Playing survival games — or at least writing about them. It’s my way of turning stress into stories, chaos into comedy, and reminding myself that if I can laugh at freezing to death in The Long Dark, I can probably handle real life too.

(Plenty more daily doses of survival chaos at Survivor Incognito.)

The crafting recipe for something I definitely should have memorised by now. In survival games, I’m always convinced I’ll remember how to make the essentials — until I blank mid-blizzard and have to look it up. Real survivalists carry manuals; I carry Google.

(Plenty more questionable survival “research” at Survivor Incognito.)

Mostly cartoons where the characters survived ridiculous disasters with nothing but luck and slapstick timing. Guess I was training for survival games earlier than I thought.

(From cartoon pratfalls to permadeath playthroughs, the survival chaos continues at Survivor Incognito.)

Late evening. The world quiets down, the day’s chaos settles, and I finally get to sit with a console in hand — ready to make even more chaos in some poor survival game. Peaceful in real life, disastrous on screen.

(Plenty more late-night survival disasters at Survivor Incognito.)

Nachos — because they’re basically the survival food of the modern age. Minimal effort, maximum comfort, and you can pile on whatever you’ve managed to scavenge from the fridge. In survival games I’m boiling unsafe water; in real life, I’m melting cheese. That feels like a fair trade.

(Plenty more questionable survival meals — digital and otherwise — at Survivor Incognito.)

Getting my Steam Deck. It’s like handing chaos a second console — now my survival disasters can follow me anywhere. I love my Switch, but the Deck opens the door to even more worlds to freeze, starve, or get eaten in. Excited? Absolutely. Prepared? Not in the slightest.

(Plenty more survival chaos — now on two consoles — at Survivor Incognito.)

Survivor Incognito came from the idea that I’m just an ordinary player fumbling through extraordinary survival scenarios. I’m not the strongest, fastest, or bravest — I’m just trying to make it through without drawing too much attention… which usually fails the moment the wolves show up.

(Plenty more survival attempts — not so incognito — at Survivor Incognito.)

Curiosity. In survival games and in life, I want to know what’s over the next hill — even if it’s just another wolf or a flooded road. The promise of discovery (and the chance to laugh when it goes wrong) keeps me moving forward.

(Plenty more curiosity-fuelled chaos at Survivor Incognito.)

The connection. Writing lets me share survival chaos with people who get it — those who know the panic of wolves howling in The Long Dark or the joy of finally finding duct tape in Stranded Deep. It turns solo survival into a shared adventure

(Plenty more shared survival chaos at Survivor Incognito.)

Loving where I live is easy — mainly because I don’t need a campfire and a hunting knife just to make it through the week.

The weather. Specifically, that it isn’t as brutal as the survival games I play. Sure, it rains more than I’d like, but at least I don’t have to fight off wolves on the way to the shops or light a campfire just to boil tap water.

(For harsher climates and questionable survival tactics, Survivor Incognito has plenty.)