You don't. You buy it from Steam like everyone else:
Anonymous Helper
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This is free early prototype/demo of commercial game Raft. The full game is currently in Early Access on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648800/Raft/
Raft never had kickstarter or other crowd funding campaign. It was originally a school/hobby project by 3 Swedish university students during their final year in the university in 2016 - 2017. It became so popular that the three decided to turn it into a commercial game after graduation.
https://raft-game.com/presskit.html
Plenty of people have copied the concept since, especially on mobile, but this is the original prototype that started it all.
Possible fix for blue screen when joining friend server:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/648800/discussions/0/2992045158712094694/
In the Steam version, you can change the water quality and disable real time reflections. You can also enable motion sickness mode that will keep the sea calm which improves performance somewhat. You can also change overall graphics quality and quality of textures, though I'm not sure how much if any they effect the sea/water.
You need the Steam version of Raft. The prototype/demo available here is single player only. You need to be Steam Friends with the host and host has to make sure that they've chosen "friends can join" (default option) when setting up the game. If you have no friends who own Raft, you can look for people to play with on Raft Forums on Steam or Raft Discord.
Steam version is highly integrated with Steamworks to the point it'll outright crash if it loses connection with Steam. Whole multiplayer aspect of the game is build on Steamworks. I highly doubt they'll go thru all the trouble decoupling the game from Steam and rebuilding the Steamworks dependent parts just to offer the game on another store. It's far more likely that if they ever consider starting selling the game on Itch or other stores, it would be them just selling Steam keys for the game.
In any case, the developers current plan is to complete the game on Steam first before considering future prospects (whether or not to port the game to Mac or Linux or porting the game to consoles or other platforms) or before committing to anything else.
Newest versions on itch.io are 1,05b for Windows and 1.04 for Mac/Linux. Those builds are from 2017. If you want newer version you need to buy the game from Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/648800/Raft/
The free prototype available on itch.io version is no longer being updated.
You can... in the Steam version. They also just added 65 new decoration and furniture to the game.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/648800/announcements/detail/3016830306058776858
And no, itch.io Raft prototype is no longer being updated. All future updates are only for Steam version.
Mac download link works just fine. Just tested it. Make sure you don't have anything active that may interfere with the download.
If you have problems getting it to run, there is possible workaround to get game working few posts up by Joshua5. Can't confirm it as I don't own a Mac.
The free prototype of Raft offered here will never be updated. You can get updated version of Raft on Steam, though that's Windows only. Other platforms (MacOS, Linux or Consoles) will not be considered until Windows version is fully complete.
Do note that Steam does not currently support ARM based macs and they have not announced any plans to do so. Supporting Intel based Macs on the other hand is rather pointless as they'll be phased out by Apple by the time game is out of Early Access.
There is Creative Mode in the Steam version of the game (Raft can't move and there are no islands or anything else to discover in that mode though). There is not going to be further updates to the free prototype available here.
There are no islands or sails in this free Raft prototype. You'll need to buy the Steam version to get those and more.
Don't remember if the way it works is same in the prototype but in the Steam version you equip the hammer and hold right click to bring up the building menu.
To host a game you start or load a world normally while choosing 'allow friends to join' at startup, so yes, you have to be playing to host a game. There are no dedicated servers if that's what you're asking.
You could get yourself incapacitated and leave the game running while at that state then revive/respawn when you want to play but do note that time will pass even if no one else is in the game and Bruce will continue to chew the raft unless it's reinforced. Also do that take into account any restriction and consequences game more you're playing has (like inability respawn normally on hard).
By going to game's Steam Store page, buying the game, then installing it using Steam. It's 33% off till December 1st right now.
What you see here is just free early prototype of the game.
If you own the game on Steam already, you'll need to visit the Radio Tower, Vasagatan and Balboa Island first. On Balboa Island you'll get code that allows you to get to Caravan Island, first of the two story locations introduced in Chapter 2 update.
Most likely issue is that the Mac version is 32-bit application and you may be aware that Apple removed 32-bit application support from their operating system. Unfortunately unless someone develops a way to run 32-bit applications on newer Mac operating systems, the only way to make the game work would be going back to a version of MacOS that supports 32-bit applications.
While I fully understand the sentiment, further development was never promised. It was released as is from the start. They were very upfront about it.
As members of the team went their own ways after graduation, further development is difficult as code and game assets are owned by individual members of the team so no individual member can continue to develop the game without permission from all the other members who are now scattered all over Sweden.
It would probably be easier to restart the project from scratch.
