Castaway for VS Code

Castaway demo: drone delivery, campfire at night, and the robot vacuum

A Johnny Castaway–style island survivor who lives in your editor — built on the architecture of vscode-pets, with the 1992 desert-island premise dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. He has a phone. It has no bars. A drone delivers packages. They contain socks.

Scenes

The classics — idle, fishing, raft building (with a proper two-handed stone mallet), sleeping, jogging (now with smartwatch step-goal celebrations), coconut gathering, watching the horizon, and making fire — a real one, with a driftwood teepee, a stone ring, rising embers, and drifting smoke.

The modern conveniences

Scene	What happens
Drone Delivery	A quadcopter winches down a smiling cardboard box. Contents: one of 20 disappointments (bulk mayonnaise, a snow shovel, someone else's returns...).
Searching for Signal	Phone held aloft. Zero bars. Occasionally one bar, briefly, cruelly.
Island Selfie	Selfie stick, countdown, flash, `#castaway #day2947 #blessed`.
Doomscrolling	Sitting in the phone glow, refreshing a feed with no new posts.
Video Call	Phone propped on a delivery box. Buffering. Buffering. Call failed.
Satellite Internet	Dish, laptop, `RESCUE_MAP.ZIP` at 2%, ETA 14 years.
Food Delivery	A delivery jetski passes by. It's the wrong island.
Robot Vacuum	It came in one of the boxes. It cruises, bumps, spins in place, and wanders off in a new direction. The sand gets tidied eventually.
Wilson	A volleyball is a fine conversationalist.
Stargazing	Shooting stars, a passing satellite, and one very specific wish.
Password Reset	The login code was sent via SMS. To his phone. The one with no bars.
Message in a Bottle	Shipped with real-time tracking: label created, awaiting pickup, ETA 2041. It's still visible from shore.
Smart Doorbell	Mounted on the palm. Motion detected: crab. Motion detected: crab (again). Worth every penny.
Targeted Advertising	A plane tows a banner past the island: `ESCAPE TO PARADISE — BOOK NOW!`
Asking the AI	"Great question! Step 1: book a ferry." The half-built raft declines to comment.
Prove You Are Not a Robot	A CAPTCHA asks him to select all squares with boats. There are no boats. He ticks them anyway. A real ship sails past behind him, unseen. Verification failed.
Daily Standup	Camera on, four tiles, one colleague who never enables video. "Any blockers?" "One. I am on an island." "Let's take that offline."
Hey Coco	A smart speaker washed up and still has power. "Call the coast guard." "Playing 'Help' by The Beatles." Now playing on all 1 devices.
Printer Says No	An inkjet made it ashore in better shape than the raft. It will print one S.O.S. just as soon as he replaces the cyan cartridge. It's a black-and-white document. Then: paper jam, tray 2. There is no tray 2.

The island follows your clock through a full day: golden sunrise, bright afternoon, orange-and-purple sunset, and a proper night — crescent moon with craters, twinkling stars, a shimmering moonlight path on the water, and fireflies over the sand. At night the world dims and the light sources take over: the campfire throws a warm glow, phone screens light Johnny's face, and delivery drones switch on red/green navigation lights and a drop-zone spotlight. Scene selection is time-aware — stargazing, doomscrolling, and sleeping at night; jogging and selfies by day.

Plus holiday easter eggs (Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick's, New Year's Eve) and two graphics modes: modern (gradients and effects, the default) and classic (1992 VGA pixel look).

Commands (⇧⌘P)

Castaway: Start Island Session — open the island where you keep it (the Explorer sidebar by default; an editor panel if position says so)
Castaway: Next Scene / Castaway: Choose Scene...
Castaway: Order a Package (Drone Delivery) — same-decade shipping
Castaway: Check the Phone — a random phone scene
Castaway: Toggle Graphics Mode (Classic/Modern)
Castaway: Pause/Resume

Settings

vscode-castaway.graphicsMode — modern (default) or classic
vscode-castaway.position — explorer (default, sidebar view) or panel
vscode-castaway.textSize — small, medium (default), large, or x-large; bump it up if speech bubbles are hard to read in the sidebar

Development

npm install
npm test          # compile + headless smoke test of every scene

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host, or open dev.html in a browser for a standalone harness with scene-picker buttons.

src/extension.ts — extension host (panel + explorer view, commands)
media/ — the webview: engine.js (loop/messages), renderer.js (classic + modern drawing), scenes.js (scene definitions), calendar.js
legacy/ — the original browser-only prototype this was ported from

Credits

A loving riff on Johnny Castaway (1992, Sierra On-Line/Dynamix) and the extension scaffolding of vscode-pets (MIT, Anthony Shaw). Not affiliated with any retailer whose logo may or may not be a smile.

Castaway