Tutorials/Beginner's guide

This guide is intended for those who are not familiar with Minecraft. It describes how to play and survive the first night of Minecraft's Survival mode, assuming you are playing in a difficulty more challenging than "Peaceful" and in single player mode.

Controls
If you are reading this tutorial while you are playing Minecraft, it's recommended that you go to the Minecraft window and press to pause the game. By doing this, you will have plenty of time to gather resources and create a shelter for the night, and monsters will not come up and kill you while you are away.

Before you start, you should learn the controls for the game. The default keys for movement are as follows:
 * moves forward (double-tap and hold to sprint)
 * moves backward
 * moves left
 * moves right
 * to jump
 * to crouch/sneak (hold to prevent falling off blocks and sliding down ladders)

Note that these are just the default movement controls. They can be changed by going to the Options screen from the main menu or pause menu (press to access).

Use the mouse to look around the world. Click and hold the left mouse button to break down (or mine) blocks. Just rapid clicking does not work. Right click to place (or use) the currently highlighted item from your inventory hot bar. The mouse wheel cycles through the currently held item in your inventory hot bar, or you can use the number keys -. opens your inventory window and will drop a held item. These can also be changed in the options menu.


 * will toggle all HUD (Heads Up Display) and darkness effects
 * will take a screenshot, which saves in the directory “ ”. Since Beta 1.2, it is possible to make screenshots using without holding  at the same time. It will keep the HUD.
 * will cycle among first-person view (the default), third-person view (looking at the avatar from behind), and second-person view (looking toward the avatar's face).

(previously ) will cycle through four levels of fog in the world. This sets the render distance. More fog can reduce lag, however it prevents you from seeing as far as possible across the map. This will make it more difficult to see mobs and anything else.
 * There are four different view distances, which are represented by stages of fog:
 * 1) Far (No fog): You can see the maximum distance (around a 256 block diameter)
 * 2) Normal (Low fog): You can see about half of your maximum range. (around a 128 block diameter)
 * 3) Short (Medium fog): This prevents you from determining what time of day it is as it blocks the sun, so this is not suggested. If your Minecraft client is this laggy, try the Optifine Mod. You can only see about thirty-two blocks away from you. (around a 64 block diameter)
 * 4) Tiny (Heavy fog): Same as short fog but you can only see sixteen blocks away. It is extremely difficult to play this way, and thus this fog distance is not suggested for any player except the very experienced for a challenge or if your computer is slow and you want to minimize lag. (around a 32 block diameter)


 * Note: When you eventually go deep underground, you will also encounter the Void Fog, which behaves similarly, but closes in the further down you go, and is unaffected by your view settings.

Initial priorities
As Minecraft is a sandbox game, there is no defined or proper way and style to play the game. However, in Survival mode one common theme found for all players is the need to create ways to defend and fend off hostile mobs that spawn either in dark places (e.g. caves) or when night falls.

A necessity for survival is to keep your food bar full. If it gets to 85%, you will not regenerate health, if it gets to 30% you can not sprint, if it goes down to 0%, you will begin losing health. The food bar depletes slowly though so it shouldn't be a problem on your first night. The primary danger will be mobs. It is a good idea to start gathering resources and construct a lit shelter immediately after you begin on the first day. It is advised that you, when starting off, do not leave the shelter and dive straight into attacking hostiles, since you will likely lack the resources to fend off large groups of mobs.

On the first day, it is a good idea to mark where the world's default spawn point is by building a landmark such as a tall pillar, it will allow you to orient yourself in the world, as well as locate your spawn point if you get lost. Since you are just starting off however, you should build a small pillar out of dirt or sand. If, at your spawn point, you see a flock of sheep, a good idea would be to get 3 wool to build a bed, which allows you to sleep through the night and sets a new spawn point wherever the bed maybe, though, as of Minecraft Beta 1.8, mobs do not respawn when killed. This can be excepted with the use of breeding. It is highly recommended to build your first shelter very close to the spawn point, so if you die, you can easily locate it again.

