Minecraft for Beginners

[ArtifactSpot]

I have read tons of good things about Minecraft here. I’ve tried to get into it but just can’t figure the basics or even purpose of the game. If I play survival I die straight away. If I play creative and can’t die I just bust blocks but never really acomplish anything. My brain just doesn’t “get” it I guess. Best beginner tips or any good guides out there? I bought it on mobile iOS.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I find Creative mode to be useful for planning a build but I am NOT a builder so I very rarely use it. I'm not inherently creative so otherwise this mode is useless other than for rare testing.

Survival becomes easy once you figure out a formula that works for you. Interestingly I recently watched a MC video about 25 tips or something like than and I was already doing about 15 of them, so that's part of the figuring out and I've been playing MC for 6 or 7 years now?

My way to avoid the quickly dying part is:

1) If you have a recent computer (or a gaming PC), set your render distance to 24 or 32 Chunks in preferences. If this kills your framerate, pull it down by 4 each time until you find it tolerable. The farther you can see, the easier it is to find a place/resource you're looking for.

2) A general starting strategy

• Punch a few Wood blocks outta a tree, make 4 Planks per Wood, make 4 or 8 Sticks from 2-4 Planks
• Make a Crafting table from 4 Planks, make a Wood Pickaxe from 2 Sticks and 3 Planks
• Dig into a closeby hillside until you get to Stone (usually 3 blocks in)
• Pickaxe 3 Stone, craft a Stone Pick and toss your old wood one
• Pick a bunch of Stone for future use, maybe ~20
• Make a Stone Axe and Stone Sword and maybe even a Furnace from that Stone

Those are your basics and should take maybe half that first day.

3) Plan for the first night

Survey your surroundings, keep to open or maybe high areas and look for Villages as they're the easiest way to get Food and a Bed. Plains, Desert, Savanna are the most open and easiest to see Villages from far away. If you find a Village, you're set. Grab a Bed and you can sleep thru the night, avoiding the explodey, shooty, jumpy, starey, grumbly after-dark mobs. In early game, your bed is your best friend.

At the same time, keep an eye out for Sheep: 3 Sheep = 1 Bed. Kill 3 Sheep, get 3 Wool, use that to make your Bed. Complication: All the Wool needs to be the same color! So really you're looking for 3 White Sheep (by far the most common).

4) Food

Most Villages have Hay bales, you can deconstruct them to 9 Wheat and make 3 Bread from that. Bread is a great early game food. Also check all Village houses as some have Chests with more food. You can also raid the Farmed plots for Wheat and Po-tats as cooked Taters are a very good food.

Sans Villages, my favorite food source is Salmon from any local River as they're very common. I usually kill them with an Axe on Java MC or Sword on Bedrock/Mobile MC. Same weapon goes for fighting in general. Cook the Salmon in that Furnace and they're also excellent food source.


From there it's up to you. I usually look for a scenic place to set up a base and I really like a beautiful Beach facing South so when I turn on Shaders the light and shadows play on the House. And then start the inevitable disappointment of House design. I'm just not very good but I'm way better than I used to be!


Edit: Vague next steps can include:

• Set up Farm for dependable Food source (Po-tats and wheat are good)
• Mine for Coal, especially on the surface (should have mentioned this above as fuel for Furnace but Wood is also good)
• Mine for Iron to make Armor and better Tools, rarely found on the surface so probably will need to head into caves, light cave floors up with torches!
• Make a Boat and dive Shipwreck Ruins to loot Chests. My fave but if you see a Drowned tossing tridents at you, get away ASAP!
• Mine wayyy down for Diamonds yet again for better Armor/Tools

More complicated things not everyone does:

• Set up Villager Trading near your house/base. I don't always do this but done properly it's a decent way to get Iron, then Diamond everything without heading into the caves! Srsly if you hate caves, this is a nice option.
• Collect things of interest. I like a full Farm with all the Farmables and that means finding a Jungle biome for Melons. You may come across free range Pumpkins in many biomes. Grab one if you have the inventory space, I love a farm with Pumpkins too! I like having Cocoa and Bamboo and Vines growing on my farm. The items from Lush Caves are nice but I kinda really don't like Lush caves much probably because I don't like Caves much at all. But Glowberries are superfab and the big pink ceiling Flowers that rain pollen are great. LOL I cant remember their name.

