Quickly, I shot out a message to my girlfriends over our group chat. 

Tina: On a beach. Looks like I’m on the South side of the central jungle biome according to my map.

Ella: I’m in the same biome! I spawned smack dab in the middle of the jungle. There are a lot of resources here. I could set up a small home base and we could call that our meetup point?

Tina: I like that idea. Where are you at Skye?

Skye: Busy! 

That didn’t sound good. 

Tina: Stay safe babe!

Ella: We’re rooting for you!

Ok, until Skye messages back, I need to get a start. First things first, in every survival game you need tools. I pull up my menu and search for crafting recipes, but find nothing. Oh. It’s one of those types, where you have to craft things before they add to your menu. Guess I’m winging it. There’s some pretty decent looking rocks on the beach, and twigs and sticks at the treeline. I could make a really primitive ax, and probably tie some leaves and twigs together to make some clothes. Hopefully the system would assist with the crafting part of things, because I am not known for my arts and crafts skills. 

I move to gather a few good sized rocks on the beach, and gather them all up near a large rock with some shade. It’s hot out here, so the shade is a blessing. It’s the early afternoon now according to the in-game clock, so it’ll probably be at its worst around early sundown, but cool down soon after that. The jungle won’t be fun to navigate at night though. May be safest to sleep by the beach and make my move during the day. 

I got a message ping from our group chat.

Skye: Holy SHIT that was scary. I just got chased by some dudes with bows and spears. They threw some of the spears, so I have a weapon now, but I’m not in a good spot. I’m in a dry forest, on the smaller island east to the big island that has the jungle you’re on. I think I lost them, but I’m far from safe. There’s a lot of animals and dry wood here though, so food won’t be an issue. I’m gonna look for a stream, find a safe spot to sleep by it, then figure out some way to get over to the jungle tomorrow. A boat if I can make it, but there’s a good chance I’m going to have to swim the distance.

Ella: Swim? Babe that’s miles! 

Tina: She could probably do it. I read up a few things before we started and while we get tired in the game, our bodies are built like Olympic athletes from the get go. If she levels up her stamina a few points, that distance could be easily crossed.

Skye: Ok, so if I get a level up I should be fine? 

Tina: Yeah, you should get 5 points per level. Invest 2 in strength and 3 in stamina and I think that’ll get you across.

Skye: That’s my gameplan then. Love you both, see you tomorrow if everything works out. 

Tina: Love you babe. Ella, I’ll be heading to you in the morning, traveling at night is dangerous.

Ella: Sounds good, I’ve gotten a small shelter going near a river in the jungle. Love you two!

Tina: Love you!

I smile and head over to the treeline, grabbing some thicker sticks. Not sure which ones will work better for an ax, I grab some different kinds. Some thick and strong, but barely bendable, and others a bit thinner, but that also have a bit of give. For twigs I grab whatever doesn’t break apart when I pull them with some force. I get as many of those as I can, and a lot of leaves for clothes. I may not be able to make a bra or anything, but I’m sure there’s some way to get somewhat modern clothes in this game, even if I have to look it up. For now the current fashion trend is apparently “jungle survivor,” so I’ll make do.

I take my leaves, twigs and sticks back to my trusty rock, and sit down on the sand, immediately regretting it. Sand on the thighs is not fun. Do not recommend it. But fine, I’ve already dug my grave here. First, ax. I take one of the strong sticks that don’t bend well, and tie it to one of my rocks with a twig. I didn’t do a great job, but suddenly the tie tightens a bit more artificially, and now the ax is well set. 

Crafting recipe unlocked: Makeshift ax! 

I check the notification, and it takes me to my crafting menu. The recipe calls for a twig, rock, and stick. I put down my own ax and grab another rock, twig and stick, then press the craft button. The materials flash white and meld together, and the result is a perfect makeshift ax, with a well balanced grip to boot. I guess the system crafting is more efficient than makeshift stuff, but you need to actually try and make it yourself first. Good to know. 

