill the shark, you will have some minutes until it respawns.

You have to make the most of this time, while the shark is dead, to catch these materials that I mentioned above! There are a lot of other resources to catch underwater like sand and clay to make the smelter, stone, giant clams, and even some hidden treasures!

I forgot to mention you will need to create an anchor if you want to stop at an island you can use a provisory anchor, which you can use one time only. You can also create one stationary anchor which you can use infinite times! It’s worth, but expensive!

• Adventures on islands: There are a lot of different biomes in Raft so the islands can vary from one place to another! As you advance in the game the islands will change as well, starting to get more difficult. These islands can have hills, caves, cliffs, and sometimes can be a challenge to navigate on them.

There are bigger islands where creatures will spawn. They can be harmless like goats or small birds, but there are some hostile creatures like warthogs, bears screechers, and a lot more, as you advance in the game! You will need to be well-prepared for them. For example, crafting a bow and arrows will help a lot against screechers…

Islands are one of the most important aspects to advance and finish the game. So go explore those islands and beyond!

So what are your thoughts about these challenges? I hope you are as interested as I am! Now I challenge you to try it for yourself! Let me know in the comments down below what you think!

Journey to the Radio Tower: Crafting the Receiver and Setting Sail!

• Expanding your raft: Don’t forget that one of the most important objectives of this game is that you need to expand your raft not only to organize your items better but also to protect them from shark attacks, which can destroy your raft bit by bit. Also if you have an item in the space that the shark is destroying, it will be destroyed as well. So be careful with your items!

Also with more space on the raft, you can make more nets to collect your materials automatically, just like I did in the video. Don’t forget to protect them with another foundation in front of the nets so the shark doesn’t destroy them. Also don’t forget to turn the raft to the side of the tide to catch more resources on the net as well.

• Setting up the receiver: In the video I already had the receiver crafted, so I just needed to place it! I had two smelters in the video and they were crucial for me to complete the receiver (that’s why they are so important) because I needed the copper ingots for the batteries and the receiver itself. I also needed some metal ingots and vine goo to make tools and basically survive! The receiver and the antennas also required hinges and bolts which I also needed metal ingots for it.

So as you can see in the video, I didn’t know too well how to build the second floor and place the antennas and the receiver. it took me a while to figure out… How clumsy of me! Firstly I didn’t know I would need pillars to create the second floor and what kind of floor I should put.

But once I figured it out I was ready to put the antennas and the receiver to reach the radio tower which is the first story mission on Raft! The weather was also not ideal and the shark always destroying the raft didn’t help too… Also, I had to manage resources and food all by myself, It’s not easy to survive on raft alone! Also, I tried to sleep when it was night so you could see it better in the daytime.

As you see in the video, I also thought I could place the antennas wherever I wanted but they needed to be placed on specific locations. One antenna should be on the second floor near the receiver, and the other two on the second floor as well but with a bit distance from the receiver and those two antennas couldn’t be near each other too.

After a while I made it work and I was very happy! How was your first time placing and crafting the receiver?

• Setting sail to the radio tower: With the receiver and antennas ready, it was just a matter of time before I reached the radio tower, our first mission of the storyline! All I needed to do was put the coordinates for the Radio Tower and follow the light blue square on my receiver, which also shows the distance from my raft to the Radio Tower! I think that is pretty useful don’t you think?

The receiver also uses batteries so I needed to manage the battery’s power so I didn’t deplete all the energy. One way I can do this is not having the receiver all the time turned on, as I did on the video!

As you can see on the receiver, there are other green squares where I can go to. These squares are large islands that have hostile creatures but have a lot of good resources and are more abundant than in the smaller islands!

You will need the receiver to complete the story missions like finding the radio tower or the missions after it, but you can find large islands without the receiver, randomly.

After that, I just made two more sails so I could navigate faster and in the direction where the numbers started decreasing. I even made a paddle to accelerate the process! Meanwhile, I organized the chests since the trip was so long.

I started using the paddle and when there were like 200 meters left I started to see the radio tower! I was very happy and the music on raft was amazing too!

After a long 45 minutes of a long video, I finally arrived at the Radio Tower! It was a nice and challenging trip!

Radio Tower Quest! Complete your first mission!

First check out the gameplay of the first mission, where I uncover the secrets and the challenges that the Radio Tower has to offer! Check out the thrilling video:

As you can see in the video, I am already at the radio tower and it’s time to get out of my comfort zone and explore this eerie station! I filled my hunger and thirst bar so I could survive outside the raft while I explored the station.

The Radio Tower itself is a challenging structure filled with obstacles and brain-teasing puzzles. You will need to use “parkour” if you want to reach the top and explore everything. In the video, I show how to get passed these obstacles efficiently.

Throughout the exploration, you will encounter notes and pieces of dialogue from past survivors! We don’t encounter any survivors yet, but is thrilling to know that it could happen in the future, isn’t it? The lore can be a bit complicated at the beginning I didn’t understand quite well, and the radio tower raised more questions than answers…

Would you guys want me to make another post to continue the missions and uncover all the secrets, or do you want to try for yourself?

In the middle of all the tension of exploring the radio tower, I spotted a joke about a shark, as you can see in the video check out the video to see what was that all about! It seems even in despair, previous inhabitants kept their sense of humor which is ironic.

One intriguing and shocking discovery was a note suggesting that a member of the previous team took the boat, leaving behind the companions, questions to be answered, and a feeling of betrayal. What happened?

One of the most rewarding aspects of reaching the Radio Tower is that you will find blueprints so you can potentially upgrade your raft and craft new stuff. Also, it provides us with a backstory!

Search thoroughly through everything and check for goodies that you will find because the radio tower is full of resources and as I mentioned above, new blueprints.

The objective of this mission is to reach the top of the Radio Tower. Not only the view is amazing but, you will collect important codes for the next mission, and what a surprise! There is a person called Lala at the top of the radio tower!

She told us she could fix parts of our raft! if I wanted to talk with her I just needed to interact with her! How cool is it? From here the world of “Raft” expands, promising even greater adventures!

Do you guys want me To keep going with this gameplay? I can make another post about it! Please comment down below if you want!

A Great Conclusion ABout Raft!

So as we reach the end of this post, I just wanted to say I had a great time exploring this awesome game called “Raft”!I hope you will have as much fun as I did. Epic music, a lot of challenges, missions, and some laughter! It is a wholesome game, which you can play alone or with friends!

From our humble beginnings on a tiny raft surrounded by the endless ocean to the high-stakes exploration at the Radio Tower, we evolved a lot and explored a lot of islands! I recommend you to play this amazing game with friends.

We accomplished a lot in this gameplay! We started with only four wooden floors and made an awesome raft able to reach the radio tower.

I enjoyed the difficulties I’ve been through the entire game. Firstly crafting the grill and the water purifier so I could eat and drink on the raft. The next great challenge was to build a stationary Anchor which allowed me to stop where I wanted as I did in all the islands and at the radio tower.

The greater challenge was surviving and building the receiver at the same time! It tested my limits. Awesome! And after that, exploring the Radio Tower which was very satisfying, and also knowing there are other survivors in this world of Raft!

There is still a lot to explore! I don’t want to spoil a lot of the game so you can have fun discovering by yourselves!

Let me know in the comments below if you are eager for more discoveries and join me in anticipating our next great adventure!

Come with us on our next adventure! I will post other articles about Raft! Stay tuned for more!

Without further ado, I say goodbye to you my fellow gamers! and “see you” on our next post!

Bruno Santos (Chester)