How to Fish Boat, Engine and Radar Upgrade Guide
Contents
The boat is your transport, your storage and half your progression at once. Three separate achievements hang off it, and the percentages show exactly where players stall.
Buying order
| Item | Price | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Handheld radar | $10 | first island (lighthouse) |
| Engine upgrade | $230 | vendor |
| Best engine | further up the branch | I am speed achievement (62.3%) |
The $10 radar is the cheapest and most useful purchase in the game. It shows where the fish are, which stops the first few hours from being random casts. Buy it at the lighthouse, before any weapon.
Why the engine beats weapons early
You travel constantly between the five islands: the boss lure is bought in one place, the target sits in another, the carcass goes to a third NPC. A weak engine turns each of those into minutes of waiting.
The numbers back it up: Getting an upgrade (“upgrade the engine on the boat”) sits at 86.5% — nearly everyone. But I am speed (“buy the best engine for the boat”) is only 62.3%. That 24-point gap is the players who did the first upgrade and stopped there.
The three boat achievements
| Achievement | % of players | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Getting an upgrade | 86.5 | upgrade the engine on the boat |
| I am speed | 62.3 | buy the best engine for the boat |
| I’m the bird now | 26.2 | make the boat fly |
I’m the bird now is the rarest of the three and the strangest. The condition reads literally: “make the boat fly”. ⚠️ The developers have not documented a reliable method anywhere, so we are not inventing one. The only thing the patch notes state for certain is that patch 1.0.10 limited the maximum velocity an item receives from an explosion. Explosives are therefore connected to the mechanic, but Dazed Games published no details.
What the patches changed
- 1.0.4 (21 August) — a clearer path to the final island.
- 1.0.5 (22 August) — fixed a bug that blocked travel to an already-unlocked island.
- 1.0.10 (27 August) — dropped items persist between sessions (up to 64, prioritising weapons, tools, quest items and creatures), the X death marker was removed from the radar, and items falling through the level were fixed.
The 64-item point matters in practice: the boat effectively became storage, and carcasses you did not manage to sell no longer vanish when you quit.
Next
Where to spend what you earn — the money guide and weapons and attachments. The boss order island by island is here. The full achievement list with percentages is here.
Frequently asked questions
What should I buy first?
The handheld radar for $10 on the first island. It is the cheapest purchase in the game and it shows you where the fish actually are.
How much is the boat upgrade?
$230 for the first engine upgrade. The Getting an upgrade achievement for it sits at 86.5% of players.
How many islands are there?
Five: lighthouse, forest, desert, rocks, volcano. Each one opens after the previous island's boss.
What is the I am speed achievement?
Buying the best engine for the boat. It sits at 62.3% of players — roughly one in three stops at an intermediate engine.
Do items left in the boat disappear?
No. Patch 1.0.10 of 27 August 2026 made dropped items persist between sessions — up to 64 are kept, prioritising weapons, tools, quest items and creatures.