ARK: Aberration – Day One Diary: Punching Trees, Hallucinating Plants, and a Cliff Dive of Doom

My first day in ARK: Aberration on Nintendo Switch. From punching trees to cliff diving for water, join me for a chaotic survival tale featuring hallucinations, heat, and questionable choices.

Not sure where I am? Please check out the ARK: Survival Evolved Maps

Welcome to Aberration

I decide to spawn at the Portal—the game assures me this is the easiest spot to start, so naturally, I trust it. I materialize in my underwear (as you do) and am immediately told I’m too hot. How? I’m practically naked!

Undeterred, I begin my search for trees to punch and rocks to grab. It sounds simple, but this is ARK. The landscape is full of creatures, including a Tek Stegosaurus!

I want it. I want it badly. But I’m level one, with zero taming ability. So I sigh, and return to foraging.

Tools, Berries, and the Great Stone Hunt

Before long, I’ve got a healthy stash of berries, thatch, and wood. I cobble together some primitive clothing—so long, underwear! Now for stones. The game clearly enjoys messing with me. Stones are everywhere, yet my button presses achieve nothing. After several failed attempts, I finally manage to pick some up. Tools: crafted.

Next problem: water. I’m parched, and the nearest source is… at the bottom of a cliff. What’s a survivor to do? I jump. If I die, hey—at least the Graveyard page gets a funny new entry. Miraculously, I survive.

The Hallucination Plant

Feeling triumphant, I approach a strange plant. Surely nothing bad could happen. The plant proves me wrong. I’m instantly hallucinating, defecating like it’s a competitive sport, and generally regretting my life choices. After about 30 seconds, it stops. Do I consider touching the plant again? Absolutely. Do I? Thankfully, no.

Night Falls, Chaos Rises

Darkness sets in. I light a torch—instant overheating. My options are: see where I’m going and melt, or stumble blindly in comfort.

And then, I become overencumbered. I offload a ton, even dip below my carry limit. Still can’t move. Can crouch, can look around, but walk or jump? Nope. At this point, I call it a day.

Final Thoughts

Not how I imagined my first day in Aberration ending, but I had a blast. Stay tuned—surely it can only get weirder from here.

If you enjoyed this one, please check out my other Day One Diaries | Survival Game Playthroughs & First-Day Survival Challenges

5th Jul 2025 0

🦖 Day One Diaries: ARK Edition – Now Filling the Weekend Gaps

Day One Diaries returns with an ARK twist! Each short entry covers the first chaotic 24 hours on every map in ARK: Survival Evolved for the Nintendo Switch. Chaos, dinos, and bad decisions await.

So, People Have Been Clicking the ARK Map Page…

…and that’s either a promising sign or a harbinger of incoming disaster.

Either way, welcome to a brand-new side series here on Survivor Incognito:

> 🎮 Day One Diaries: ARK Edition
A bite-sized, chaos-fueled survival journal where I explore the first 24 hours on every ARK map available on the Nintendo Switch.

This series is coming soon and will drop on one of the blog’s quieter days—Mondays, Saturdays, and Sundays—to fill in the gaps with some portable prehistoric panic.

🗺️ What to Expect

Each post will document:

• Where I spawned

• What I crafted (poorly)

• What inevitably killed me

And whether I learned anything (spoiler: probably not)

These aren’t full playthroughs—they’re glorified diary entries of my first day of disaster, all tied together with maps, Switch gameplay quirks, and whatever half-baked strategy I manage to invent before something eats me.

✅ Already Posted

I’ve already covered the following maps in earlier posts:

The Island

Scorched Earth

So I won’t be redoing those. Instead, I’ll link back to those entries when their time comes in the lineup.

🌋 What’s Next?

From here, it’s on to the rest of the maps available on the Nintendo Switch:

• Aberration

• Extinction

• Genesis Part 1

• Genesis Part 2

• Ragnarok (DLC)

Each time I publish a new Day One Diary, I’ll also update the ARK Map Hub with:

• The region map

• Survival notes

• Links to the interactive resource map

• Possibly a eulogy

🧪 A Preview of What You’re In For…

To set the mood, here’s a flawlessly accurate preview of what I expect my time in Aberration to look like—courtesy of Neebs Gaming:

> 🎥 Simon vs. Snake – Neebs Gaming in Aberration
Simon’s alone. Eating peanuts. There’s a snake. Panic ensues.

It’s everything ARK represents: snack time, followed by betrayal and screaming.

🎬 Chaos You Can Count On

If something truly unhinged happens during one of these Day One sessions—and let’s be honest, it will—it’ll earn its own spotlight as a Survivor’s Shorts post.

Because some moments of portable disaster deserve a dedicated write-up… especially the ones where I genuinely thought I was safe and then immediately wasn’t.

📅 First Entry Drops Soon

Check back next Saturday for Day One in The Island—the first stop on this tour of Switch-based suffering. Followed by Scorched Earth the next week, and then finally, Aberration.

Expect bioluminescent fungus, regret, and gravity issues. See you there.