As of Minecraft Beta 1.8, there are small buildings or towns spawned called NPC villages (Non Player Character Villages). If you spawn near one, there are plenty of houses there. Explore the village to get a good idea of what the roads are. If there is a Forge (Blacksmith), there will be a chest in it, which was added in the 1.1 update.

Note that when you die in Minecraft, all items you were carrying or wearing in your inventory are scattered around your point of death, and you will respawn at your original spawn point unless you have slept in a bed. Like any dropped items in Minecraft, your scattered inventory will disappear after 5 minutes as long as you are within about a 180-block range of them. If you are building far from your spawn point without a bed, it is generally a good idea to mark the spawn and make a marker over your home in case of death.

While you are making your preparations for nightfall, keep an eye on the sun. When you first start a new world in single player, it will be early morning. The sun always rises in the east and sets in the west; at midday, it will be directly above you. To better help you navigate, the Clouds in Minecraft always travel west provided you have Clouds "On" in the Minecraft "Options" tab.

In general, you will want to gather supplies in the day and build on your shelter in the night.

It is best to work quickly, as a Minecraft day is approximately ten minutes and night is ten minutes, including dawn and dusk.

The essentials
Multiplayer note: On most servers, only operators can destroy blocks that are near the spawn point.

For your first night, you will need Wood, Cobblestone, and, ideally, Coal or Charcoal to have a fighting chance. Wool for a bed is optional, but very helpful -- it lets you skip the night and avoid the monsters that appear then. While you're working on the basics, collect any stray items you come across, as many of them will be useful later. (Notably eggs, seeds, and anything dropped by monsters e.g Zombie Flesh, Bones and Gunpowder.)

To collect resources, aim the crosshair at the block representing the resource and press and hold the left mouse button. This will instruct the avatar to punch the block repeatedly. Cracks will gradually appear in the block. Keep holding the left mouse button until the block breaks and drops. Releasing the button, or looking away from the block, will cause the avatar to stop punching it and you will have to start over. You can collect the dropped resource by moving near its floating representation. Once you have picked it up, it will then appear in your inventory screen that can be activated by pressing "e". Note that some resources, such as stone, only drop if destroyed with the correct tool (pickaxe).

To drop resources in the environment, press on the keyboard when the resource is selected in the quick access bar and one of the selected item will be dropped onto the ground. When this happens, the item will float above the ground in the area you dropped it, so you may pick it up again. Alternatively, open the inventory window and drag a stack of items outside the window to drop the entire stack. You can also press Ctr and  at the same time to drop the whole stack instead of dropping one item this feature was added in 1.4.6.

Spawn point & wood
First, mark your spawn point. This will be important in the first few days, as you will respawn back here if you happen to die (you wont need to do this as long as you have access to Wool and Wood to craft a bed)

Now, walk over to the closest tree (should there be no trees around, just roam a little and you'll eventually find one) and start punching wood blocks (you do not need a tool for this). Wood is a very important resource which is needed for basic crafting e.g First tier of tools and Workbench. One or two trees worth of wood blocks will be more than enough to get started. More is better, and allows you to make a larger house, more tools etc. Make sure to build your house near to the spawn point, or else craft a bed (requires 3 wool and 3 planks) to reset your spawn point. Do not destroy or return your bed to your inventory as this will cause your respawn point to re-default to your original spawn point, potentially taking you far away from where you were upon death. If you need to take a bed with you - make another one (Shears made of two iron ingots placed diagonally make collecting wool easier after the first day since they can be sheared off sheep quicker instead of killing it).

Crafting
As the game's name suggests, crafting is core to Minecraft. While there are a small amount of items that can be crafted directly from the inventory, a Crafting table is required to craft tools and most other items in the game.

To craft a crafting table, first open the inventory "e" and click on a stack of wood logs once collected from a tree:

Then place some of the wood in the 2x2 crafting square above your inventory. This will produce planks:

Note: The planks can be a different color depending on what sort of wood you have. Different types of wood don't stack together, but all work the same. With a couple of exceptions (slabs, stairs) you can mix and match different planks when crafting. In particular, sticks don't care what sort of wood they came from, they all stack together.

