Actual wilderness survival. I spend hours in The Long Dark boiling unsafe water, hunting rabbits, and making fires out of sticks — but in real life, I’d probably struggle to light a campfire without a lighter. Learning the real thing might make my digital disasters even funnier by comparison.

(Plenty more survival skills I still don’t have at Survivor Incognito.)

Probably the small things — like remembering I left coffee on the counter, or that my character in The Long Dark is freezing because I got distracted writing notes. In games and in life, the little details usually decide whether it’s a smooth run or a spectacular disaster.

(Plenty more missed details and memorable disasters at Survivor Incognito.)

Survive the day without a permadeath moment — in real life or in-game. Whether it’s dodging actual deadlines or digital wolves, my main goal tomorrow is to get through it with enough stories (and caffeine) to write about later.

(Plenty more day-to-day survival priorities at Survivor Incognito.)

Hard work feels fulfilling when it turns into stories. Whether it’s hours of hauling logs in SnowRunner or barely surviving a week in The Long Dark, the grind pays off when there’s a tale worth telling. Real life or digital, the effort feels lighter once I can laugh about it later.

(Plenty more hard-earned disasters turned stories at Survivor Incognito.)

My sense of humour. It’s what gets me through both real life and permadeath runs. If I can laugh after being flattened by a moose in The Long Dark or rolling my truck in SnowRunner, then I’m doing alright.

(Plenty more laughable disasters turned stories at Survivor Incognito.)

“Don’t be afraid to fail.” In survival games, failure is inevitable — wolves, blizzards, zombies, you name it. But each disaster makes the next run better (and funnier). Turns out the same advice works outside of games too.

(Plenty more entertaining failures turned into lessons at Survivor Incognito.)

Coffee, comfort food, and the thrill of not freezing to death in a survival game. There’s nothing like narrowly escaping wolves in The Long Dark or fixing a flipped truck in SnowRunner to wake me up faster than any energy drink.

(Plenty more chaotic boosts of “energy” at Survivor Incognito.)

I don’t really stick to just one, but I’ll say this: any album that makes a survival game session feel like a movie soundtrack is my favourite. If I’m trudging through a blizzard in The Long Dark and it feels cinematic instead of tragic, the music’s done its

(Plenty more survival chaos that could use a soundtrack — at Survivor Incognito.)

I found the recipe for Lily’s pancakes from The Long Dark and thought, “Easy — I’ve got this.” Full confidence, like the blueprint was unlocked and ready to craft. Reality disagreed. My cooking skill was so far off that the recipe might as well have stayed locked. Instead of golden pancakes, we got a burnt, unidentifiable mess that no survivor — digital or otherwise — would eat.

(Plenty more recipes that should’ve stayed locked — at Survivor Incognito.)

That failure makes for the best stories. Whether it’s freezing to death five minutes into The Long Dark or flipping a truck in SnowRunner, the disasters are usually more entertaining (and more useful) than the smooth runs. I wish I’d realised earlier that falling flat isn’t the end — it’s the beginning of a good tale.

(Plenty more entertaining failures turned lessons at Survivor Incognito.)