5 tips for One Hour One Life for Mobile

The popular desktop title One Hour One Life for Mobile has come to the Apple App Store. Now iPhone and iPad owners can work together to build a better world by crafting thousands of items.

One Hour One Life is unique because your goal is to build something for future generations. You may only live for 1 hour, but your contribution is infinite. You may spend all 60-minutes, on the rare occasion you live that long, of your life building a bow just so someone else can build a fire in the future. There's no final boss, or real end, except your death. Your only hope is that one day you will spawn in a huge city that was built with some tool you crafted thousands of years earlier.

On the off-chance you found this article before ever playing the game, or have played it and are confused about what you're supposed to do, here's the an explanation by the game's creator Jason Rohrer. You can also visit the official website for more information on the overall idea behind One Hour One Life.

At the time of this post One Hour One Life is new to mobile. These tips are for beginners.

5 Tips for One Hour One Life for Mobile

Live and Learn -- You die a lot in One Hour One Life. Sometimes you will spawn as a helpless baby who is neglected by their mother. Sometimes your mother will die and you won't be able to fend for yourself. Maybe you will be mauled by a bear. The point being, you have to keep playing the game over and over, and the more you do the more you'll learn. Maybe you will die learning how to craft an item, then actually build it in the next life. Maybe it will take several lives to figure out what one plant does, or how to get water. The more you play the game the more you will learn. If you don't enjoy trial and error, then you probably won't enjoy One Hour One Life.

Stone is your friend -- The mobile version is still in the early stages, meaning at the time of this article you spend a lot of time alone in the wilderness. If you find yourself in this situation, the stone is your friend. You can pretty much live to be 60 by just eating berries and other plants. No advance items are necessary. If you decide to try and build a home by collecting and crafting many items, keep as many sharpened stones around as possible. They always seem to come in helpful in a camp. A sharpened stone is also always recommended when exploring. A sharpened stone allows you to cut down a variety of plants that you can then eat as you explore new territoty. I have survived many long lives with nothing but a stone by my side.

Explore! -- Humanity didn't get to where we got today by not leaving the cave. The same goes for One Hour One Life. While building a home base is smart, sometimes you have to leave that base to find items and food. Don't be afraid to take the above advice, and grab a sharpened stone to explore your surroundings. You can always come back to your original home later.

Work Together -- One Hour One Life is a community game where you need to rely on each other for survival. Feed a baby and that baby may grow up to feed you when you're 50 and close to death. Use your keyboard to communicate the best you can to learn about other player's strengths, weaknesses and knowhow. Leaning on each other and teaching others is how you can build a brighter future for your future self.

Sacrifice -- Life is cruel, and sometimes you will need to sacrifice other players to help yourself. You may also have to leave an item you worked hard to craft in pursuit of a new item or to find food. If you do not embrace sacrifice then you won't get far in this game. Also don't confuse sacrifice with selfishness. Leaving your baby to die means you'll probably never have anyone around to help you build. A good balance of sacrifice and unselfishness is the key to having many long lives in One Hour One Life.