Tutorials/Your first 10 minutes

This is not a game guide, so if you're looking for definitions, you've come to the wrong place.

Dawn
You spawn in a world with water, sun, trees, animals and hills, move the mouse around quickly to discover the world.

Minute Zero
0:00-0:15

Look around, take note of your surroundings. See if there are any trees around you.

0:20-1:00

Walk towards trees. If you do not see any trees, pick a random direction and walk. If you are on an island, surrounded by water, swim towards land by holding space. Throughout the first day, it's recommended to hit any Tall Grass you come across as wheat seeds are going to come in handy later on.

Minute One
1:00-2:00

Punch down the trees in the surrounding area. If you still do not see trees, then start collecting sand (as much as you can get) for 20 sec., then move on. If you are still swimming, keep at it. (click and hold left mouse) Get at least four Wood Blocks (logs for short). Any type will do. (tap "e" [default inventory button] to see what you have in your inventory and tap "e" again when you are finished)

The last thing you must do is start killing animals by punching them to death, and then collecting all their drops. Keep doing this until you pick a place for your shelter, then do not kill the animals near your shelter. If you see a horse then DO NOT kill it! Tame it instead by right-clicking it to mount it, and repeating the process until it stops bucking you off. Don't bother attacking wolves, as they don't have any item drops, are rather dangerous if you attack when starting out, and can be tamed into dogs that will protect you. If you are lucky enough to run into cats, then don't kill them either, or even scare them away, as they can scare away creepers and can also be tamed.

Minute Two
2:00-2:10

Make a Crafting Table by pressing 'e' then clicking the logs into the 2x2 grid in the top right.(1 log = 4 planks) Then click the four planks you made into the 2x2 grid, one in each segment, on the right a crafting table will appear; once you have it, place it down and right mouse click to use it.

2:10-3:00

Make a wooden pickaxe (1 log = 4 planks = 8 sticks)

Minute Three
3:00-4:00

Dig down or into hills using your fist on the dirt, and then use the pickaxe to gather at least 20 blocks of cobblestone. This hole can be your shelter if you want, so pick a suitable place. You can also look for a cave opening. These are quite easy to find, occurring in every biome. They usually have lots of ore, too, so keep an eye out.

Make a stone axe, a stone pickaxe, and a stone sword.

It never hurts to get more wood, so try to have at least 10 logs for the night. It's okay if you don't get enough. You can collect more in the morning.

Chop up your Crafting Table and collect it and remember your spawn point. (If you have Rei's Minimap, a mod, put a spawnpoint where you spawn by pressing "C" then typing "Spawn")

Minute Four
4:00-5:00

Wander around and look for coal and a place to make your shelter. It's okay if you can't find coal, just cut down some more wood.

Midday
You live in the world.

Minute Five
5:00-6:00

Walk around, looking for an ideal place for your shelter. If you see sheep, kill 3 of them to gather 3 blocks of wool. If you want to have an easier time later on by breeding sheep, don't kill sheep unless there are 5 or more around. (It is still advised to kill sheep whenever you find them until you have three blocks of wool, any color will do.)

Minute Six
6:00-7:00

Clear the area for your new shelter. You can make an easy shelter by digging into a hill or digging steps downwards into the ground.

Minute Seven & Eight
7:00-9:00

Build your basic shelter (worry about size and looks later, focus on functionality). For now, build it with dirt, wooden planks, or sandstone (If you spawned in a desert biome and collected sand during Minute One)

Craft some torches to light your shelter up.

If you couldn't find coal, you can make a furnace and burn logs to acquire Charcoal, which functions the same as regular coal. First, make a furnace.

Then, turn 1 log into charcoal, using either your Wooden Pickaxe or some planks as fuel. (Wooden tools are not efficient fuel, but also serve no purpose once stone has been acquired.)

Finally, use this Charcoal to burn up to 8 more logs. You can keep using this method to get charcoal until you find coal ore.

Also, after burning the wood, cook the meat you got by killing animals if you have found any.

If you have additional wood, make a door. In recent updates, zombies have been enabled with the ability to break doors (only on hard mode, which a beginner should never play on, this is just for you to keep in mind). Please keep this in mind when building your entrance/exit to your shelter, and to place the door go outside and place it to outer side of the block of your entrance to your shelter.

Minute Nine
9:00-10:00

Get ready for the night and craft a bed if you gathered wool. Note that the color of the wool doesn't matter; you can use any color of wool you have (and any combination of wood you have.) This, however, does not affect the output's colors.

And while you have this extra time, it would be a good idea to craft a chest to store unwanted and unnecessary items to carry around at all times such as seeds, eggs, leather, and extra food (meat).

Minute Ten
10:00

Go to bed. If you have not gathered enough wool for a bed or do not want to use one, first check to see if your base is secure (is lit, has all four walls, and has a roof. It is not recommended to add decorations to your house on the first day).

If you don't have enough wool then what you need to do is start to make a mine. From mines you can get lots of useful items such as iron, coal, redstone, gold, lapis, diamond, and emerald. You should start to mine in a staircase pattern (so you can get back up.) Mines are also a good way to find caves.

If you don't have enough coal to make many torches for the mine you can organize your items and house to make finding and moving easier.

Dusk
If you decide to start making a mine, there are many methods to dig for resources. While a safe method would be simply to dig a large room, lighting it up as you dig while looking for ores, a more profitable decision would be to look for a cave and start spelunking. If you decide to find and explore caves, a sword, food, and a light source (presumably torches) are absolute necessities. If you come across any ore other than coal, stone, or dirt get a stone pickaxe before you mine it, as using an inferior pickaxe will not only take longer to mine it, it will break the ore without dropping the resource. Be prepared for hostile mobs, as it is a common but fatal mistake for starters to think that the moon spawns hostile mobs, and not simply darkness. If you come back with enough iron, you will be able to experience many more features of Minecraft, mainly redstone, pistons, diamond, and much more. You have started on your path to your success in Minecraft, whether you found iron or not.

Other options
One good idea is to chop extra wood and burn it for charcoal. With practice, you can start a new game and as long as you are near trees when you spawn, you should be able to make basic tools, a furnace and have enough wood for torches before midday (5 minutes).

Often people would rather use up wooden tools before switching to their newly made stone tools, but the stone tools really are better -- if you don't want to "waste" the wooden tools, you can use them as fuel to smelt single items. If possible, and if you can spot a position where you would like to build your house when you spawn, try to gather the resources from nearby, and only dig where you would otherwise dig to construct your house to save time later. Replant all saplings as soon as they fall if this is the case so that you have less distance to walk later.

If you're more adventurous, find an ocean. As soon as you have a lot of wood blocks, build the crafting table and wooden ax as above, then build 3 or 4 boats and go sailing. Spend nights at sea while perusing the coastline for a nice place to make your base. Once you do, put ashore at dawn and proceed with the guidelines above.

Remember, dig tight and don't let the Zombies bite.

Video
Video by: tnthost