Minecraft for beginners

Minecraft, one of the few games that never dies. If you check trending games on YouTube, you'll find it on top 10. It's been on top 10 for quite some time. Infact you'll probably find it trending on majority of streaming platforms as well. And it's trending for a reason, two actually

1. It runs on potato: if you have a working PC, you can probability play it.
2. There's no fixed way of playing it: there's no story mode, you can make your own story. The game ends when you end it, there's no winning or losing scenario.

When I first tried Minecraft, I was totally overwhelmed. I had zero idea of how to play survival Minecraft. And in early days, the handy recipe book didn't exist. Either you had to figure out everything on your own of you had to refer to online resources(tutorials, wiki, etc). Even with recipe book, you can still get confused on your first time.

So this post is like a beginner's guide to Minecraft. If you're thinking about trying Minecraft for the first time or if you're planning to teach your kid/nephew/niece, read this post to the end.

Let's start with game modes: you can play Minecraft in 3 modes

1. Creative : you'll have access to all blocks, items and entities. You can fly, instantly break blocks and summon any mob(creature) you want. It's like a virtual lego game. Ideal for building and testing your designs. You're literally the God in this mode.
2. Survival : you can get hurt, you'll go hungry. Hostile mobs will spawn at night(or if it is dark enough) and they will try to kill you. But you will be able to respawn if you die. 
3. Hardcore : for veteran minecraft players. Once you die, it's game over.

Now that you're familiar with basic game modes, let's meet some mobs, the creatures than can help you in survival or kill you. There are three types of mobs in Minecraft

1. Hostile Mobs: they'll try to kill you if they spot you. There a lot of them but to keep the post short, I'll write details on just the common ones that you're most likely to encounter early game. 

• Zombies : one of the least dangerous because they're pretty slow but do not underestimate them. They can call for reinforcements if attacked. And you seriously don't want to take on multiple Zombies at once. There are few varieties of them but they're mostly the same. Zombies are undead creatures so they'll burn under direct sunlight. Some of them can spawn with armour and weapons.
  
• Skeletons : as the name suggest, they're skeletons. But they carry bow and arrows so you'd want to keep your distance. They're fast and have pretty good aim so you would not want to fight them without armour or shield.
  
• Creeper : the most feared mob in the. They're the nightmare of Minecraft. They're not really hard to kill but they move almost silently. You never know when one of them might creep up behind you and explode. They can destroy your house and the blast site ends up with a big hole in the ground.
  

  

  Crater caused by creeper explosion

• Spider : they're neutral during the day but they'll attack you at night. And they climb walls and fences so you cannot really hide from them behind a wall.
  
• Phantom : Not as common as rest but if you don't sleep for 3 in-game days, they'll spawn if you go out at night. So it's worth mentioning.
  
• Enderman : They are also neutral but they don't like it if you look directly into their eyes. Don't attack them or make eye contact, you'll be fine.
  
• Witch : They're a bit rare compared to the rest so far. You don't wanna face them early game. They'll fight you using spells. Do not engage them early game unless you're cornered.
  
• Rest of the hostile mobs are much rarer, so you'll not face them early game(unless you approach their home).

2. Neutral Mobs : Just the name suggests, they're neutral to you by default but they will attack you if you harm them or certain criteria is met. For example, A polar bear will attack you if you get close to or attack the cub. Some common neutral mobs are: Wolf, Naturally Spawned Iron Golem, Spider, Enderman, Bees, Panda, Llama, Zombie Pigman, etc.

3. Passive Mobs : They'll not harm you at all, not even for their own survival. Common Passive mobs are, Chicken, Cow, Pig, Horse, Bat, Fish, Villager, Wandering Trader, etc.

Survival tips for beginners

As the name of the game suggests, mining and crafting is the key to playing the game. You'll have to mine some blocks and craft tools. Some specific blocks require specific tools to mine. I'm assuming you know basic controls like movement keys as they're similar to most PC games. 

Day 1: arrange a shelter for nighttime and if possible get food and bed

Minecraft has a day night cycle. A Minecraft day is 10 minutes long in real time. Then sun sets and night begins. If you have a bed, you can skip the night by sleeping on it. Otherwise you'll have to face(or hide from) hostile mobs that spawn at night. As soon as you create a survival world, find the nearest tree and start punching it(left mouse button by default). 

Hitting the block makes it break

Type of tree doesn't matter, just get some log. You'll never run out of usefulness of woods, so collet as much as you'd like. But time management is also key so I'd recommend 4-5 logs for now and get more logs after getting stone tools because chopping tree is faster with axe. I'd also like to point out those hearts and drumstick like meat symbols at the bottom of the screen. Hearts are pretty obvious, they indicate your health, you'll die if you loose all your hearts. The meats are your hunger bar, you'll get hungry if do some activities or get hurt. If the hunger is full, your hearts can regenerate. That's why you food is one of the priorities in day 1. 

