OAR'SOME: Deep Dive Strategy Guide

Overview

OAR'SOME is a cozy/chaotic rafting and nature adventure from Haymaker Games (Melbourne, Australia) for 1–8 players. It drops you and your crew into a gorgeous but unpredictable river system where every paddle stroke can mean the difference between a serene nature cruise and a raft-flipping catastrophe. Part whitewater survival sim, part party game, OAR'SOME walks a tightrope between relaxing exploration and absolute pandemonium, especially when friends are involved.

You play as one of "The Joes", a rag-tag crew including Joe Extreme (the adrenaline junkie), Big Joe (the hungry survivalist), Joe Strong (the muscle who doesn't fear the river), and Joe Slackard (the teammate who never pulls his weight). Together, or solo with AI companions, you'll navigate procedurally varied river segments, discover hidden coves and wildlife, collect resources, and try desperately not to drown before reaching the bottom of the river. It blends the tranquil joy of nature exploration with the hilarious chaos of multiplayer coordination (or the lack thereof).

Haymaker Games describes their own style as "fast-paced, action-packed, funny games that turn your friends into frenemies." OAR'SOME is exactly that, an action-packed water adventure where teamwork is the only thing keeping you from flipping into the rapids.

Target audience: OAR'SOME is for players who love cooperative mayhem, think Overcooked meets Raft with a nature-documentary backdrop. It appeals to party-game fans, cozy-game enthusiasts who still want a challenge, and multiplayer groups looking for something between the relaxed pace of A Short Hike and the frantic teamwork of Moving Out. Solo players enjoy it too, with AI companions filling the raft, but this is a game that truly sings with a full crew of 4–8.

Difficulty curve: The first river segments are gentle enough for a family game night. The later rapids demand real coordination, Class IV and V sections will test even veteran co-op crews. The difficulty scales with crew size: more players mean more chaos, more hazards, and better treasure.

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Getting Started: First 30 Minutes

Choosing Your Joe

Each Joe has a starting trait that affects your playstyle:

Pick Joe Extreme for scouting, Big Joe to keep the team fed. Joe Slackard is a fun challenge pick for experienced players, his hidden regen rewards players who master short, explosive bursts of paddling followed by drift-and-recover segments.

Controls

Gamepad recommended, the developers suggest playing with a controller. Xbox, PlayStation DualShock, and DualSense all supported.

The First River

The game drops you at the top of the river system with a simple wooden raft and a paddle. The first 10 minutes are gentle, slow currents, wide waters, no major rapids. Use this time to:

1. Get a feel for steering: Left-side paddlers turn the raft right; right-side paddlers turn it left. This counter-intuitive mechanic is the most important thing to learn.
2. Explore the riverbanks: Collect sparkling items: berries, driftwood, treasure chests.
3. Interact with everything: Press E on floating barrels, river creatures, shoreline objects.
4. Practice boost-brake rhythm: Boost through calm sections, brake before sharp bends.

The Tutorial Arc (First 5 River Segments)

• Segment 1: Straight, calm river, paddle basics
• Segment 2: Gentle curves, practice steering coordination
• Segment 3: First obstacles (logs, rocks), avoidance basics
• Segment 4: First minor rapids, whitewater introduction
• Segment 5: Branching path, exploration decision-making

By Segment 5, you should have enough resources for your first raft upgrade.

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Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

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Core Mechanics

1. Raft Navigation & Physics

The raft responds to every paddle stroke with realistic momentum, it drifts, spins, and reacts to current differently based on player positioning.

• Center of mass matters. Players crowding one side makes the raft list. Spread out.
• Currents have layers. The center flows fastest; eddies near banks are slower or reverse. Use fast currents for speed, slow ones for exploration.
• Collision response. Head-on rock collisions at speed = flip. Angle hits = spin (recoverable). Side-swipes are safest.
• Water depth. Shallow water slows the raft and damages the hull. Deep water is fast but hides submerged rocks.

The Paddle Grid (4-player optimal):

• Front Left: Left-forward motion
• Front Right: Right-forward motion
• Back Left: Left-reverse (braking/turning)
• Back Right: Right-reverse

For straight-line speed, all four paddle forward in sync. For turns, the front paddler on the desired turn side paddles harder while the opposite back paddler brakes.

2. Stamina, Boost & Resource Management

Every action consumes Stamina, displayed as a shared bar at the top of the screen.

Always keep 20% stamina in reserve when entering rapids. Emergency boosts to avoid obstacles are often life-saving. Food items (berries, fish) collected from shorelines can be consumed for an instant stamina burst.