So depending on what you want it can become a decoration game like parts of SDV but at some point it's interesting to do the later game things of the Nether, the Stronghold, the Ender Dragon, raiding End Cities. So there's more to do but you don't need to do these things. I've done the Stronghold and End maybe 3-4 times in 6-7 years.

I'd rather build and design even though I'm pants at it.

 

[ArtifactSpot]

I find Creative mode to be useful for planning a build but I am NOT a builder so I very rarely use it. I'm not inherently creative so otherwise this mode is useless other than for rare testing.

Survival becomes easy once you figure out a formula that works for you. Interestingly I recently watched a MC video about 25 tips or something like than and I was already doing about 15 of them, so that's part of the figuring out and I've been playing MC for 6 or 7 years now?

My way to avoid the quickly dying part is:

1) If you have a recent computer (or a gaming PC), set your render distance to 24 or 32 Chunks in preferences. If this kills your framerate, pull it down by 4 each time until you find it tolerable. The farther you can see, the easier it is to find a place/resource you're looking for.

2) A general starting strategy

• Punch a few Wood blocks outta a tree, make 4 Planks per Wood, make 4 or 8 Sticks from 2-4 Planks
• Make a Crafting table from 4 Planks, make a Wood Pickaxe from 2 Sticks and 3 Planks
• Dig into a closeby hillside until you get to Stone (usually 3 blocks in)
• Pickaxe 3 Stone, craft a Stone Pick and toss your old wood one
• Pick a bunch of Stone for future use, maybe ~20
• Make a Stone Axe and Stone Sword and maybe even a Furnace from that Stone

Those are your basics and should take maybe half that first day.

3) Plan for the first night

Survey your surroundings, keep to open or maybe high areas and look for Villages as they're the easiest way to get Food and a Bed. Plains, Desert, Savanna are the most open and easiest to see Villages from far away. If you find a Village, you're set. Grab a Bed and you can sleep thru the night, avoiding the explodey, shooty, jumpy, starey, grumbly after-dark mobs. In early game, your bed is your best friend.

At the same time, keep an eye out for Sheep: 3 Sheep = 1 Bed. Kill 3 Sheep, get 3 Wool, use that to make your Bed. Complication: All the Wool needs to be the same color! So really you're looking for 3 White Sheep (by far the most common).

4) Food

Most Villages have Hay bales, you can deconstruct them to 9 Wheat and make 3 Bread from that. Bread is a great early game food. Also check all Village houses as some have Chests with more food. You can also raid the Farmed plots for Wheat and Po-tats as cooked Taters are a very good food.

Sans Villages, my favorite food source is Salmon from any local River as they're very common. I usually kill them with an Axe on Java MC or Sword on Bedrock/Mobile MC. Same weapon goes for fighting in general. Cook the Salmon in that Furnace and they're also excellent food source.


From there it's up to you. I usually look for a scenic place to set up a base and I really like a beautiful Beach facing South so when I turn on Shaders the light and shadows play on the House. And then start the inevitable disappointment of House design. I'm just not very good but I'm way better than I used to be!


Edit: Vague next steps can include:

• Set up Farm for dependable Food source (Po-tats and wheat are good)
• Mine for Coal, especially on the surface (should have mentioned this above as fuel for Furnace but Wood is also good)
• Mine for Iron to make Armor and better Tools, rarely found on the surface so probably will need to head into caves, light cave floors up with torches!
• Make a Boat and dive Shipwreck Ruins to loot Chests. My fave but if you see a Drowned tossing tridents at you, get away ASAP!
• Mine wayyy down for Diamonds yet again for better Armor/Tools

More complicated things not everyone does:

• Set up Villager Trading near your house/base. I don't always do this but done properly it's a decent way to get Iron, then Diamond everything without heading into the caves! Srsly if you hate caves, this is a nice option.
• Collect things of interest. I like a full Farm with all the Farmables and that means finding a Jungle biome for Melons. You may come across free range Pumpkins in many biomes. Grab one if you have the inventory space, I love a farm with Pumpkins too! I like having Cocoa and Bamboo and Vines growing on my farm. The items from Lush Caves are nice but I kinda really don't like Lush caves much probably because I don't like Caves much at all. But Glowberries are superfab and the big pink ceiling Flowers that rain pollen are great. LOL I cant remember their name.

