Castaway
Skip · Action · 2024
Steam Deck VerifiedThe verdict
SKIP IT.
It scores 37, under the fair line, at $2.79.
- Length
- 0.7h 4.5h to 100%
- Value
- $3.99/hr
- Reviews
- 75% of 287 positive
Full price
Today
Watch this gameOne alert at a price you pick.
Buy now or wait
Discounted in each of its last 8 seasonal sales.
- Next sale
- Winter Sale, Dec 17 to Jan 4
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
About the game
Retrieve your weapons, face bosses to save your dog in a retro adventure focused on 3 dungeons. Finish the Story mode to unlock the Survivor mode: a 50-floor "Death Tower". You'll enjoy classic mechanics, charming visual style, and an enchanting soundtrack.
Minimum specs
Minimum on the Steam store: 1 GB of memory, 205 MB of storage. Windows only.
The value story
19 discounts in the 2 years on record, a median of 45 percent off across all of them, roughly 6 weeks apart. Today's $2.79 at 65 percent off still sits 40 percent above the floor, so a deeper cut exists in its history.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 32 percent on value. The games it most resembles do better on the same math. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap ($19.99, scores 48) and MewnBase ($9.99, scores 77) both outscore it.
More about Castaway
Steam's global achievement data puts 62 percent of players at this game's ending achievement. The median game this site can measure sits at 15. This site sampled 260 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 5 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written August 2024 to August 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 68 percent of the 177 reviews written there were positive, against 75 percent overall, and those are 68 percent of everything written about it.
0.7 hours to finish it, 5 to exhaust it. The completionist tail is 6.4 times the campaign.
At 0.7 hours it is a handheld-sized game, and Valve rates it Deck Verified.
The drop-off
95% start to 62% finishSteam counts a larger share of its players at the ending achievement than it does for most games this site can measure. Steam global achievements
What players say
If Link's Awakening is a feature-length film, this is the animated short. There's lots of heart here, and it does well at being a "lean Zelda". My only real critique is the lack of rebindable controls, which leaves you stuck with some very weird action keys if you prefer a 'board to a controller.
2 more reviews, 1 not recommended
Cute game. The starting area is just a tutorial though and lasts about 20min, then you'll start the tower where the real game is. It's also short but can last longer depending on how well you deal with the 51 premade rooms. The island part you beat 3 bosses then you're forced into the tower, so there is no going back to the island at that point. I think you can only miss heart tanks that that tower will bump you...
Castaway plays like a mini Link's Awakening type of clone. Another reviewer mentioned how Xeodrifter was like a mini Metroid game, and that analogy kind of applies here. However, Xeodrifter is a much better and more in-depth game than Castaway. The main complaint you'll read about will be the length: you can beat the main game in around 30 minutes. You can play on Pacifist (with no enemies), Invincible, Normal...
Steam reviews, mixed to its ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Castaway scores 37/100 on the BANG Score (a skip) as of Oct 19, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/2564860/castawayReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 29, price as of Oct 19. A number here look wrong? Tell me and I will check the inputs.