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 on the default 'Normal' difficulty setting and in single player.

Controls
If you are reading this while you are playing Minecraft, go to that tab right now and press esc, please. It will save you from plunging into the darkness of night without any tools that you need to survive your first days. 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 (strafe)
 * moves right (strafe)
 * 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. 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 toggle 3rd-person view and pressed again will toggle front view

(previously ) will cycle through the levels of fog in the world. This sets the render distance and 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 medium 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. (around a 32 block diameter)


 * Note: As of Beta 1.8, the deeper underground you are, the heavier the fog will be, this increases immensely in, and slightly above, the void, where it is nearly pitch black.

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 hostiles, or 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 falls below 90%, you will not regenerate health, and 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 for your first night 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 the player, when starting off, does not leave the shelter and dive straight into attacking hostiles, since the player will likely lack the resources to fend off large groups of mobs. It should be noted that the player has the option to play Minecraft on peaceful mode, where no hostile mobs will spawn at all. The difficulty settings are in the options menu, which can be changed even when a game is in session.

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 is possible 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. Should the resources be available to craft a bed, a spawn marker is not necessary, as sleeping in the bed will move your spawn point. 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.

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 if they are not recovered. 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.

It is best to work quickly, as a Minecraft day is only about ten minutes.

The Essentials
Multiplayer note: On most servers, only administrators and ops can destroy blocks that are near the spawn point.

However you approach your first night, you will need at least wood and ideally coal or charcoal to have a fighting chance.

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 spinning representation. It will then appear in the inventory. Note that some resources, such as stone, only drop if destroyed with the correct tool.

To place resources in the environment, press on your keyboard to bring up your inventory and drag and drop the desired item to the quick access bar at the bottom of your inventory. Select the item by pressing the number representative of the box order (1,2,3 etc.) on your keyboard or scrolling with the mousewheel. Lastly, click the right mouse button to place the resource.

To drop resources in the environment, press on the keyboard when the resource is selected in the quick access bar, and 1 quantity of the selected item will be dropped onto the ground. Alternatively, open the inventory window and move a stack of items outside the window to drop the entire stack.

Wood
Walk over to the closest tree (should there be no trees around, just roam a little and you'll surely find one) and start punching wood blocks (you do not need a tool for this). They are a very important resource which is needed for basic crafting. 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.

Craft a Crafting table
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.

To craft a crafting table, first open the inventory and click on a stack of wood:

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

Left clicking on the plank icon will craft four planks for every one piece of wood you have, but if you hold down the right mouse button it instantly crafts the maximum amount (or a full stack of 64) that you can with the given materials, 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 spinning icon produced to pick it up.

Craft a 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, 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.

Gathering Resources
Once you've crafted a pickaxe, you can successfully acquire cobblestone. 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 9 stone blocks (after mining it will become cobblestone) and approach your crafting table.

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 destroy dirt, sand and gravel blocks.

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

Once you have all the basic tools it's time to gather some wood supplies. Despite some trees looking different and not stacking together, they all are equal in terms of what can be done with them. You might also notice that saplings will drop from leaf blocks. Some people recomend to plant these to regrow trees later, but by the time you cut all the wild trees, you'll probably have had a tree farm for a long time. If you plan to settle around there, more trees will also obstruct your sight. Start chopping down more wood until you gather around 64 blocks (a full stack) or your axe breaks.

Animal Resources
You should gather wool during the first day. Try to get at least 3 pieces in order to craft a bed. You can get one wool from killing a sheep. To find a sheep, just walk a little in one direction.

You will probably encounter other animals, such as cows, pigs and chickens. Kill couple of these to get a bit of food (if you don't eat, you'll eventually starve to death). You can eat it raw or cook it later. Cows also drop leather, but it is fairly useless, besides craftable into very weak armor.

A Word about Digging
One of important tips is:
 * Do not dig straight down, unless you're sure what is below you.

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, this might be thin air. Of course, it doesn't have to and usually isn't. But still you risk a lot: you could fall into a deep dark cavern or even into a pool of lava, which means death, if you lose composure and don't act quickly enough.

At this point, if you have some daylight left, you can kill some animals, collect some things or just explore marvelous overworld. If you don't feel like, just skip to next item.

Nighttime
The first thing you need is a shelter to do some nighttime chores safely. You can dig into the ground, mountain side, climb on treetop, or just close yourself off in a natural cave.

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, so you will have to resort to using charcoal.

To make a charcoal, you have to smelt a block 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 (at this point preferably wooden planks; one piece is enough to smelt 1.5 piece of material smelted/cooked) in the bottom slot and the wood in the top slot:

Acquire about 6 pieces of charcoal. Each pice of charcoal (and coal, the 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 rest into torches in following manner (you don't need your crafting table):

Now, the last thing you need is a bed. You make a bed like this (color of wool 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 have not enough wool, you will have to do so, but take extreme care. Next item deals with mining. If you don't think you missed anything in the overworld, keep on reading.