The boost meter fills up fast when idle, don't hoard it. The game even hints at this in the trailer segments: boost through slow water, conserve through rapids.

3. Exploration & Secrets

The river system is hand-crafted with procedural variation, major landmarks stay fixed, but obstacles, collectibles, and wildlife shuffle each playthrough.

Haymaker Games built OAR'SOME around three pillars that the Steam page calls out:

PADDLE!: Keep rowing. You need to work with your friends to make it to the bottom of the river. Synchronize your rowing to navigate dangerous obstacles and wild river rapids.

EXPLORE!: A vast world full of beautiful rivers and unique landmarks. Make tough decisions on which path to follow, making each trip different.

SURVIVE!: Each bump and crash hurts you and your boat. Use items wisely to survive the journey.

What to look for:

• Sparkling items on riverbanks, driftwood, moss, river stones, gold nuggets. Your main source of upgrade currency.
• Caves behind waterfalls: Several major waterfalls hide cave entrances with high-value treasure and rare blueprints.
• Wildlife interactions: Press E on beavers, deer, fish for bonus points and secret path reveals.
• Floating debris: Barrels and crates contain raft cosmetics and character skins.
• Shoreline camps: Abandoned camps with supplies, lore notes, and NPC side objectives.

The Mural System: Hidden ancient stone murals throughout the river. Collecting all murals in a section unlocks a secret shortcut bypassing the area's toughest rapids, worth hunting for in co-op.

4. Raft Customization & Upgrades

Between river segments you return to the Riverside Camp hub to spend resources on upgrades.

Cosmetics: Raft skins, character outfits, paddle designs, banner flags, purely visual but a major completionist goal.

5. Game Modes

• Solo Adventure: You + AI companions who follow basic commands via radial menu. Good for learning layouts.
• Co-op Campaign: 2–8 players, no AI. Difficulty scales with crew size.
• Party Mode: Up to 8 players on larger rafts. Hazards doubled. Scoring based on style points (tricks, near-misses, synchronized paddling).

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Progression Strategy

The Upgrade Economy

Resources come in four currencies: driftwood (common, from banks and debris), river stones (from shallow beds and eddies), moss (from shaded banks and caves), and gold nuggets (rare, from treasure chests and waterfall caves). Driftwood is your workhorse; gold is your endgame currency.

Upgrade priority order for a first playthrough:

The gold economy: Gold nuggets are rare and only reliably found in waterfall caves and treasure chests. Don't spend them on cosmetics early, at least one gold upgrade (often a hidden fourth-tier upgrade in each category) is gated behind them.

Resource Farming Routes

The river rewards deliberate farming:

• Narrow channels pack 2–3x more collectibles per meter than wide channels. If you need driftwood or moss, take every narrow branch.
• Eddy pockets behind large rocks hold river stones. Spend 20 seconds in each eddy and you'll double your stone income.
• Waterfall caves are the only reliable gold source. Each waterfall in the river system has a cave, mark them on your mental map and hit them every run.
• Shoreline camps respawn supplies over time. If you're stuck on a resource threshold, loop back through previously cleared camps.

What to Unlock First

• Joe Strong is the best early-game character for solo players, his push power trivializes obstacle-heavy segments.
• Stability 2 before any cosmetic purchase. In a 4+ player crew, the raft WILL get tilted by bad sync; stability is insurance.
• The mural shortcuts are the single best time-savers. Prioritize mural hunting in segments you replay.

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Builds & Tier Lists

Joe Tier List

Raft Loadout Archetypes

Character-Raft Synergy Pairs

• Joe Extreme + Speed Demon: maximum velocity, great for the "wide channel" speedrun line.
• Big Joe + Explorer: long farming expeditions with food to spare.
• Joe Strong + Tank: the immovable object; you can push through almost anything.
• Joe Slackard + Party Boat: hidden regen + max stability = the raft never flips and never stops.

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Step-by-Step Strategy

Sequence 1: Clean First Segment (Solo)

1. Pick Joe Strong. Equip nothing yet, spend nothing.
2. Paddle in 3-stroke bursts, then drift for 1 second to let stamina regen. Never paddle continuously.
3. Stay 2–3 raft-lengths from the right bank. This puts you in the slow current layer where collectibles cluster.
4. Collect every sparkling item. Do NOT boost in segment 1, bank the stamina.
5. At the end, take the narrow branch (left). It has 2x the collectibles.
6. At camp: buy Hull 1. You should have ~60 driftwood by now.

