Newcomer Guide to MineCraft.

As Minecraft is a sandbox game, there is no designated or proper way and style to play the game. Never the less, one common theme found for all players is the need to feed yourself, and to avoid (and later, fight) hostile mobs that spawn either in dark places (e.g. caves) or when night falls.


Need a crafting Table To build your Tools!

Before your first night, you will need to collect wood and make your first set of tools from it. Then collect cobblestone for a full set of slightly more advanced tools. You then want to find a shelter to use as a temporary home. Getting charcoal or, if available, coal is an important early step, for you need them to cook meat and to make torches.


Crafting A Pick-Axe


Crafting a Shovel

Wool for a bed is optional, but very helpful—it lets you skip the night and avoid the monsters that appear then, while setting a point for you to respawn at if you die (if you don't break the bed). While you're working on the basics, collect any stray items you come across, as many of them will be useful later.

You need to get these resources and find or make either a bed or a shelter before nightfall, because that's when the monsters come out. It is best to work quickly, as a Minecraft day is approximately ten minutes and night (including dawn and dusk) is another ten minutes.

For nighttime, the primary danger will be monsters. It is a good idea to start gathering resources and construct a lit shelter immediately after you begin on the first day. If you are playing for the first time, do not try to engage any monsters! The worst way to die early on is to be killed while trying to hunt monsters, so don't do it unless you either have a good sword and armor or you have lots of practice!

How to Stay away from Death and Create Your First Shelter For Spawn



When you die in Minecraft, all items you were carrying or wearing in your inventory are scattered around your point of death while you respawn elsewhere (exception: if the gamerule keepInventory is set to true). Until you sleep in a bed, you will spawn somewhere within 10 blocks of the world spawn point. This includes the first time when you started the game, so you can respawn anywhere within 20 blocks of where you first entered the world.

The traditional advice is to build your first shelter as close as possible to the spawn point, so if you die, you can easily find it again, or even spawn in a now-protected area. Even with the variation in where you'll come back, it's good to have a lit shelter nearby the spawn point. However, a problem with sheltering near spawn is that if your death site is too close to where you respawn, your items may despawn while you're trying to survive the night. (See below for more details.)

In any case, your very first shelter should be something very basic, even a hole in the ground. This is so you can spend the least time working on shelter, and have the maximum time possible to gather resources. If you've got a couple dozen blocks of dirt (and especially if you have no torches), it's perfectly OK to spend your first few nights atop a pillar. See below for more advice on early and emergency shelters.

Like any dropped items in Minecraft, the items you drop when you die will despawn (disappear) after 5 minutes, unless you're more than 180 blocks or so away, that is outside of chunk update radius (exception: if you die at the world spawn point, where the chunks stay loaded). The problem is that if you died at night, you will find yourself stranded without your weapons and armor, so you are quite likely to get killed again, or at least find your stuff guarded by monsters. Meanwhile, some of the monsters can actually pick up your stuff and use it against you! And if you spawned near your death scene, that 5-minute timer can easily go by before you can actually get back to and keep your stuff.

Combining these issues leads to a new strategy, at least for single-player. You can still mark your spawn point, but realize you might end up anywhere within 20 blocks of that. If you end up within 20 blocks of your death point, your stuff will be there on the ground, but the monster or whatever else that killed you will be there. So, while getting your initial resources, move away from the spawn point, trying to get 200 blocks or so away before you build your shelter. Using the debug screen can help with checking the distance. That way, if you get killed at night, your items might not be with you, but if you wait until dawn comes and the monsters leave, you can trot right back and hopefully retrieve your dropped items.

However, the above only applies until you have made and used a bed in a secure shelter.


How to build a Bed.

Once you've done that, you have a new option: If you get killed at night, you will respawn next to your bed, so you can just go back to sleep, and wake up the next morning — the items don't "expire" while you're asleep. It still may be worth keeping your bed out of chunk update range from where you're endangering yourself, but at least you won't be stranded outside at night.

Food and Hunger (To Stay Alive!)

Once you have tools and shelter, your next priority will be food. Hunger will take a while to hit, so it shouldn't be a problem on your first day, but you'll try to pick up some food for when it does. However, after you've been moving around for a while, your food bar will begin rippling and start to decrease. If your food bar drops below 90%, you will not regenerate health, and if it gets to 30%, you can't sprint. If the hunger bar goes down to empty, you will begin losing health. Unless you're in Hard mode (and a beginning player shouldn't be), you can't actually starve to death, but you will go down to 1 health point () in Normal mode or half your health () in Easy mode, and that leaves you quite vulnerable.

Walking, mining blocks, and even placing blocks all cost some hunger, but all of those are minimal compared to the items below. These are the things that cause the most hunger, in order of cost.

Healing damage of any sort. Avoid taking falls of more than 3 blocks, drowning yourself, or otherwise taking damage, as healing damage costs a lot of hunger. Especially avoid...
Fighting: Both attacking mobs and receiving damage cost hunger, even before you start trying to heal damage. (10 blows either way matches healing , one health point.) You will need to slaughter a few animals, but pick your fights carefully.
Sprinting. If you double-tap the forward movement key (W by default), you will sprint. This moves somewhat faster, but it also uses a lot of food, especially if you go any distance. (30 meters matches healing Half .)
Jumping. Obviously, you'll need to jump some just to get around, but don't bounce around randomly or unnecessarily. (15 jumps matches healing ) Sprinting jumps are especially costly, 4 times as much as a regular jump, although they are the fasted mode of transportation early in the game.

Note that if you're (staying) at full health, and not moving, fighting, mining or placing blocks, then you will use no food. Thus if your character has a secure place to stay, you can just stay put to conserve food while waiting out the night, a storm, or crop/animal growth.

Bump