- Low Spec Hardware Compatibility - 16 September 2026
I am happy to say that SailSim now has the most needed settings to adjust controls for things like Screen Resolution, Scaling, FPS Cap, Anti-aliasing and Vsync as well as a small FPS preview. This was done so that people with lower end machines can adjust SailSim to run on their setup, especially on devices with integrated graphics from Intel or similar. On Windows and Linux machines you shall see an "Advanced" button in the Graphics settings which can be adjusted as needed.For those with high end machines, you can now boost the FPS for smoother playback as well as tweak the settings as you see fit. For Low End machines the most recommended settings are:Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768pxScaling: 60%FPS Cap: 30fpsAnti-aliasing: Anything BUT "TSR"VSync: OffGeneral GraphicsWorld Scalability - LowestShadows - LowestWater Simulation - Should work but check out your specific FPS countParticles -…
- General Updates & Fixes - 2 April 2026
Based on sailor feedback and suggestions, the latest SailSim update includes improvements such as Custom controls for the Steam Deck (the default possession controls were difficult to use on the deck due to different mapping configurations) which allow you to map the possession controls to your own keys. The additional controls are mentioned in the "Guide" section of the Main Menu. The race at the Shoe Horn island had an issue where for some reason the check points were incorrectly labeled. Not sure why this happened but most likely it was due to migration to the latest Unreal Engine and something i missed while rebuilding. (It happens).The Totem Protector adventure had an issue where (once again) some key points for solving the puzzle were incorrectly labeled, thus making it impossible to solve it. This is now fixed and the adventure should complete once you figure out what to do (base…
- Virtual Reality - 13 December 2025
SailSim is now also in VR! This update adds compatibility for VR users and Cross Play. Additional fixes and performance enhancements were made along with other features.VR User Support in Cross-PlayPerformance OptimizationControl Dampening (in control settings)Water Masking (in Graphics settings)Smoother controlAdditional Life at seaPossess Fixes & ImprovementsGeneral bug fixesFor the time being SailSim has been fully integrated for the Meta Quest platform natively. Now that i have the VR setup nailed down, more good things hopefully will come in future updates.
- SailSim Award Nomination - 24 November 2025
SailSim has been out for a while now, with the official release date on Steam on the 8th of June 2022. That's 3 Years of development, improvement and publications. All this time i enjoyed working on SailSim and will enjoy it hopefully for many years to come with lots of ideas on its improvement and growth.Starting on the 24th of November, you will have the chance to nominate SailSim for the "Labor of Love" award. Support SailSim by doing so. Its only few clicks on your device and would mean the world to me. Regardless of the outcome, i would like to thank everyone who support SailSim and enjoy playing it as much as i do. It is a blast working on it and i truly hope i get the opportunity and time to continue doing so for many more years to come.
- Row that Boat! - 3 November 2025
Row Boat! Felt the need to add something equivalent of a dinghy to SailSim. Its actually quite fun! All Upgrade items can now be found in SailSim, hidden in all sorts of places. So if you don't want to part with your XP you can search for the hidden items and unlock them. Some need a possession to be found, others can be found with your vessel. I also Smoothed out all controls and did few more things in this version. For smooth controls, especially if you are using Keyboard or Game Controller, look for the "Dampening" setting in the Controls. Mine are 8 for Sensitivity and 7 for Dampening.Row Boat AddedUpgrade Items hidden in levelsControl Dampening (in control settings)Water Masking (in Graphics settings) - Only for Simple Water for nowSail Fixes and smoother controlAdditional Life at seaPossess Fixes & ImprovementsCamera Hints (Look At movement)General bug fixes
- Anchoring, New Items, Characters, Functions - 26 October 2025
Animal possession was improved in this update with additional animals like the Crocodile. Special items were added on land as well as at sea. Lots of new sounds and characters are now in each world and their behavior is even smoother now. Achievements have an explanation section now which describes what must be done to get each achievement. Lots of other logic and alterations for a more optimized experience. (That anchoring chain took me almost 3 days to find the balance between light animation and realistic result)Additional Animal PossessionAnchoring for all vesselsSpecial Items on land and waterNew AchievementsAchievement ExplanationsImproved vessel physicsNew Sound FXMathematical improvementsImproved LogicFor those who use a Game Controller, revisit the Buttons and Shortcuts menu (Press B on the Keyboard or navigate through the Main Menu) since there have been updates to Combo actio…