Left clicking on the plank icon will craft four planks for every one piece of wood you have, but if you hold down shift and click left mouse button it instantly crafts the maximum amount that you can with the materials you put on the table, and places them in your inventory. Click on the remaining wood in your 2x2 crafting square and return it to your inventory. Click on the planks you just crafted and instead of left clicking, right click once in each of your four crafting squares. This drops one item instead of all items each click.

You should see this (with the exception of the 3x3 grid of slots, you will only see a 2x2 grid for now):

Click on the result and place it in an empty square of your hotbar.

Press escape to return to the world view and walk to a spot you think appropriate, select your newly crafted crafting table with either the mouse wheel or number key, point at a flat square of ground (not directly where you are standing) and right click. This will place your crafting table on the ground ready for use. If you wish to pick it up again to move it, left click and hold to mine it and then walk near the produced icon to pick it up.

Your first pickaxe
In order to collect stone and coal, the next staple resources, you will need a pickaxe. Your first pickaxe will be made of wood; not very durable or fast, but until you collect some stone, which is why you need a pickaxe in the first place, it's all you have.

You will need at least five planks to make one wooden pickaxe. Use your crafting table by right clicking on where you placed it. Your crafting table view is similar to your inventory view, except you now have a more useful 3x3 crafting space. First we need to make a handle for your pickaxe. To do this, pick up a stack of planks and place one above another anywhere in your crafting square. Two planks produces four sticks:

To create your pickaxe, you'll have to make some new planks. Once you've done so, arrange them in positions shown on the picture below.

You may have noticed that in order to craft a pickaxe, you more or less draw it with its components in your crafting square. Other items are crafted in a similar fashion.

(Note: Unless you need to hurry for any reason, it is advised not to make a wooden sword, because stone is better and easy enough to get.)

Gathering Resources
Once you've crafted a pickaxe, you can successfully acquire cobblestone to make better tools. Start by finding stone in the world; it should be fairly easy, as it's extremely common. If you don't see any on the surface, dig down in a staircase fashion - it is highly recommended not to dig straight down. Mine at least 19 stone blocks and approach your crafting table. 19 blocks of stone lets you make a stone sword, a pickaxe, an axe, a shovel, a hoe, and a furnace, letting you complete the tool set. (the hoe will be useful for farming so only 17 blocks can be mined).

Using sticks and cobblestone, you can now make some stone tools:

Swords can be used to more effectively slay mobs (animals and monsters).

A stone pickaxe is more durable and more efficient than a wooden pickaxe. You will use it to mine stone (and other "rocky" blocks).

Shovels are mainly used to break dirt, grass, sand, clay, and gravel blocks quicker than by hand.

Axes make the process of gathering wood (and most other wooden blocks) much faster.

Now, you should gather more wood. Although some trees (and their wood) look different than others, all wood functions the same. However, different kinds of wood don't stack together, which can take up extra inventory space. You might notice also that the tree's leaf blocks slowly disappear, or decay after you cut down all the wood. When the leaves decay when all wood blocks are destroyed, they can drop a sapling, or rarely an apple (collect these). You can use saplings to grow more trees, but it's not recommended to grow back trees in the wild, as trees obstruct your view. Save the saplings in order to farm trees later (you can build a tree farm under your house with torches, saplings, a pickaxe, and dirt). For now, harvest a decent amount of wood (up to a full stack).

If the sun is still in the sky, explore your close vicinity for some stone with black specks in it. This is coal, another essential item in Minecraft which can be used to create torches and more. If you cannot find some, don't worry: you can make charcoal from wood blocks in a furnace. Charcoal has the same properties as coal.

You aren't too much in need of iron right now, but if do you find any iron ore (looks like stone with tan specks), go for it (you do need the stone pickaxe first). Don't be greedy -- if it's over a large cave or ravine, much less next to lava, leave it for later.