Mining
Players argue about optimal way of mining, but one thing is certain: 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 ovewworld a little and look out for exposed cave entrances. Sometimes they end immediately, but sometimes they develop into big cave systems. 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.

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) should be enough, more would never hurt, though.

This is probably the most important and versatile resource you can find underground. You can use it to craft good quality tools, armor and plethora of other things. Gather as much of it as possible. Once you have quite a bit of iron ore, make a base to smelt it into iron ingots, that you can then craft. First of all craft a sword and a bucket and fill it with water, then craft iron armor, after that craft iron pickaxe and shovel and lastly some spare buckets to hold second water source or some spare lava. Crafting recipes can be found here.

These are more specialised ores that you don't really need at the beginning, so you don't have to mine them at first. They are only found in deeper parts of the caves and can be mined only (with the exception of Lapis Lazuli) by iron or better pickaxe.

Diamond is very rare mineral, sought after the most, due to the fact that it can be crafted into very durable and quick tools. Once you mine 5 pieces of it (2 for sword and 3 for a pickaxe), you should start heading to the exit (or just dig staircase up). They can be found at the very bottom of the world, around lava level, which is border, below which lava is much more common. Therefore they are often found around lava lakes and that is where you should look for it.

If All Else Fails
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, but if this is your first day and you have not done anything important, you make a new world. To survive, 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 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. 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. If it is daytime, then congratulations: You have survived your first night. If there are no hills nearby, you can dig into the ground and make a small underground shelter. However, it's harder to tell when it's day again, as making a hole in the roof risks letting mobs fall in. If you don't like the makeshift shelter option you can swim out to sea (effective but very cowardly) and just wait for dawn. Hostile mobs will only spawn on solid blocks (besides ice) so you don't have to worry about them. Just make sure you are sufficiently far from land that they can't spot you. Another alternative is to 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. Or if you dig some soil, you can build a tall 1x1 structure by pillar jumping: jump up while looking straight down, 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. You will then need to wait until morning. Once it is light enough, and the mobs have burned, simply dig out the blocks you're perched upon until you're back on the ground.

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. 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, now due to the improved AI of hostile mobs, it is less likely for them to fall into trenches and other dangerous traps.



This design can be spiced up with a Trapdoor or you can make one of countless other possible Traps, though on the first day it's often suggested to keep it simple. Over time you will acquire other resources to assist in myriad different traps and defenses. You can find many examples of them, including but not limited to: TNT based traps, Mob Grinders, Lava Pits, etc.

TNT is an example of something that requires resources that are difficult to gather on your first day, not to mention they are a one-time use option. Another way to protect your home is to 'plant' cacti around it. Simply find at least one cactus block, gather some sand, and place them in defensive positions around your home. The cactus will grow and the extra blocks can be used to make additional cacti. You won't be able to make straight 'wall' of them, since cacti self-destruct with something adjacent to it, but you can stagger them diagonally, creating a checkerboard pattern. Alternatively a straight wall can still be achieved when you place a block one level above the adjacent block,however when the cactus grows a block this new block which would be adjacent to another block and gets destroyed immediately. Remember to leave yourself a way in no matter what device you scheme to ensure home safety. One strategy is to make a yard and build fences all around it except for one block where you can put a Fence Gate.

Emergency Shelter
Redirect to.

If everything else is unsuccessful, or you somehow die and spawn in your default spawn point, (which hopefully is near your shelter), and night has already fallen...fear not! Dig three blocks down, cover your head with another block. Then wait out the night. Sure, you'll survive the night, but due to the lack of resources you have now, you'll survive the night in a cramped, dark, 1x1x2 hole. At least you're safe. Another option is just to collect some dirt and then build a tower up to a tree and stay there for the night. If you have the time to mine enough dirt or have extra resources, a good strategy is to us the "pillar" strategy which is to look directly down and keep placing blocks while jumping, which will create a pillar. If the pillar is high enough, monsters will not be able to spot you and you can wait out the night. (Note: This skill is highly useful in this game, whether cave exploring, building, or for the technique above). A final strategy is if you have a bed with you. Build a three block high pillar, then make two blocks to the side to put a bed, making the bed rest on the two blocks which are 2 blocks high from the ground. Since monsters cannot get to you, you will wake up the next day with no bad dreams. (Very useful if you want to constantly build a structure without waiting a night indoors in your shelter).

Next Day
Here's a tutorial for the Second Day.

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


 * Bearings
 * Mark spawn and observe where north and east are.


 * Gather and craft
 * Get 10 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 (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 door for your shelter
 * Create a storage chest and place it in the shelter
 * Create a furnace
 * Smelt 1 log to make charcoal unless you found coal
 * Create some torches and place them

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 pickaxe's 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)

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