- Possession - 16 October 2025
Yet another big update for our Sailing Simulator. This time things are much neater and organized under the hood. Animal possession is a thing now and is based on the Achievements you collect. You can explore the land on which the animals are roaming through achievements you collect related to them. Lots of new sounds and characters are now in each world and their behavior is even smoother now. I took the time and looked into how Unreal uses math and what best formulas take less computing power, so there should be very little demand on processing with everything new i added.Explore the worlds once again as there is plenty new to look at and things to do. My favorite place is the Shoehorn Island where a Macaw lives. I took some extra time on its behavior just to make sailing a bit more fun :)You shall find that there are new surprises on land and not everything is static as things will ap…
- AI Characters & Camera work - 6 October 2025
Things are coming to life with the help from Unreal Engine, making the environment even richer and more interactive. I Spent a lot of time preparing and tweaking the environment so that it looks beautiful as well as not too heavy, especially on mobile devices. There is a lot of Camera work done in this revision which makes the experience a bit more immersive as well. The star of the show however is the integration of Unreal Engine AI Characters which are now alive within the environment. Not only are they alive but also they now interact with your sailing experience. Try getting close to an island or area and just wait a bit as the behavior is completely different every time.Some great visuals were added like Bloom, which provide that extra kick in realism but do take their toll on weaker devices so check if it works on yours and if not you can always disable it in the settings.Main cha…
- Visuals - 28 September 2025
The latest update is mostly about visuals, although there are some notable additions which i would like to describe in more detail. I was amazed at how much i can add and still keep the frame rate up. Main visuals added:Bloom - You can control the intensity for Bloom in the graphics settings. Completely Zero disables the feature.Depth Of Field - Small nuances in the camera work were adjusted with some Depth of Field to make things a bit more pleasing to the eye.Lens Flare - This is part of the Bloom VFX but never the less i think it looks beautiful.Volumetric Ambiance - You'll notice that a level like the Lake looks much nicer with some misty details added to it.Besides the visuals you will notice that the Level Load mechanism has been changed to provide a much smoother transition from one world to the next. This is mostly possible through features Unreal Engine 5 and up provide. We are…
- Scalability & Quality - UE 5.6.1 - 23 September 2025
Due to lots of requirements from Google and the new release of Unreal 5.6.1 which supports 16kb Page Size (SailSim is available on Mobile as well as PC) i did the dive and updated to the latest engine. This update is all about optimization, visuals and performance although i did fix things along the way and added more content.Scalability - QualityIf you ever get a chance to look into the "Device" windows for optimizing an Unreal project, you could say that your hair would stand up :) There are so many options to adjust that at times you just feel like you're completely lost.I tried to optimize the graphics so they are somewhere in the middle and can be still visually appealing even on lower end systems. Hopefully everything looks OK for everyone. If not, please let me know. I can adjust things pretty fast and it wouldn't be much of a hustle.SizeOne very noticeable thing you shall find w…
- Better, Faster, Stronger :) - 16 September 2025
This is a big one my friends! I have been hard at work making SailSim expandable, smoother and more stable as well as optimized to the point of exhaustion :) In this update a huge overhaul of the Level management system was done. Pre-Load Level structure for a more stable and memory spike free progression, smoother game play, optimized levels and improved overall experience.Levels have been revised, the Lake is bigger now and has more places to explore. Water and other materials have been optimized. General SailSim level quality has been improved. There is too much to describe in one post. In general things are better, faster, stronger :)Key points:- Pre-Load Level Asset structure- Initial Shader "Poke" for smoother first load- Optimized levels with culling and Materials- Large Mobile compatibility expansion- Very nice FPS boost- Reworked levels and added additional content- Lake is big…
- Particles - 27 August 2025
I've added Particles to the effect library of the simulator. There was always something missing from the motion of the vessels and in general interaction with the water. The particles have been added in subtle ways throughout the levels but hopefully these additions will make the environment a little bit more cheerful and fun. As always if you find something weird or something that looks like a bug, don't hesitate to post about it and i will look into it.