Animal Resources
You should gather 3 pieces of wool to craft a bed. (Any more is redundant right now.) You can get wool from killing sheep. In most biomes, you will find sheep wandering around as you explore. (Later, you can make shears to get wool repeatedly from the same sheep as they grow their wool back). If you can't find any sheep around you, but you have a sword (preferably stone or better), you can wait until nightfall and kill some spiders. They usually drop strings, which can be used to make wool in the crafting grid by putting four of them in a square.

You will probably encounter other animals, such as cows, pigs and chickens. Kill a couple of these with your sword to get a bit of food (if killed by fire a cooked version of their food is dropped). However, don't kill too many animals yet, as they don't replenish themselves. Also, you might use up your sword's durability, which can leave you with no weapons at night! You can eat the meat raw if you're starving, but otherwise save it to cook later as cooked food is better than raw. Cooking offers several times better food bar replenishment, and also prevents raw chicken from making you sick (poisoned). You can cook it while building your house, in your furnace. Cows also drop leather. which can be crafted into leather armor, books and Item Frames. Chickens sometimes drop feathers as well as meat - keep the feathers, you'll want them later to make arrows. Collect and stash any eggs you find -- you can't eat or cook them, but later you can use them to start off a possible chicken farm.

Note: In recent versions (since release 12w04a) animals rarely spawn during the game, so it's quite easy to "hunt out" your area. Once you've gotten your feet under you, you'll want to make some fences and fence gates, and capture two of each kind to breed. NOTE: Do not worry about animal genders, there are no different genders in Minecraft and any two animals of a type can breed.

A Word About Digging
The golden rule of Minecraft is:
 * Never dig straight down or up.

It is possible to stand on a block while destroying it. Once it's destroyed you will fall down one block to whatever is beneath it. The problem is, there is a significant chance you will either stumble upon a cavern and take fall damage or more unfortunately, fall into lava. If you do land in lava move to water immediately, if any is available, to save your life. (Even if you can't save your life, try to get away from the lava before you die, so it won't destroy your possessions.) If you survive falling into a cavern, you will then have to mine your way back to the surface. If you dig straight up, then you can dig out a block holding back lava or sand/gravel and also die. Even water could kill you if you aren't able to get away quick enough

Note - if something is taking a long time to break, stop hitting it unless you just want to remove it; it will disappear when you finally break it - return to it after you have the right tool to retrieve the item. 3 important rules to note are:


 * The better the material a tool is made of, the faster the tool retrieves and breaks items
 * Wood-related items requires no tools to break and obtain the resource, but axes may be used to speed up the process.
 * Coal and stone can be mined with a wooden pickaxe, but iron and lapis lazuli require a stone pickaxe, and all other ores require iron tools or better. Obsidian, however can only be mined by a diamond pickaxe.

At this point, if you have some daylight left, you should probably start working on your shelter. Once that's done, you can kill more animals, collect some more things or just explore. If you don't feel like it, just skip to Night time (the section after the next one)if you feel sneaky then type the command /time set night and it will immediately skip to night.

Emergency shelters
Sometimes, you won't have the luck to spawn in a forest or near coal. Maybe you fall into a hole and it takes you 5 minutes to get out. If this happens, you can still survive, as this is your first day and you have not done anything important.

Two block high
By making four two block high walls around you you ensure that most mobs will not see you, the only exception being Spiders and Endermen that spawn or travel near your shelter. This problem can be avoided by making a roof with a one block hole. This will allow light in so you can tell when day returns, but prevent any attacks. If it is an Enderman don't look at it in the eyes, it will leave. If it's too late and you already have looked at it keep your cursor on it until you are ready for battle. It doesn't matter what substance you use to build your walls so long as they're two or more blocks high, which makes a snappy shelter. Eight blocks is the minimum amount of blocks you need. If you don't have enough blocks to make your shelter then dig one block down, although you risk a Creeper falling in with you. This will, however, lower you enough where nothing can see you.