So depending on what you want it can become a decoration game like parts of SDV but at some point it's interesting to do the later game things of the Nether, the Stronghold, the Ender Dragon, raiding End Cities. So there's more to do but you don't need to do these things. I've done the Stronghold and End maybe 3-4 times in 6-7 years.

I'd rather build and design even though I'm pants at it.

Thank you so much!

Again I’m a middle aged woman needing a for dummies edition. Mining means breaking the ground or is there an actual mine to go to? Also do all the basic maps have villages? And I just sleep in someone else’s bed and they won’t hurt me for it? Maybe things look different on PC cause I have 4, 6 and 8 for distance. Every single time I get near water I drown lol

 

[Lew Zealand]

Thank you so much!

Again I’m a middle aged woman needing a for dummies edition. Mining means breaking the ground or is there an actual mine to go to? Also do all the basic maps have villages? And I just sleep in someone else’s bed and they won’t hurt me for it? Maybe things look different on PC cause I have 4, 6 and 8 for distance. Every single time I get near water I drown lol

Hey those are great questions, OK specifics:

For many people, mining generally refers to breaking any block, like even the wood and leaves in a tree. However more specifically when most people "go mining", they find a hole in the ground or the side of a hill and head in to see what you can find. However wherever the light level gets to zero, then any of the baddies can spawn and even during the day those holes get dark quickly. Always bring Torches and light up your way by placing them on the ground, and they also serve as breadcrumbs to lead you back out. Alternatively, you can just start digging anywhere you like and create your own hole/mine. This is slower but does have some advantages because you can light it up as you go along so there's no danger of something lurking around the corner. Always dig at a slant, like making your own staircase, never straight down because you can drop into an existing cave and fall to your death. No I've super never done that dozens of times...

Minecraft maps are practically infinite in size and are procedurally generated, so all maps have everything... eventually. However the different biomes in Minecraft have different features and only some biomes have Villages: Plains (best), Savannah (also very good), Desert (a more difficult landscape but very easy to see far), Taiga, some snow biome (I forget which lol). Is there another? Might be. The Taiga biome may be the only one with Villages that doesn't have good views as it's very cluttered with trees. So really, staying to open spaces seems quite good for Villages.

You can sleep anywhere as they won't mind. You can even right-click the bed if they're sleeping already to kick em out and sleep yourself, heehee! You can also loot all their chests and farmland, they don't mind either. I do replant the farmland I loot though, just common courtesy. You get seeds for half the crops and just replant some of the Carrots and Potats.

Honestly, stay out of the water unless it's rivers with close riverbanks, work up to Ocean exploring later. Instead make a boat and cruise around! To swim up to the surface to avoid drowning, it's Space Bar but it's slow. Using the Sprint key (CTRL I think) will get you swimming faster, including back up to the surface along with the Space Bar. Practice in a river.

OK 4, 6, 8 for distance is not very far, you'll have a real hard time finding anything. Honestly IMO that's like playing on hard mode. Even if you can set it to 16 Chunks that'll be wayyy better. I started on the PC/Mac default 12 Chunks and played for over a year that way before I found the setting and set it to 32. Wow what a difference! And it killed the framerate on my poor old Mac. I think I ended up at about 16-20 which it could handle at the time.

 

[Colleen&Potato]

I really don’t feel like reading all of the other responses (I’m insanely lazy), so if I repeat something… sorry, I guess. When I first started playing Minecraft, I only used creative. That helped me understand the basics, like how to move and all those fun things. Then I made some peaceful worlds and worked my way up. It’s especially helpful to play with someone who knows the game, that way they can show you the ropes and still have fun.

 

[ArtifactSpot]

Hey those are great questions, OK specifics:

For many people, mining generally refers to breaking any block, like even the wood and leaves in a tree. However more specifically when most people "go mining", they find a hole in the ground or the side of a hill and head in to see what you can find. However wherever the light level gets to zero, then any of the baddies can spawn and even during the day those holes get dark quickly. Always bring Torches and light up your way by placing them on the ground, and they also serve as breadcrumbs to lead you back out. Alternatively, you can just start digging anywhere you like and create your own hole/mine. This is slower but does have some advantages because you can light it up as you go along so there's no danger of something lurking around the corner. Always dig at a slant, like making your own staircase, never straight down because you can drop into an existing cave and fall to your death. No I've super never done that dozens of times...

