Survive Your Ideas Disasters and How to Survive Them

Disaster words eliminate more players than anything else in Survive Your Ideas. The good news is that each disaster has a clear answer: high ground, cover or simply moving to the right spot. Here is what every disaster we have seen does and how to live through it.

For general strategy, read the Survive Your Ideas guide. To see which disasters players rate highest when they are the writer, check the best Survive Your Ideas words.

Quick Disaster Survival Table

Four Rules That Beat Most Disasters

• Know where the bunker is before anything happens. It is your only shelter from a nuke.
• Go up whenever water or lava appears. Floods, tsunamis and lava cannot reach rooftops.
• Do not stay in a crowd. Black holes and acid rain are aimed at wherever the most players are standing.
• Know which disasters stay. A nuke or a tsunami passes after a short time, but meteors and zombies stay for the rest of the match, so plan around them instead of waiting them out.

Disasters That Need High Ground

Water and lava cover the ground. The answer is always the same: climb.

• Flood

  ▲▼

  Water rises over the whole map and stays until someone clears it. Players who cannot reach high ground slowly drown.

  Get onto a roof, a tower or a boat. If you are the next writer, type "clear skies" or "no flood" to drain it.

• Tsunami

  ▲▼

  Huge waves sweep across the map, and a second wave can follow the first. Players at ground level are washed away.

  Climb to the very top of the tallest structure and stay there until both waves pass.

• Lava

  ▲▼

  The ground turns into lava. Anything standing on the floor burns, and even a spawned shark died once the water became lava.

  Get to high ground immediately. Towers, roofs and anything you can climb are safe spots.

Disasters That Need Cover

These fall from the sky. Get under a roof or into the bunker, and remember that meteors can break the bunker.

• Nuke

  ▲▼

  A nuclear bomb drops onto the map. Anyone caught in the open when it lands is eliminated, and the danger passes after the blast. Typing "fallout" produced the same nuke in testing.

  Run into the bunker as soon as the word appears. Players who make it inside survive the blast.

• Acid Rain

  ▲▼

  Acid falls from the sky and damages everyone without cover, including the player who typed it.

  Get under a roof or into the bunker. If you type it yourself, make sure you are already under cover.

• Meteor Shower

  ▲▼

  Meteors rain down for the rest of the match and keep dealing damage after they land. They are strong enough to smash through the bunker.

  Keep moving and watch the sky. Do not rely on the bunker, because meteors can break it.

• Supernova

  ▲▼

  A supernova goes off over the map. In one match players rushed to hide until it was over.

  Hide inside or behind a solid structure until it passes.

Disasters That Change the Map

These reshape the island itself, so your usual safe spot may not exist anymore.

• Earthquake

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  The ground shakes and splits, sometimes cutting the map in half. In one match a player lost both arms and could no longer hold a gun.

  Move away from the crack as it opens and avoid standing near ledges.

• Apocalypse

  ▲▼

  A chain disaster: meteors fall first, then the ground breaks apart and an earthquake follows. It can reshape the whole map.

  Stay away from the edges, keep moving between impacts and look for solid ground that is not cracking.

• Tornado

  ▲▼

  A tornado moves across the map, and players who get too close are pulled into it.

  Watch which way it is moving and stay on the opposite side of the map.

• Desert

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  The island dries into a desert with tall mesas, and the heat turns your skin red.

  Climb the mesas, and eat food such as watermelon slices to recover health.

Strange Disasters

Not natural disasters, but just as deadly.

• Black Hole

  ▲▼

  A black hole opens and eliminates everyone inside its area. Where it appears matters: one spawned far from the crowd and did almost nothing.

  Spread out instead of standing in a big group, and move away from the edge of the pull.

• Backrooms

  ▲▼

  Players are teleported into the Backrooms, an endless maze of yellow rooms with a monster inside. Many of the doors are fake exits.

  Keep moving, avoid the monster and try different doors until you find the real exit. Almond water can appear inside.

• Blackout

  ▲▼

  Night falls and the lights go out, so the whole map becomes dark.

  Stay near any remaining light source.

How to Clear a Disaster

Disasters stack and many of them stay on the map until someone removes them. When you are the writer, typingclear skies, peace or no flood resets the weather and drains the water. It is a good emergency move when you are about to drown, but it helps every other player too, so most writers would rather add a new disaster than remove one.

Missing a disaster? Survive Your Ideas accepts almost any word, so there are many more out there.Submit it here and it will be added after review.