Fortnite tips & tricks: how to dominate the battle royale on your smartphone

Since so many first-time players will be jumping in on the fun, we thought we'd share some beginner tips and tricks that helped us stay alive and win in the world of Fortnite. Now, there are pro players out there who can probably write entire books on how to win in Fortnite, or give you a 2-hour-long lecture on surviving in Tilted Towers, but when you're just picking up the game, you need to start out simple, get to grips with the touchscreen controls, and learn the ropes of building and harvesting materials. So, without further ado, here are 8 tips to help you survive in Fortnite on your first plays.

One of the most crucial points for survival in Fortnite is being aware of your surroundings. On home consoles and PC, you need to rely on sound to know where enemy players and chests are, but it's a different affair on mobile. Since many people play mobile games with the sound turned off, the developers of Fortnite have added a bunch of visual cues to clue players in on the direction of various sounds in the game. For example, if an enemy player is moving nearby, you'll see a white indicator—similar to the one that shows the direction of enemy fire when you're being shot at—that will show you where footsteps are coming from. The same goes for chests, which otherwise have a distinct chime to them – once you get near the loot, you'll see an indicator that points you to it.

In Fortnite, you want to always know what's happening around you. If you crash around towns, you'll get jumped. If you recklessly fell giant trees in an open field, you'll get sniped. Always take the time to find cover and just look around and listen (or look for the sound indicators).

There are more experienced Fortnite players who like jumping head first into heated battle zones, but as a beginner, you're better off landing in a location with little to no enemy players. Remember, a head start of only 2 to 3 seconds is more than enough for someone more experienced than you to get to a weapon and blow you to pieces the moment you touch the ground. That's why, in the beginning at least, it's better to wait it out in the party bus and jump in a more secluded area. Don't worry about weapons and loot, as they are completely randomized. You are just as likely to find a legendary sniper out in the woods as you are in one of the towns.

Once you land, get looting! Finding a weapon is your first order of business. You don't want to be running around with just your pick axe, as it is a pretty weak melee weapon. Once you find a weapon, loot everything you can and get moving.

As we said in the previous tip, the first thing you need to get your hands on is a weapon. Doesn't matter what the first one is, just grab what you find. You need some sort of protection as you loot around to find other, (hopefully) better weapons and items to protect yourself with. Items in Fortnite are divided into 6 types, based on rarity: Common (grey), Uncommon (green), Rare (blue), Epic (purple), Legendary (orange), and Mythic (gold).

You always want to prioritise rare loot, but you also need to be equipped for dealing with different situations. You need weapons that cover the mid- to long-range so you can defend yourself in both close quarters and out in the open. Stocking exclusively on legendary snipers or shotguns will only get you so far.

Aside from weapons, you'll also find a variety of other items in Fortnite, including consumables and traps. We can't cover everything here, but here's a quick tip: if you find a shield potion (be it big or small), drink it immediately. This will increase your shield and also free up a slot in your backpack for something else.

After you've armed yourself, the next order of business is stocking up on resources. Unlike in other battle royale games, in Fortnite you can build. There are three types of materials with different strength – wood, brick (stone), and metal. Resources can be gathered from pretty much everything around you, almost everything is breakable in this game. But before you start smashing walls and cars left and right, remember that everything also makes a distinct sound that can be heard from afar. For example, destroying vehicles with your pick axe is not only a noisy process in and of itself, but can also trigger the vehicle's alarm, which causes quite a bit of commotion. Always approach situations carefully. Make sure there's no one there to hear you when you're gathering materials.

When you first start playing Fortnite, you may be taken aback by the building mechanic in the game. It's not like other games, most of which rely almost entirely on gunplay, and if you don't get comfortable with building very early on, you're screwed. Building should become a second nature to you in Fortnite. Someone's shooting at you from an unknown direction? Don't stop to look around -- build! If you can't find cover nearby -- build yourself some cover on the spot! Suffice it to say, building in Fortnite is crucial for both surviving and easily traversing the expansive map.

When building, keep in mind that the different materials have different endurance to gunfire. Steel is the strongest of the three, followed by brick and then wood, but it also takes the longest to build structures with. If you need some quick cover, you may be better off swiftly placing a bunch of wooden walls around you, but if you're building a fort, you'd better think twice before making the foundation wooden. If the foundation is destroyed, the whole structure topples down.

Once things get heated in Fortnite, it's easy to forget that a storm is closing in on you. Always keep an eye on the countdown below the minimap. You don't want to get stranded in the storm for too long. On the other hand, if you're close to the circle, don't be afraid to take your time to loot the surrounding areas. Just be ready to move when the storm gets close.

Just don't. Fortnite is not a traditional shooter. It's not Call of Duty or Battlefield, and while a fight may seem easy at first, it can often times turn into a disaster before you know it. Be smart about how you approach different situations in Fortnite. If you see a player running in an open field 600 yards from you and you don't have a sniper, don't blow your cover for the off chance of nabbing one kill. Observe the enemy from your cover, wait it out. If they are coming your way, just wait for the right moment to come out and kill them. Recklessly shooting at a moving target half a mile away from you is just going to blow your cover. Of course, if you have a sniper, you can try to drop an enemy from a greater distance. Just keep in mind that snipers in Fortnite are subject to bullet drop. This means that you have to adjust your aim to account for bullet drop, depending on how far your target is.