If you open your inventory(E by default) you'll see a 2x2 crafting area. 

Player inventory

You can use this area to turn your logs into planks and create a Crafting Table with those planks. If you place planks on all 4 slots of your inventory crafting area, you will get a crafting table. Then you place the crafting table anywhere and if you right click on it, you'll get 3x3 crafting space, which will let you craft every possible tool.

You can craft as many wooden tools as you want but personally I'd recommend getting just a wooded pickaxe to get cobblestone as wooden tools are slow and have less durability. After you created wooden pickaxe, look around for exposed stones.

If you don't see such terrain near you, don't worry, you don't need to go looking for such exposed stone blocks. Just start digging into the ground, you'll most likely to find stones just 4-6 dirt layers later. But, DO NOT DIG STRAIGHT DOWN, make a staircase style dig, because you might fall into a cave and get cornered by mobs if you dig straight down. You should aim for around 20 cobblestone for full set of tool(3 for pickaxe, 3 for axe, 2 for sword, 1 for shovel, 2 for hoe and 8 for a furnace).

Now that you have your fairly efficient starter stone tools, start collecting resources, collect 15-30 logs, extra cobblestone if you want and look for coal. Coal ore looks like stones but with black spots, like these

If you're near a mountain then you can see them on surface otherwise you'll have to go into a cave or dig into the ground hoping to encounter them. They're useful for making torch and campfire or as fuel. Campfire can be used as lighthouse and you can cook food on it but you'll have to be around it because when the food is cooked, it is popped out and if you don't pick it up under 5 minutes, it despawns. 

If you can't find coal before the night falls, don't worry, you can turn wood logs into furnace to make charcoal. Charcoal works exactly like coal.

And next priority is food. If you don't plan to fight any hostile mobs then you can survive few Minecraft days without food but when you get hungry, you won't be able to sprint. So acquiring food on first day is preferable. Best food source for early game are animals, Cow, Pig, Sheep and chicken are common farm animals in the game. Among these four, cows and Sheep are most useful. Because cows provide leather with meat, leather is useful for crafting important items in the game, so you'd want to keep collecting leather early on. Sheep provide wool with meat. Wool is required to make bed, carpets, banners and adding colors to your builds.

If you're vegan and you'd like to play vegan in the game as well then you have that option too. But vegan food items require work and farming. So you'll have to start farming right away. Early game vegan food items are apple and bread. Apple are dropped when you cut down an oak tree(don't ask the logic of getting apple from oak tree, the game was made that way) once the leafs start to decay. You'll also get saplings, you can use those saplings to replant trees.

Other early game vegan food source is bread. You'll get seed if punch grass. Collect as much seeds as you want, then you need to make a farmland. If you teal a dirt block(by right clicking with your hoe) near body of water it turn to farmland.

But remember, water block must be present within 8 block radius, or else it will turn back to dirt again. Then you can plant your seeds and wait for them to grow.

Harvest them when they're ready and you'll get wheat. It can take upto 1-2 Minecraft days before they're ready to harvest(it depends on lighting, water and player's presence). You can then turn wheat into bread using your crafting table.

Going vegan poses another challenge, getting wool. If you don't want to kill sheep, then find iron as fast as you can and make shears to get wool without killing the sheep.

Sheared sheep can grow the wool back

And if you want don't mind killing animals in the game, then it will be a lot easier to play survival minecraft. So find 3 sheep and kill them(for wool, you need 3 wools of same colour to make a bed).

Now final task for day 1, shelter. You have few options. 

1. If you see an open cave nearby, you can barricade the entrance and the deep end to get a safe area. Place torches at spots that seem too dark. 
2. If there is a steep hill nearby, you can make your own cave in it. Craft a door and place it on the entrance. Or you can dig into the ground to make an underground shelter.

   

   Starter shelter at side of a hill
   

3. Make a box. Use any material, wooden planks, cobblestone or even dirt to make box and stay inside.

   

   Wooden survival box

If you made a shelter because it was getting dark but you don't have a bed, then start digging inside your shelter to find resources(preferably coal and iron) while you wait for day time.

If you want a better looking house, you can build this instead(but beware, it requires some resource collecting). 

When the sun rises, watch out for creepers while going out. Because they don't burn by Sun like zombies and skeletons. 

Day 2 & 3: renewable food source and upgrades

If you haven't made a farmland and planted wheat then do plant some. If you have atleast 1 wheat then cows and sheep will follow you if you hold it in your hand. 