Ok, time to test these. First I grab the ax I made with my hands, grip it with both, and hit it against the big rock. Surprisingly, it actually holds up pretty well. Guess I’m not as bad at this as I thought. A bit of the rock breaks off and I get a few pieces of stone added to my player inventory. I also get the ability to turn 3 pieces of stone into a small rock, like the ones I made into an ax, though I assume it’s better to save more “gamey” resources like stone and wood for things like building rather than simple crafting. At least early game. 

Wanting to preserve my poor big rock, I head over to another smaller one (in comparison to mine, it’s actually still pretty damn big) with my axes, and start hacking away, using my handcrafted one first. Pretty sure this one will break much faster than the game crafted one. After a few good hits, my hypothesis proved correct, and my first ax broke to pieces, the stick giving out and breaking. Guess bendier wood is better. 

I grab the game crafted ax and check the wood on this one. The stick I grabbed was actually one of the pretty solid ones, but the game made it both solid and a bit bendy through crafting. That’s kinda neat. I already have 50 stone, so I decide not to hack away at the now much smaller rock any more, and instead move my way to the trees, hacking away at the bark of one until I have an equivalent amount of wood to my stone, 50. This ax is still solid after all that punishment against the wood. Game crafting is definitely the way to go then. I get the ability to turn my wood into small logs automatically, and so I make a few and take them out of my inventory one by one, making a little fire pit by my rock with whatever dry twigs and sticks I could find and the logs. 

Crafting recipe unlocked: Campfire!

Oh, neat. That’ll be useful. Now, how the hell do I light this thing? I think the famous primitive way is to get some tinder and put a little notch inside of a log, then use a stick and friction in the notch to get the tinder to light. The question is how to get tinder. I could probably take some of my extra dry twigs and break them apart as much as possible so they more resemble shavings. Too bad I don’t have any sharp tools to actually make proper shavings. 

I make another log then burrow a small hole into it using a stick and a lot of friction. If I wasn’t a strong game character right now I’d be dead tired. I then place my pulled apart twigs into the small hole and get to work rubbing my stick back and forth. It takes awhile to find the right speed and force to actually get good friction going, but eventually I see smoke and the tinder lights, quickly I place it into my firepit and blow to supply it oxygen. Miraculously, it works, and I now have a fire.

Level up! You have now reached level 2. Spend skill points?

I guess doing survival stuff nets you experience, nice. I put a few points into my stamina for the trip tomorrow, and placed the last couple into a category called proficiency, which, according to the flavor text “allows you to modify crafting recipes to create variants of items. The higher this stat, the more efficient your general crafting will be for tool effectiveness and resources management. Also reduces building costs.” Sounds like an incredibly useful stat. In my crafting menu my few recipes now had “modify” commands next to the craft command. I put my small rocks, extra twigs, and sticks into my player inventory (done by grabbing the item while your inventory is open and literally placing it into a slot), then select the modify command on my makeshift ax. A few different shapes appeared, a pickaxe, hoe, sharper ax, and some other shapes appeared. I select the sharper ax and press craft. I place my finger lightly on the edge. Yup, definitely sharp. This’ll be very useful. 

By this time, the sunset was almost gone, and the world was bathed in twilight. Time to make myself some clothes, and a bed of leaves. I take some twigs and leaves and start slowly weaving them together into something resembling a skirt, ending up with something relatively passable for covering up.

Crafting recipe unlocked: Grass clothing!

Oh thank fuck that’s a category for crafting. I place all my twigs and leaves into my inventory and press the modify command, allowing me to make a better skirt and a sort of leaf cami crop top. With the game assist they actually fully cover everything, but not having support for the girls or underwear is an issue to say the least. At least I’m not completely naked now. 

I cover the ground with some leaves and lay down. It’s scratchy and uncomfortable, but it’ll do. I add another couple logs to the fire, and close my eyes. Sleep comes quickly, my extreme tiredness finally showing itself.