Hole in the wall
Dig a hole in the side of a cliff or hill. Make it at least 3 blocks deep. Then go inside the hole. You can keep digging as far as you can, if you want, but try to get at least 7 or 8 blocks in from the entrance (to hide from creepers) But when you see the sun start to set, fill in your entrance. If it is at least 3 blocks high and you are a good distance off the ground (8+ blocks) then you can leave a one-block window. Otherwise, it is safer to wait until night is over (you can wait 8 minutes clock time). If you don't have a window, mine one of your blocks every now and then, and check if it is still night. If it is, fill it back in and repeat. To pass time, you could try extend your makeshift shelter but make sure you don't hit a cave or make any openings. Avoid jumping, which spends your hunger quickly, or craft stairs to preserve your energy if you are digging down or up. If it is daytime, then congratulations: You have survived your first night.

Out to sea
Swim out to sea, then hold down the space bar (which keeps you afloat) and just wait for dawn. Hostile mobs will only spawn on solid blocks (ice doesn't count) so you don't have to worry about them. Just make sure you are sufficiently far from land that they can't spot you and sneak up on you. It is better if you make a boat. It is made from 5 blocks of wood planks in a a lowercase U-shape.

Up a tree
Find a large single tree; and use dirt to pillar up to the top and stay up there till day arrives. Mobs will not spot you if it is a large enough tree and if they do, just take evasive action and move to the other side of the tree. Spiders could give you a problem, but hopefully, they won't see you. A word of advice if you do this, trees obviously contain wood, so you can use it to your advantage.

Getting above it all
Build a tall 1x1 column under you, by pillar jumping: look straight down, jump up, and place one of your soil blocks in the space you've jumped up from. By doing this repeatedly, you can get high enough above the ground that the mobs will be unable to detect you. (10 or 12 blocks should do it, but you can go higher.) You will then need to wait until morning. The only drawback for this method is that you might get shot down by Skeletons so a good idea is to make a platform on the top of the tower to stop the knockback of skeletons and to stop you falling off.

Once it is light enough, and the undead have burned, simply dig out the blocks you're perched upon, until you're back on the ground. (Check for nearby creepers first!) Don't just jump off your tower - if you're high enough to avoid mob detection then you're high enough to take damage if you jump, or even die if you're 22 blocks or more up.

Avoid using sand or gravel to make your tower because if a creeper does happen to notice you and blows up at the base of your pillar, the sand/gravel of your pillar will get blasted and all blocks above it will come down with you on top: and the next monster will find you - provided you aren't already dead - and it might be another creeper. This usually happens when you build a tower of sand/gravel that's too low, a creeper comes and you start to pile your tower up but the creeper explodes, blasting your tower and bringing you down to earth to be meat for his buddies. Dirt and other blocks will not collapse like sand or gravel; your blocks will remain suspended if the lower ones get blasted, leaving you on a floating island, provided your topmost block is above the blast radius. (You might take some damage from the fall, but not much.)

If you are in a desert with only sand and cacti all around, don't try to use cacti (they'll kill you). Instead, gather some sand, press E, and place sand in all four boxes of your crafting grid. This will yield sandstone, which isn't very strong, but isn't affected by gravity either. (4 sand = 1 sandstone, so be sure to gather enough.) (There will also be natural sandstone and stone under the sand, but you presumably haven't had time to dig for it.)

A creeper blast will also alert skeletons of your position, who will then come close and shoot you with arrows and kill you. To prevent repeated creeper blasts beneath you add more blocks to your tower to get yourself higher than you were before. Watch out for climbing Spiders or even (unlikely) a Spider Jockey. To fend off spiders, break one of the blocks below your top block, or build a lip around the block you're standing on by walking to the edge, holding shift, far enough to see the sides of the blocks and place blocks on those edges, but be careful not to fall off (you will not fall if you are holding shift, unless attacked). If there are mobs nearby, then it's not worth the risk to do this, just be prepared for the spiders. (Attacking them will knock them down, and they will take damage from the fall.)