Minecraft maps are practically infinite in size and are procedurally generated, so all maps have everything... eventually. However the different biomes in Minecraft have different features and only some biomes have Villages: Plains (best), Savannah (also very good), Desert (a more difficult landscape but very easy to see far), Taiga, some snow biome (I forget which lol). Is there another? Might be. The Taiga biome may be the only one with Villages that doesn't have good views as it's very cluttered with trees. So really, staying to open spaces seems quite good for Villages.

You can sleep anywhere as they won't mind. You can even right-click the bed if they're sleeping already to kick em out and sleep yourself, heehee! You can also loot all their chests and farmland, they don't mind either. I do replant the farmland I loot though, just common courtesy. You get seeds for half the crops and just replant some of the Carrots and Potats.

Honestly, stay out of the water unless it's rivers with close riverbanks, work up to Ocean exploring later. Instead make a boat and cruise around! To swim up to the surface to avoid drowning, it's Space Bar but it's slow. Using the Sprint key (CTRL I think) will get you swimming faster, including back up to the surface along with the Space Bar. Practice in a river.

OK 4, 6, 8 for distance is not very far, you'll have a real hard time finding anything. Honestly IMO that's like playing on hard mode. Even if you can set it to 16 Chunks that'll be wayyy better. I started on the PC/Mac default 12 Chunks and played for over a year that way before I found the setting and set it to 32. Wow what a difference! And it killed the framerate on my poor old Mac. I think I ended up at about 16-20 which it could handle at the time.

Yeah it can go up to 12 but anything above 8 causes a warning to flash and I can’t afford a new iPad anytime soon so like someone posted maybe it should just play around in creative mode until I learn how to do most anything lol. These are great tips! Can I play around with growing crops in creative mode even though I won’t need the food? I have mobs turned off too. I think I’m struggling so much cause it’s 3D. My 1980’s brain is very pixelated and 2 dimensional. The older you get the harder it is to learn new video games and technology. lol! I grew up before the internet, my introduction to video games was the Comodore 64 and we were elated to get the original Nintendo when I was in 5th grade. Yeah. Just call me the Ancient Fruit of Technology. Can it still grow? I think that’s why I love Stardew so much. It’s right up my alley.

 

[ArtifactSpot]

I really don’t feel like reading all of the other responses (I’m insanely lazy), so if I repeat something… sorry, I guess. When I first started playing Minecraft, I only used creative. That helped me understand the basics, like how to move and all those fun things. Then I made some peaceful worlds and worked my way up. It’s especially helpful to play with someone who knows the game, that way they can show you the ropes and still have fun.

This is what I’ve been doing, with mobs turned off. I think I’ll stick with it. I’m having trouble learning how to pick things up like mushrooms or flowers. Also I don’t know how to craft or place objects yet and can’t find villages, just tress, water, and the occasional animal.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Yeah it can go up to 12 but anything above 8 causes a warning to flash and I can’t afford a new iPad anytime soon so like someone posted maybe it should just play around in creative mode until I learn how to do most anything lol.

iPad! I haven't played MC on my iPad in a while and mine is pretty old and yeah I thin k there's a limit to the chunk distance on mobile. I die a whole lot more on iPad because my fingers know mouse and keyboard from PC/Mac and they totally refuse to learn the touch screen. Stupid obstinate fingers! It's not worse on iPad as the kids heavily preferred it on iPad for years but their fingers apparently can still learn new things when they switched to PC.

These are great tips! Can I play around with growing crops in creative mode even though I won’t need the food?

Yes 100% totally do that! Colleen mentioned using Creative mode for practice and I facepalmed myself because that's a great suggestion and I just glossed over it.

I have mobs turned off too. I think I’m struggling so much cause it’s 3D. My 1980’s brain is very pixelated and 2 dimensional. The older you get the harder it is to learn new video games and technology. lol! I grew up before the internet, my introduction to video games was the Comodore 64 and we were elated to get the original Nintendo when I was in 5th grade. Yeah. Just call me the Ancient Fruit of Technology. Can it still grow? I think that’s why I love Stardew so much. It’s right up my alley.

Ha! Ancient Technology Froot! Stardew was a 100% throwback for me to my 1980s 2D tile-based games, a lot of which I played then. The difference was years later when friends bought us an original Playstation as a gift and then would always visit to play Final Fantasy VII. I'd play Tomb Raider so my brain got some 3D game training while it still was up to the task. It works hard to keep me oriented in Minecraft's 3D space and that's where having just a little more view distance would help you if the iPad allowed more. I had quite a bit of trouble early on with a short view distance but you know what's just littered all about in that first save (which still opens!)?