After graduation some of the former Anchored devs have gone to create games like Raft and Frog Climbers.
Well it is a Prototype that the developers created on their spare time while they were still students at Uppsala University. A prototype is supposed to showcase basic functionality and the core concept of a game. It became surprisingly popular (with over 7 million downloads in half a year since release) so devs decided to make a full commercial game out of it instead of finding work and continuing to work on Raft just as a hobby on their spare time once they graduated.
RAFT HISTORY
Raft started as a student project at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland fall 2016. A group of three students spent around 15 weeks half-time to create a prototype for a survival game set on an endless ocean. Said prototype was released for free on Itch.io December 19th, 2016, right before christmas. While the group was home on christmas break, Raft was starting to get noticed by more and more youtubers and gained a lot of traction on Itch.io.
By the end of May the prototype had been downloaded over 7 million times and was covered by several major youtubers such as Jacksepticeye, Markiplier and FGTeeV. This type of response came as quite the shock to the developers. They quickly decided to keep developing Raft into something bigger and better. With their sights set on a Steam Early Access release in 2018 they met with Scrap Mechanic developers Axolot Games in search for an investor and publisher. With their common passion for survival games both parties felt this was a perfect match and soon after decided to work together. With the support of Axolot Games, the team founded the studio Redbeet Interactive, moved to Skövde and continued the development of Raft.
Please submit a bug report so the developers can take a look here:
https://support.redbeetinteractive.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
In future, post in Steam forums or send any bug reports using the above link above as this is a forum for the prototype that is no longer supported and forums aren't really monitored by the devs anymore.
They're interested looking into possibility of console port once game is finished the game on PC. Do bear in mind the team is still small (8 people, 7 of them developers), and inexperienced (their first ever commercial game, no experience with consoles). Raft currently lacks controller support that is crucial for console port and either needs lot of optimization or needs to be restructured in a way that consoles can handle it. Also even with most generous guesstimate, Raft will take at least another year and half to complete (this assumes game story line is no longer than 3-4 chapters, no other major content additions are needed (unlikely) and there is no major system overhauls are needed along the way (not a change)).
So you'll just have to wait and see how things go. Lot can change in couple years.
I'm not sure that's easily fixable. It's well known that larger your raft, the more demanding the game becomes and longer it'll take to load. If your raft is humongous, you could try waiting 15 minutes to see if raft is rendered eventually.
You could also try this workaround:
The screen stays black when joining someone
Lower your graphic settings before joining and then return them to your normal settings after you loaded in.
you download either V1.05b_Raft_Win32.zip (download win32 only if you have 32-bit operating system) or V1.05b_ Raft_Win64.zip and extract the archive to your computer. They contain the executable and all the game files in them packed into zip archive.
Do note that this is three year old prototype of Raft and contains far less features than the commercial version on Steam.
The Steam version of Raft is Windows only as stated in the system requirements on the Steam store page and developers are first and foremost focusing on completing the game on Windows platform. While they would like to support more platforms in the future, they can't give any promises. More than likely decisions about other platforms will have to wait until Raft is near or at full release which will probably take at least another year, year and half.
No. This is early free prototype from 2016-2017 from the time the developers were still students. Steam version is far more developed and is still being actively developed.
RAFT HISTORY
Raft started as a student project at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland fall 2016. A group of three students spent around 15 weeks half-time to create a prototype for a survival game set on an endless ocean. Said prototype was released for free on Itch.io December 19th, 2016, right before Christmas. While the group was home on Christmas break, Raft was starting to get noticed by more and more Youtubers and gained a lot of traction on Itch.io.
By the end of May the prototype had been downloaded over 7 million times and was covered by several major Youtubers such as Jacksepticeye, Markiplier and FGTeeV. This type of response came as quite the shock to the developers. They quickly decided to keep developing Raft into something bigger and better. With their sights set on a Steam Early Access release in 2018 they met with Scrap Mechanic developers Axolot Games in search for an investor and publisher. With their common passion for survival games both parties felt this was a perfect match and soon after decided to work together. With the support of Axolot Games, the team founded the studio Redbeet Interactive, moved to Skövde and continued the development of Raft.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
Redbeet Interactive is a very small studio of four people founded in 2017. It is based in Skövde, Sweden and consists of two graphics artists and two programmers who all attended the game design program at Uppsala University, Campus Gotland. The studio is currently developing Raft, which is the company's first project.
This free prototype of Raft? No, it's single player only. Steam version does support multiplayer however.