In a cave
If you found a cave system you can fix it up into a lair, a good one can make a base for the rest of your game. If it ends, then cap off your entrance. If it does not end, then build a little shelter around you [usually by capping off both open ends]. Don't worry too much about the natural walls of the cave, zombies can still be heard through the walls pretty loudly, which give you a hint where not to dig. To block the cave off, you need a bit of thought beforehand. If you use a door, you need a back door as well (and maybe some windows), in case a creeper is hanging out by your usual exit. Possibly a better way to block off a cave entrance is to run a fence with a gate across the entrance. Clear away any stray blocks by which monsters could jump the fence, and extend the entrance ceiling to foil "drop-ins". You also want at least 5 or 6 meters clearance inside the fence. That way, if a creeper comes up to the fence, you can pick it off with a bow without setting it off. (Other mobs can be treated much the same way, but creepers are the most serious hazard.)  What you do not want, is to come up a ladder to your exit, and find a creeper 2 blocks away on the other side of the fence.

You can dig into the cave's wall while waiting in either of these cave situations, but keep building blocks handy to patch up any openings you might make into another cave while digging, which might have a hostile mob in it. If you place your pickaxe in the quickslot bar (used to navigate quickly between items you are carrying in your inventory) and e.g. dirt is placed right next to it, you can quickly switch between your tool and that block type in order to close the hole you just made. This can be extremely handy when you stumble upon an opening which contains mobs.

Wall Of Cacti
If you spawned in a desert biome, surround yourself with cacti 2 blocks high. This will prevent most mobs from attacking you and will damage the ones that can climb over. Just be sure to not run into the cacti yourself; it will deplete your health and on Hard mode possible death.

Changing The Rules
Press the Escape key to pause the game, go into the Options menu, and turn on peaceful mode. Though many players consider it cheating, its a sure-fire way to make sure mobs don't spawn.

Break The Golden Rule
Remember the golden rule we talked about before? Well, time to break it a little. Dig three blocks down, and put a block above you that is not sand/gravel. Congrats, you just made the fastest shelter in Minecraft possible.

Night Time
The first thing you need is a shelter to do some night time chores safely. You can dig into the ground, mountain side, climb on treetop, close yourself off in a natural cave or make a small house out of the resources you have (Wood Planks not recommended). If you're atop a pillar, you can (carefully) make a overhang to stack your table and furnace on.

If you managed to find a herd of sheep and got at least 3 wool from them, build a bed before night comes. when you have bed, you don't need a shelter, you can place the bed anywhere on the ground and sleep on it as it is. But you may want to fall asleep as soon as the sun sets. Simply watch the sun and when it touches the horizon, right-click the bed. This way you prevent any mobs from spawning and you are 100% safe from them. Though you may find some mobs around 60-120 blocks away from you, they can't attack you during the night.

Initially, your sole light source in caves and at night will be torches. These are made from coal and sticks. You probably don't have any coal yet, so you will have to resort to using charcoal. (If you do have coal and torches, don't bother with this next bit.)

To make charcoal, you have to smelt blocks (logs) of wood. To do this you need a furnace. To create a furnace, arrange eight cobblestone blocks in a ring on your crafting table.

After you have placed your furnace, right-click on it and add a fuel in the bottom slot and the wood in the top slot. At this point your fuel of choice is probably wooden planks, two of which will smelt 3 items (logs, meat, ore, etc). Once you have your first pieces of charcoal, switch to using that as fuel -- each piece will smelt 8 items (just like mined coal), and you have other uses for planks.