- A Bit of Life - 24 August 2025
While making changes and updates to SailSim, i completely forgot that i updated it to be built with Unreal Engine 5.5 :) There were a lot of constrains when the simulator was built with an older version and there were things i simply didn't do due to that. Now that we have our hands a bit more free, i added a bit more life and overall detailing to SailSim. The changes are subtle but hopefully meaningful.
- Linux is On - Line! - 21 August 2025
Finally after lots and lots of struggle i managed to integrate SailSim OnLine features into the native Linux build. All Linux users are welcome to try the features, browse through the settings, look at all the cool features which have been collecting user feedback all this time on other platforms. I also created a small discussion in the Community hub for those who have any notes or bugs to report. The integration is relatively new so if you see something off, please post it there and i shall look into it. The only thing i haven't finished yet is the Cross-Play Racing which should become available in next revisions now that i have the Linux integration nailed down. The current version of SailSim 5.75 has been tested on Ubuntu 22.04
- God Mode, SandBox and More! - 4 August 2025
God Mode is now introduced in SailSim, which allows anyone to alter the physical characteristics of each vessel. You can now play around with forces applied to each vessel and see what suits you best or just have fun with it. Not all forces are available since some are deeply integrated into each level but the most important ones are now opened to change in real time. SandBox challenges were added to each category which essentially let you sail each vessel without the need to pass challenges. This is also done so that you can just sail around and play with God Mode settings or to enjoy the scenery in general. I took a look at some statistics from SailSim and it seems that rewards as well as availability within the simulator was a bit high so i corrected that by decreasing most values for Upgrades in the Unlock section as well as increased rewards within SailSim so that more people can e…
- SailSim on Unreal Engine 5.5.4! - 5 April 2025
I am happy and honestly very excited to announce that starting from today on SailSim version 5.60 and onward, we are fully integrated with Unreal Engine 5.5.4 and its latest libraries. It took me a lot of effort and hard work to be able to afford a good Laptop to be able to use the latest software since SailSim was developed on a 15 year old 11 inch PC before today. There were many changes done under the hood of the simulator to make it work on the latest engine so please... if you find any odd behavior or something that doesn't look right to you, let me know. I think i got 99% of the new stuff integrated but there is always that odd ball which one should be mindful of :) IMPORTANT! Before you update, make sure your data is already the latest as far as XP, miles and other info goes since the new version uses a different way of interacting with saved data. Restore (if you need to) your d…
- Guppy ROV - 23 December 2024
Related or not, i wanted to update everyone about a new addition to SailSim which is planned in the new year. I will be adding an ROV to the simulator! Over the last few months i have been developing an ROV for working in the water under my boat as well as for other odd jobs. The ROV is called Guppy and is currently running on IndieGoGo to produce it for others. After few suggestions i started doing preliminary work to make the addition in 3D. Check out the campaign if you are interested and Happy Holidays to everyone! PS: You can also find the relevant information on my Patreon page and my YouTube channel.
- Keeping Up - 17 September 2024
This is a minor update to keep all versions across all platforms uniform as i prepare for new releases and development. Had to update lots of libraries and barely kept up with the latest requests from iOS and Android sides. More to come soon :)
- Time Penalty - 22 March 2024
A new achievement was added for those who really love SailSim and reach 20.000xp. In this update i also fixed few things, added some new ones. I finished the Flag/Country translations which were new in the previous update. Added a "Force Start" function in the racing lobby in case someone fell asleep so the rest can begin racing. One cool addition to Racing was "Penalties" which will speed up your time in case you hit something. Should make things a bit more competitive. - Race Penalties - New Achievement (Commander) - Force Start (Race Lobby) - Flag translations
- Cross-Platform Transfer - 13 March 2024
This update adds some nice functionality related to Saved Game Data. You can now transfer your progress from one platform to another as long as SailSim is supported on it. Additional stability for Racing was implemented along with other nice updates. Below is a list of the most notable ones: - Cross-Platform Save / Load (Progress Transfer) - Flag Purchase is saved in Cloud Backup - No Need to restart after altering flags - Game Controller implementation in multiple areas PS: Starting from Version 5.57, If you are backing up your progress in the cloud, please SAVE your progress after this update BEFORE loading it again so the new data changes can rewrite the correct locations.