Loads of tall vertical posts I used as landmarks. Soooo evenly spaced as I'd just make another as the previous one started fading out of sight when I got far enough away. I did always find my way back thanks to them and once I stayed in that world long enough I eventually started recognizing and even remembering the landscape. You could try that out, I found it really helpful!

 

[Lew Zealand]

This is what I’ve been doing, with mobs turned off. I think I’ll stick with it. I’m having trouble learning how to pick things up like mushrooms or flowers. Also I don’t know how to craft or place objects yet and can’t find villages, just tress, water, and the occasional animal.

Edit: Oooooooooooh. I forgot. When you go into Creative mode you can't pick blocks up from the world, you just immediately destroy them. It kinda removes the Crafting half of Minecraft. OK a lot of the Mining too, heehee. Instead I suggest you set your game to Survival Mode and to Peaceful Difficulty. This gives you no problems from the baddies but you still Craft everything like in the "Normal" Difficulty game. And LOL I died like 8 times while writing this before remembering to set this properly!
__________

I'll give an abridged but more specific version of my wayyy too long first post. And andand I'm playing MC on the iPad to see what I'm getting wrong. Apologies if you've done any of this already. LOL haven't done this in just a bit…

• Punch some Wood Blocks off a Tree by holding down on each block, it takes a second or two for each. Yup, there is almost no gravity for most world objects in Minecraft.
You have Wood Blocks now.

• Open your Personal Crafting menu by tapping the three dots at far R of your Inventory bar at the bottom of the screen
• Tap the Wood Planks at the upper L of the screen, your Wood blocks will hop into your Personal 2x2 Crafting spot at upper R
• Tap the Wood Planks below your Crafting spot and it'll make 4 Planks and put them in your Inventory
• Tap the Planks at lower R again 2-3x so you have like 12 total, you'll need 3 Wood blocks to start for that
You have Wood Planks now.

• Tap the Sticks at the upper L which will make your new Wood Planks hop up to 2 spots in the Crafting spot
• Tap the Sticks at lower R and it'll make 4 Sticks. Tap it again to get 8.
You have Sticks now.

• Tap the Crafting Table at upper L, it's the block with designs on it. 4 Wood Planks will hop into the Crafting spot
• Tap the Crafting Table at lower R
Now you have a Crafting Table. This is your second best friend after the Bed.

• Close your Inventory with the X at upper R
• Tap the Crafting Table in your Inventory at the bottom and then tap any block in the world to set it onto. "Onto" can mean stuck to the side of a Tree trunk or even on the ceiling in a room. You can set most blocks, including your CraftTable on most other blocks, there are few restrictions and gravity is mostly ignored.
• Tap your newly placed Crafting Table and notice you now have a 3x3 grid to craft with. Almost all items in the game require this 3x3 to craft though you can still make some things in your Personal 2x2 crafting space.
• Note at Left how many things you can now craft with just these 3 different pieces of wood. Well, the ones in Red need more things but you unlock these new recipes as you gather more different blocks in the world.

Crafting is the same procedure in the Table as in your personal craft space, just with many more options. Tap something on the L and make it at bottom R. Do a whole bunch of this to get familiar with it. Punch down a bunch of Trees to get all the Wood you need to do that. And Trees will also drop other things on occasion. If you grab a Sapling (looks like a tiny Tree), plant it on the ground in the same way you placed the Crafting Table. It takes quite a while to "grow" but reforestation is a thing many players like to do.

And always remember: Pick up your Crafting Table when you're done! Same as punching a piece of Wood from a tree. But use your Axe instead, it's much faster. Use your Axe on Trees and anything Wood-based. The Pickaxe is for Stone. Each block in the world has a preferred Tool for it but many times any Tool, even your hand, will do the job but slower.

Take time and Have Fun!

 

[Sucad]

Beginning with simple tasks, like crafting tools and building a basic shelter, helped me grasp the fundamentals in Minecraft. YouTube is a fantastic resource for beginners, offering step-by-step guides that really simplify the learning process. If you're looking for a unique challenge that might suit your style better, consider giving minecraft skyblock servers a try. They place you on a small floating island with minimal resources, pushing you to creatively expand and manage your space effectively.