Acquire about 6 pieces of charcoal. Each piece of charcoal (and coal, they are equal) can smelt 8 blocks, so it pays off more to use them, rather than wooden planks as a fuel. Now you can cook your food. Ration out a bit of charcoal for that and turn the rest into torches in following manner (you don't need your crafting table):

Now, the final thing you need is a bed. You make a bed like this (color of wool and type of wood doesn't matter)

While venturing out in the middle of night is an option, try to avoid it as much as you can. If you do not have enough wool to make a bed you may have to do so, but take extreme care. Wool can come from two sources: Sheep drop wool when killed; once you have a little iron for shears you'll be able to get the wool without killing them. If sheep are not to be found, it is also possible to make wool from string, which you can get from killing giant Spiders. You will need 12 pieces of string to make 3 pieces of wool. (You can also get string from cobwebs, but those are only found in underground structures such as Abandoned Mine Shafts which are rather dangerous in their own right.)

If you have a couple of logs (or 8 planks) left over after making torches and bed, you can also make a chest to stash items you don't want to carry around just in case of death:

Next item deals with mining. If you've got what you need so far from the surface world, keep on reading.

Mining
Players argue about the most optimal way of mining, but one thing is certain: the quickest and most reliable way to gather resources (which is generally what you want, if you don't want to stay beginner forever) is cave exploration.

Finding A Cave
You have no problems if you have just spent your night in a cave. If you haven't, the easiest way to do so is to roam the overworld a little and look out for exposed cave entrances. Sometimes they end immediately, but sometimes they develop into big cave systems. If they seem to end right away sometimes there will be a continuation about 2-8 blocks farther back and below the cave's end; mining in these directions (8ish blocks back and down, squared [meaning 8 blocks in a row each layer dug]) will reveal this if it is the case. Digging away gravel or dirt can possibly expose other cave extensions, but you may go through a few shovels that way. If you can't find any all day, just sleep away the night, replenishing your resources like wood and food as you use them. If you hear suspicious, hostile noises, just try to listen and follow them.

Cave Exploration
Cave exploration is pretty straightforward: you light up your way with torches, mine up ores as you see them (check Ores and Minerals) and kill enemies as you encounter them (see Tutorials/Combat for details). There are also some important techniques that might not be obvious to a new player. It also helps to put your torches on either the right or left(always one side only) all the way down so you don't get lost.

Ores and minerals
There are certain materials that can only be found underground and are crucial to gameplay.

Coal is an important material used to make torches and to smelt/cook items. You have to mine it in order not to run out of torches while cave exploring. One stack (64 lumps) will be an ample supply, but in practice, you can start with less and mine more as you go. Long-term, it's worth accumulating a stack or few, as once you get seriously into mining, you'll be using a lot. Coal is not strictly necessary since you can make charcoal from wood, but it is common, and you have plenty of other things to do with wood.

Iron is probably the most important and versatile resource you can find underground. You can use it to craft good quality tools, armor and a plethora of other things. Gather as much of it as possible, but it needs a stone pickaxe or better to mine it, so be careful not to use a wooden pick on it. Once you have quite a bit of iron ore, make a base with a furnace to smelt it into iron ingots, that you can then craft. First of all craft a sword and a bucket (fill it with water), then craft iron armor, after that craft iron pickaxe, optionally an iron shovel and lastly some spare buckets to hold a second water source or stray lava. Crafting recipes can be found here.

Gold, Lapis Lazuli, and Redstone are more specialized ores—gold and redstone need an iron pick, and lapis benefits from one. You don't really need them much at the beginning, so you don't have to mine them at first. Also, they are only found in deeper parts of the caves. Once you do have a little gold and Redstone, probably the first things you'll want to use them for are a compass (iron+redstone), a clock (gold+redstone), and some golden apples (gold+apples). Once you find some sugar cane, you can add a map (paper+compass) to keep track of your explorations and help avoid getting lost.

Diamond is a very rare mineral, sought after the most, due to the fact that it can be crafted into very durable and quick tools. They can be found at the very bottom of the world, more commonly 5 to 12 levels above bedrock. Once you hit bedrock (unbreakable blocks letting off floating gray particles) climb back up about 10 levels and mine around for a while before slowly making your way down one level at a time. At levels 5 and below, you'll be working around bedrock, so it's better to keep above that. A good way to check what level you are currently on is to press F3 on your keyboard and read the Y-axis value. Note that the player's eyes are 1.62 units above his feet, but as of version 1.3.1, the F3 screen shows both eye and foot heights.