Sequence 2: Surviving First Rapids (Class II–III)

1. Approach rapids with 100% stamina. If below 80%, park in an eddy first.
2. Slow down 5 seconds before the first whitecap. Short taps only, no full paddling.
3. Designate one player (or yourself) as spotter. Call obstacles 2 seconds early.
4. Hit the first drop at an angle, not head-on. Angle hits spin (recoverable); head-on flips.
5. After the drop, immediately boost 1 second to clear the churn zone.
6. Recover in the next eddy. Check hull damage. If below 50% hull, consider resetting to checkpoint.

Sequence 3: The Mural Shortcut Hunt (Co-op)

1. Before launching segment 7–10, assign the Looter role to one player.
2. The Looter stays on the bank side, spamming E on every surface.
3. The rest of the crew keeps the raft in the slow current layer.
4. Murals appear as glowing stone slabs on vertical rock faces, often behind waterfalls or in dead-end coves.
5. When a mural is found, park in the nearest eddy and have one player jump out to interact.
6. Collect all murals in a section to unlock the shortcut. Use it on your next replay to skip the worst rapid.

Sequence 4: Farming Run (Resources)

1. Build the Explorer loadout first (Storage 3, Stability 2, Hull 3).
2. Take EVERY narrow channel. Wide channels are for speedruns, not farming.
3. In each eddy, spend 15–20 seconds collecting stones before moving on.
4. Hit every shoreline camp, they respawn driftwood and food.
5. Detour to every waterfall cave for gold nuggets.
6. Expect a farming run to take 1.5x longer than a normal run but yield 3x the resources.

Sequence 5: Party Mode Score Run

1. Crew of 6–8. Party Boat loadout (Stability 3 first).
2. Sync paddling in 4-count rhythm: "1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4", synchronized strokes grant style points.
3. Deliberately near-miss rocks (not hits) for style multipliers. A near-miss is worth 2x a clean dodge.
4. Ride the wave crest of Class III rapids for "air" style points.
5. Never let the raft fully stop, momentum builds a combo multiplier.
6. Finish the segment with all crew on board; a full-crew landing doubles the end-of-segment bonus.

Sequence 6: Speedrun Line (Advanced)

1. Joe Extreme + Speed Demon loadout.
2. Take the WIDE channel every split, fastest current, fewest obstacles.
3. Boost through every calm section. Bank stamina only for rapids.
4. In rapids, hold the center current line, it's the fastest and, paradoxically, the safest if you keep speed.
5. Skip all collectibles except gold nuggets. Gold is the only resource worth a detour.
6. Use mural shortcuts for any segment you've already cleared.
7. Expect 20–30% faster segment times once the line is memorized.

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Advanced Strategies

1. The Eddy Hop Technique

Eddies are calm pockets behind obstacles where the current reverses. Use them to:

• Pause and scout the next rapid section
• Recover stamina without being swept downstream
• Access hidden shore areas the main current passes too quickly

How to execute: Approach a large rock or river bend and paddle hard toward the upstream side of the obstacle. The current pushes you into the eddy behind it. Scout ahead, then boost out to rejoin the main current. Mastering this lets you navigate rapids in controlled segments.

2. Crew Specialization

Advanced crews assign specialized roles:

• The Brakeman: Stays at the back, uses timed brake strokes to pivot the raft through tight S-bends.
• The Looter: Leans to one side, spams E on collectibles as the crew passes without slowing the raft.
• The Rescue Diver: Deliberately hops off to retrieve shoreline collectibles too shallow for the raft, swimming to catch up downstream.
• The Rhythm Caller: Calls paddle timing. "Left paddle... right brake... BOOST now!" Can shave minutes off each segment.

3. Rapids Classification

4. Shore Scouting

Before Class IV/V rapids, park in a safe eddy and send one player ahead on foot. Riverside paths let a solo player scout the rapid layout, rock positions, current breaks, ideal lines. Adds a minute but prevents catastrophic flips.

5. Branching Path Economics

The river frequently splits. The rule of thumb:

• Wide channels = faster current, fewer collectibles
• Narrow channels = slower, more collectibles, often secret areas

For speedruns, take the wide path. For resource farming, take the narrow path. For first playthroughs, alternate, you'll never see everything in one run.

6. Communication Protocols

OAR'SOME supports Steam voice. For smooth co-op:

• Use callouts: "Rock left!" "Big drop ahead!" "Collectible on right!"
• Countdown paddle syncs: "Paddling on 3... 2... 1... NOW"
• Asymmetric steering: 2 players paddle forward, 2 handle steering taps. Never all 4 steering.
• The Ghost Passenger: With odd-numbered crews (3, 5, 7), the odd player acts as dedicated spotter/looter.

