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.

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: classic (1992 VGA pixel look) and modern (gradients and effects).

Commands (⇧⌘P)

Castaway: Start Island Session — open the island in an editor panel
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 — classic (default) or modern
vscode-castaway.position — panel (default) or explorer (sidebar view)
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