Emeralds are normally gained (and used) by trading with villagers, but scattered blocks of the ore can also be found beneath "Extreme Hills" biomes. Emerald ore is found at the same depths as gold ore. It is not used for tools, or much else besides trading.

Home safety
By the end of the first day the shelter will likely be primitive and small, in the days after it's easier to build a 'home', in whatever shape or form you can imagine. Most likely, you will be sleeping outside (if you found sheep) in the first few nights. In the first shelter it's likely you only have 1 entrance, therefore it may be wise to add a crude 'defense' or trap to stop monsters from 'grouping up' at the door. For example, when you do not use a bed to skip the night and get disturbed while you are building, it would be best to have an alternative to fighting off the mobs. A simple and effective defense is to dig a small 3 block deep trench on both sides next to the door. The monster will have a hard time not falling down when it's following you to the shelter. However, due to the improved AI of hostile mobs, it is less likely for them to fall into trenches and other dangerous traps. Note: you can surround the top blocks with signs, mobs will think the sign is a block and will attempt to stand on top of it, causing them to fall into the pit. Ladders do this as well. Just be careful to avoid your own traps when you walk out the front door.



Next day
A tutorial for your next day is available here: the Second Day.

Important things to remember

 * Do not dig straight up or down.
 * Do not have a Flint & Steel equipped when operating equipment (E.g. doors, switches etc.)
 * Do not have TNT equipped near any item that can emit a redstone signal (E.g. Switches, Redstone torches etc.)
 * Always use the key when working near dangerous areas (E.g. Long Drops, Lava, etc.)

The shopping list
This is a quick reference for what you will need to survive your first night.


 * Bearings
 * Mark spawn.


 * Gather and craft [amounts are close to minimal, and are barring any additions or extras]
 * Get 10 or more logs: See note below
 * Get 3 wool blocks
 * Make a crafting table
 * Make a wooden pickaxe
 * Get 11 cobblestone*
 * Make a stone pickaxe
 * Make an Iron Pickaxe, and shears after that (If you hit Iron)
 * Get about 4 saplings (these are found when you chop down a tree)


 * Shelter
 * Make a bed
 * Start on shelter (materials depend, not counted)
 * Create a front door for your shelter and include a back door as well if at all possible (back door not included in above material count).
 * Create a storage chest and place it in the shelter
 * Create a furnace
 * If you didn't find coal, smelt a few logs to make charcoal. Smelting 3 logs with 2 planks for fuel (also not included in the material count) will be most efficient.
 * Create some torches and place them


 * Planting
 * Plant four saplings (they will grow into trees), so you won't have to go exploring and get lost.

9 logs equal 32 planks and a leftover log (logs do not have much use, so you might as well make 36 planks as long as you already have torches.)
 * Resource usage
 * 4 planks for crafting table
 * 4 planks for sticks for pickaxes and some torches
 * 3 planks for head of pickaxe
 * 8 planks for storage chest
 * 6 planks for door
 * 3 planks for bed
 * 1 log + 1 plank for furnace (plank as fuel, log for charcoal)


 * Multiplayer
 * a few Wooden Pressure Plates. You never know when they may come in handy, perhaps saving you from a devious Iron Door trap!


 * Tip: Gather 3 cobblestone first, then make a stone pickaxe; use it to gather 8 cobblestone for a furnace.

Tutorial videos

 * The First Day in Minecraft 1.0.0 (SecretRevelation)
 * The First Day (Beginners' Essentials) (Minecraft Tutorial)
 * Minecraft The First 10 Minutes (Minecraft Tutorial)
 * Your First Shelter in Minecraft (Tutorial Machinima)
 * Minecraft: Building a Starting House (Minecraft Tutorial)
 * Minecraft Efficient Farm (Minecraft Tutorial)
 * Getting Used To The Minecraft Crafting List 101