7. Crafting Your Loadout Per Segment

Each river segment has a different character. Before launching:

• Narrow, obstacle-heavy segments → Bring Joe Strong (push power) and invest in Stability
• Long open stretches → Joe Extreme for speed, prioritize Speed upgrades
• Resource-rich branching paths → Big Joe with Storage upgrades
• Boss or rapid-dense segments → Full Hull upgrades + Joe Slackard (his hidden regen lets him keep boosting)

8. Reading the Water

The river communicates constantly. Learn its language:

• A dark smooth line between rocks = the main current channel. Follow it for speed.
• A V-shaped ripple pointing downstream = submerged rock just below the surface. Steer around it, you cannot see the rock itself.
• Boiling, bubbly water = a strong upward current or a hydraulic. Stay clear; these flip rafts.
• A glassy patch among waves = an eddy or a deep pocket. Safe harbor, often with collectibles.
• Waves that break in place = stationary obstacle (rock, log jam) vs. waves that move = surface disturbance.

9. The Ten-Second Pause

Before any major rapid, pause in an eddy, look downstream, and pick a line. Point at the gap you want to hit and tell your crew. That ten-second conversation saves more flips than any upgrade. This single habit separates crews that clear Class V from crews that reset six times.

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FAQ

Q: When will OAR'SOME be released? A: Listed as upcoming on Steam with a projected late 2026 window. Wishlist to be notified at launch.

Q: Is it free-to-play? A: No, it's a paid title. Pricing hasn't been announced yet.

Q: What platforms? A: Windows PC via Steam. No console, Mac, or Linux ports confirmed.

Q: Does it support cross-platform play? A: Not announced. Since the initial release is PC-only, cross-play isn't yet relevant.

Q: How long is the river? A: First playthrough: ~4–6 hours. Completionists (all murals, collectibles, cosmetics): 10–15 hours. Party Mode is effectively endless.

Q: Can I play solo? Is it fun? A: Yes. AI companions handle basic paddling. Less chaotic but still enjoyable, more of a relaxing nature exploration.

Q: Controller support? A: Yes, Xbox, PlayStation DualShock, and DualSense controllers supported. Mix keyboard/mouse with controllers. The developers recommend playing with a controller.

Q: Couch co-op player limit? A: Up to 8 in Party Mode. 4-player couch co-op is the sweet spot for Campaign Mode.

Q: Is there friendly fire? A: No direct friendly fire, but poorly timed paddle strokes can knock teammates off the raft. This is intentional design and considered comedy.

Q: What happens if a player falls off? A: The swimmer can paddle back to the raft by holding E near it. Meanwhile, the raft continues downstream. Abandoned players respawn at the last checkpoint after 30 seconds.

Q: How do I get into playtesting? A: Join the Haymaker Games Discord through the link on their website or Steam page. They're actively recruiting playtesters for new titles.

Q: What languages does the game support? A: English only at launch, with full audio, interface, and subtitles.

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System Requirements

Only Windows is supported, no Mac, no Linux. The game is Steam Deck compatible through Windows emulation.

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Final Tips

The three pillars of the game match three phases of every segment:

First, PADDLE: get your rhythm down. Sync strokes, use boost strategically, learn the paddle grid.

Second, EXPLORE: every branching path, every shoreline, every cave behind a waterfall holds something valuable. The game rewards curiosity more than speed.

Third, SURVIVE: upgrades matter. Hull Strength first, then Paddle Efficiency, then what fits your playstyle. Never enter Class IV rapids without at least Hull level 3.

The best upgrade isn't in the upgrade tree, it's in your head. Learn to read the river. That dark line between two rocks is the current, your friend. That V-shaped ripple ahead means a submerged rock, steer around it. The river talks constantly in ripples, eddies, and wave patterns. Once you learn its language, OAR'SOME transforms from a comedy of errors into a beautiful, flowing dance, with occasional, glorious disasters.

Haymaker Games built this from Melbourne with a clear vision: make rafting with friends the most fun you can have in a river without getting wet. From the vibrant color palette (#9E1D20 reds against #F4E7CA cream riverbanks, #FAAF40 orange accents) to the character animations of Joe Slackard barely paddling, every detail reinforces the tone, cozy when you want it, chaotic when you don't.

One final practical tip: Before you hit a major rapid section, pause in an eddy, look downstream, and pick a line. Point at the gap you want to hit and tell your crew. That ten-second conversation saves more flips than any upgrade.

Paddles up, Hosers.