Make two enclosures(1 for cows, 1 for sheep, you can make just one but breeding them is more convenient if you make separate sheds). If you don't mind hearing the constant sounds they make, then you can make the shed right next to your starter house. 

Lure cows and sheeps to their respective sheds and feed them wheat. When you feed them wheat, they'll release heart particles, that means they're ready to breed.

Babies will take some time to grow up, once they're grown up, you can breed them too. Breeding requires atleast a pair so make sure you leave atleast 2 alive when you kill them for food or leather/wool.

That was basics for animal farming. Now your aim should be getting iron tools and armour. So you need to start mining. Caves are great for mining ores because they often expose them

Exposed iron ores in a cave

but caves also house hostile mobs. So if you're not so confident about taking them on, make your own mine. Dig down making a staircase to start branch mining(dig a central hallway or room and start mining in random straight lines, just don't forget your way back).

Day 4 onwards: mine diamonds, get enchanting, Nether

Iron tools are good enough for early game, but if you plan to take on real challenges of the game, you need diamond tools and armour. In the upcoming version of Minecraft, there will be Netherite, a material stronger than Diamond but also much rarer than diamond. Diamonds are rare, but you can find diamonds in hundreds if you invest few hours mining. But Netherite will be much more rare. So it will be more like end game item.

Diamonds generates at Y level(altitude) 15 and below. So most people recommend digging down to Y level 11-13 and start branch/strip mining. So how do you check you're at right altitude? If you're playing Java version of Minecraft, you can press F3 and it'll bring up the debug screen like this

Use debug screen for coordinate

On the left hand side, you can see a line starting with XYZ, those are your coordinates. You can use coordinates to navigate if you can't remember the terrain or you're lost. Note down the coordinate of your house and you can always come back. 

Like I said, if you go down to Y level 15 and below, you can find diamonds. 

A diamond ore vein

But remember, you need atleast iron pickaxe to mine diamond. Diamond can only be mined by iron, diamond or netherite pickaxe. If you use any other pickaxe, the ore will break and you'll get nothing.

Other target should be getting Obsidian. Obsidian is required to make an Enchanting Table, Nether portal, Ender chest and beacon. Obsidian is one of the hardest materials in the game. It is a dark purple colored block that generate when water flows over lava pool. Lava pools are generated below Y level 10. So if you're looking for diamonds, you're most likely to encounter lava pools too. So finding Obsidian is not that hard.

Naturally occurring Obsidian

As I mentioned above, it is one of the hardest material in the game. So mining Obsidian is a pain in the bum. Obsidian can only be mined with diamond and netherite pickaxe. And as netherite is extremely rare, you're most likely to mine them with Diamond Pickaxe. Even with diamond pickaxe, it takes 9.4 seconds to mine. So you need to have some patience while mining those. At first, you need to mine atleast 14 Obsidian blocks, 4 for enchanting table and 10 for nether portal.

Now you might be wondering, what is nether? Nether is often compared to hell. It is another dimension in the game filled with darkness and lava. You cannot place water in Nether and if you try to sleep in Nether, the bed will explode.

I know it might sound scary at first, but there are many useful resources in the Nether. Like glowstone, soul sand, quartz, magma block, etc.

You don't have to follow the steps exactly as I have mentioned here. It is just a general guidelines for a new player. In fact you can see how I improvise in my survival game-play. 

 

These are basic survival tips for new Minecraft players. I know Minecraft can become boring to some people if you are playing solo survival. That's mostly because people don't know what to do after they've acquired diamonds. So I have some tips for such people too. You can try one of the following. 

1. Beat the Ender Dragon: finding a stronghold, repairing the damaged end portal, fighting the ender dragon. Sounds like a refreshing adventure?

   

   Ender Dragon

2. Raid End city to get Elytra: Minecraft world is pretty much infinite. But exploring it could pose a challenge. You cannot take your horse everywhere. How about flying? With Elytra you can fly.
   
3. Raiding a woodland Manson: Woodland Manson is a rare structure and houses some rare mobs. You must raid one if you want some challenge.
   
4. Conquering an Ocean Monument : another rare structure guarded by rare mobs. 
   
5. Fighting Wither(Boss) : one of the most destructive entity. It kills evey living creature in sight. It is a nice challenge. Besides, killing a Wither gives you Nether Star, which is essential for creating beacons. Beacons are one of the best things in the game.
   

I'll end this post here. It doesn't cover everything for beginners because it is impossible to cover everything in a single post. Minecraft has so many potentials that one can write an entire book on how to play Minecraft. Take Pixlriffs for example, he is one of my favourite Minecraft youtuber. His minecraft survival guide has over 300 videos. Infact I took screenshots from his videos to illustrate few things. 

This is my first post dedicated to gaming. Hope you liked it. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. Thank you for reading.