28th Jun 2025 1

Day 1 Diary – ARK: Scorched Earth – Heat, Hubris & A Doedicurus

Spawn Location: Midlands 4
Difficulty Setting: Easy (allegedly)
Death Count: 1
Notable Quotes: “That doedicurus looks manageable.”

—

Wake Up, Punch a Bush

I came to in the middle of the desert wearing absolutely nothing except a sense of misplaced confidence. Sun blazing, heat rising, and the HUD silently judging me. First instinct? Punch a bush. Gathered some fiber, thatch, and self-respect.

Leveled up once from raw enthusiasm alone. Put that point into Health, because even I could tell I was about five bad decisions away from dying.

—

The Accidental Shirt Empire

Decided to craft some clothes before the sun roasted me alive. Opened the crafting menu, tried to make one shirt—accidentally made five.

Now accepting names for my pop-up desert boutique. Eventually got it together and added some pants. No shoes though. Those required hide. Hide required confrontation.

—

Tooling Up & Feeling Bold

Made a pickaxe and found a water vein. Hydration status: temporarily acceptable.

Crafted a hatchet. Then a spear. Then a sun hat, because I like my survivalism with a side of flair. I had gear, water, and the kind of reckless optimism that leads straight to the respawn screen.

—

The Enemy of My Confidence

I needed hide. So I looked around:

Ankylosaurus: Too many spikes. Hard pass.

Doedicurus: Round, slow-looking, vaguely adorable. I could take it.

I could not.

The second it noticed me, it went full Beyblade and chased me halfway across the dunes. I survived, barely, and took that as a sign to regroup. Obviously, I didn’t listen.

—

The Fatal Spear Throw

Bandaged my pride, gathered more supplies, and returned to the scene of my failure with renewed stupidity.

Lined up the doedicurus in my sights. Threw the spear.

Missed completely.

It charged. I died.

—

Summary of Bad Decisions

Crafted 5 shirts by accident: Unplanned fashion mogul
Picked a fight with a doedicurus: Lost. Twice.
Made tools and a spear: Forgot to aim before throwing
Died as tradition dictates

—

Final Thoughts

ARK on Easy Mode is still full of bad decisions if you’re making them fast enough.

Doedicurus: not food, not friendly, not forgettable.

Respawning is a learning experience. Eventually.

Next time, I’ll pick a different animal to harass. Probably regret that too.

—

Read my other Day One Diaries here

26th May 2025 0

Day 1 Diary – Ark: Survival Evolved – Dodos, Dilophosaurs & Disasters

It began, as all great survival stories do, with a half-naked stranger waking up on a beach and immediately punching a tree. This is how we build civilizations in ARK: Survival Evolved. Or at least, how we bruise our knuckles trying.

—

Welcome To The Island

I picked:

Single Player

Easy Mode

The Island

Easy spawn zone

Randomized survivor (so I could blame poor decisions on someone else)

Did I know what I was doing? No. But I was armed with determination and the ability to mash buttons on a Nintendo Switch. That’s basically survival.

—

Early Progress: Punch > Pickaxe > Panic

I picked berries, harvested rocks, and punched trees until my fists cried. I crafted tools and learned a vital truth:

> If you don’t know how to unequip something, you’re just a caveman with commitment issues.

Eventually, I figured out how to stash my pickaxe, crafted a thatch shack, and proudly stared at my beachfront real estate. It was ugly. But it was mine.

—

Enter The Dodo

I spotted my first dodo and made a moral decision: tame it, not kill it. A few club swings and some berries later, Doddie was born.

Then came a second tame. I was unstoppable. Until I wasn’t.

—

Dilophosaur: Agent of Chaos

Like a raptor’s sloppy cousin, the Dilo charged in, spat venom, and chaos erupted.

I panicked. Swung wildly. Hit everything.

> “Doddie was killed by Survivor Incognito.”

Yes. I clubbed my own tame to death. Twice. The Dilo died in the end, but at what cost? (Spoiler: Hide. Enough for shoes.)

—

The Taming Spiral

I swore vengeance. Then I swore allegiance. I tamed a Dilophosaur. If you can’t beat ’em, feed ’em narcoberries until they like you.

I tamed another Dodo. Named it Dodder. It died too.

By nightfall, I had a new tribe of misfit companions: a Dilophosaur named Dilo, another Dodo named Dodder to replace original Dodder, something else called Lyon, a torch, and a pile of regrets.

—

Lost & Afraid

Then it got dark.

Really dark.

And I realized I’d forgotten one critical step: marking my shelter. Turns out the map doesn’t help much when every jungle tree looks the same.

I wandered in circles, torch in hand, until I miraculously stumbled on my sad little shack. Home. Sweet. Hut.

I built a bed, collapsed, and promised myself I’d do better tomorrow.

—

Lessons Learned

Easy Mode isn’t shameful. It’s life-saving.

Dodos are loyal, fragile, and easily betrayed by friendly fire.

Dilophosaurs are chaotic evil with spit mechanics.

Beds are not optional.

Torch = godsend. Build one early.

—