The very first thing you should know is that you need to get used to dying, a lot! It will happen.
Ok first thing's first! Let's first gather some rocks on the beach to get stone and punch some trees to get a bit of wood and thatch.
Food! We also need food. Go ahead and gather berries from those bushes. They'll give you a little bit of food so keep gathering and eating those for now. Oh, and water. You can drink from the ocean, but don't go in too far or the fish and sharks will eat you.
Do NOT eat the white or black berries! The black berries are called Narcoberries and they will put you to sleep. You can't do anything when you are unconscious, so any carnivore can come by and simply make a meal of you. The white berries are called Stimberries and, although they can be used to wake you up, they will also drain your water stat. If your water stat reaches 0, you will begin to gain torpor. Torpor is the stat that, when high, will keep you and creatures asleep, though it does go down on its own.
So now you should have some level points. Go ahead and put a few points into your stats. I would recommend Health, Stamina, Weight, Melee Damage, and sometimes Fortitude if you feel you need it. Fortitude is how easily you can handle hot and cold environments. Don't put points into that if you aren't suffering from the heat or cold.
Don't forget to unlock some useful engrams. You can't unlock everything, however. You only have so many points to spend upon each level up, so only unlock what you need.
Ok so I'm sure by now you can make a campfire and you have a spear! (craft a handful of spears. They break easily.) Great, now you can go out and kill creatures! For now I'd stick to Dodo's and practice dealing with Dilophosaurs on the beach. In fact, I'd stay on the beach until at least level 20. By then you should be ready to handle Raptors and mid sized creatures like that. For now, just practice killing small creatures and gathering meat and cooking it. Meat is much more filling than berries. However, you'll want to still keep your berries. Yes, your food will spoil but for now, I think you can deal with gathering berries and meat. Oh and save your spoiled meat. Don't throw it out. You'll need it once you get a Mortar & Pestle and Narcopots unlocked.
Ok, I think it's time to unlock some armor, eh, cloth armor, which is the lowest tier of armor. Hey at least you have clothes to wear! Go ahead and craft up a full set of cloth armor and put it on.
Just keep gathering resources until you are able to unlock the Thatch tier of building structures. Also, go ahead and unlock a sleeping bag. They can only be used once, but they act like a temporary respawn point, so put maybe 2 or 3 down in your hut. Later on, we can get a bed which is reusable.
Ok so what do ya say we go out and tame something! Let's start off easy with a Dodo. Now, before we leave the base, let's go to our map and put a waypoint in our location. You can call it whatever you want. Once you have one, go to your map and click on it. You'll hear a sound. Close your map. Congrats! You just set your first waypoint.
Ok, lets go get a Dodo. Have your weapon at the ready in case you run into trouble. Once you spot the Dodo you want, you will want to get into the habit of clearing the area around it of predators, such as Dilo's (dilophosaurs). Now once you've done that, punch the Dodo in the head. Yes, punch it. Just chase it and punch it until it falls unconscious. It's ok if you kill it by accident. You'll need to go find another one and repeat the process.
Now once it's sleeping, put Mejoberries (the purple ones) into its inventory. Now we wait. You'll need to guard the area for predators and kill them so they don't try eating your sleeping Dodo. Unconscious creatures can't defend themselves in any way. That's your job. Also, don't force feed them. That won't help the taming process. You just have to be patient and let the bird eat on its own. This goes for all knocked out creatures you're taming. It's a waiting game right now. Just guard the creature for the time being until it wakes up.
One thing you'll want to know is Torpor can fall at different speeds for different creatures. If you look at the creature and it's torpor is low, that means it is going to wake up soon! Feed it Narcoberries (put them into its inventory on the right and press E) for a tiny boost in Torpor, or craft Narcopots (Engram unlocked at level 6) in a Mortar and Pestle (using spoiled meat and narcoberries, unlocked at level 6) and feed those to it for a bigger boost to Torpor. (feeding 20 Narcopots = +1,000 torpor).
Ok, so if you kept an eye on the Dodo's torpor and you haven't let it get to low, and you kept the right food in its inventory, and you've kept predators away, it should soon wake up on its own and you can name your brand new tame! Congratulations!
Now that you have your first tame, which is a Dodo, you have to kind of care for it a little bit. Get into the habit of keeping a stack of the right food (raw regular meat or berries) in its inventory at all times. Keep it safe inside your hut because carnivores can still kill it. Oh and some creatures can destroy thatch, wood, stone, etc...so upgrade your house at some point when you unlock the next building tier.
Don't expect your Dodo to fight for you. It's pretty much good for a base pet or for getting eggs if it's a female for crafting kibble.
Once you get comfortable with taming, you can go for a Parasaur. (Don't forget to craft yourself a bola (level 9) You can craft a saddle for your parasaur and ride it. They are also great at gathering berries. They can also warn you if danger is nearby.
One more tip: This game can be stressful! It's absolutely fine to take a break from it from time to time if you need to.
There are also tons of taming tutorials and gameplay of ASA on Youtube. I'd recommend:
- Phlinger Phoo for some great taming tutorials https://www.youtube.com/@Phlinger
- Syntac for some great Ark Let's Plays https://www.youtube.com/@Syntac
- Neebs Gaming for some funny Ark Let's Plays: https://www.youtube.com/@NeebsGaming
- Captain Fatdog for some great trap ideas: https://www.youtube.com/@captainfatdog
- Raasclark for his Ark Let's Plays, Ark News, great Ark series and more: https://www.youtube.com/@Raasclark
- The Pilgrimz Project for some great Base Build tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePilgrimzProject
- I also do a bit of Ark content too, myself: https://www.youtube.com/@phoenixflamingstar/videos (shameless plug!
)There's a ton more out there too! Search around and see what you like.
Whew! Ok, I think that's it for now. Good luck, survivor! Go conquer The Island! I'm cheering you on!