Minecraft For Beginners | 20 Tips To Get You Started

Minecraft can be daunting to new players and for many, it’s hard to get stuck in. With this guide for Minecraft, you can learn everything from initial shelter building to building a nether portal. These top Minecraft tips for noobs will set you on the right track and you will be a Minecraft addict before you know it.

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1. First things first – Chop down a tree and gather wool from three sheep

The wood and wool allow you to make a bed that acts as a future spawn point as well as a way to avoid the night creatures in the beginning of the game.

2. Your first home

Before the sun sets on the first day try and get a small house built (about 5×5 is fine). This can be done with dirt and only has to have walls of 2 blocks high to keep out the night creatures. Seal yourself in on the first night as you can always dig you way out in the morning. Dig down a few layers (keeping in mind you will need a dirt staircase and place your bed… Go to sleep, you have a big day in the morning

3. Crafting tables and furnaces

In order to make almost anything, you need a crafting table. Once created you can make everything from a rudimentary wooden axe to a fully powered train track. However, in order to cook food or smelt ore into usable materials, you will need a furnace and something to burn.

4. Torches are your best friend

Make sure you also have a good supply of torches. When mining they are invaluable to light your holes and when you discover caverns they are required to light them up. Many mines already have torches lit but there are many areas still in the dark. Torches also act as great map markers and can be placed at the top of towers and near doors to help players find their bearings.

5. Bad to the bone

If you are out at night, the Skeletons offer the best rewards. The bones can be used to befriend wolves, be crushed down into bonemeal for use in dyes or fertiliser and best of all they carry arrows which can take a while to build.

6. Get some allies

Use bones to tame wolves which as to be used as team members and attack what you attack.

7. Don’t dig straight up or straight down

Digging straight down might seem the quickest way to explore the hidden depths below you but if you chance upon a mine or cavern you could fall and die losing all your gear. Digging straight up can result in two issues, firstly you could hit water and be washed down the shaft and potentially flood the mine you have just dug. Similarly, if you hit gravel or sand you might find yourself on the tail end of a cave in.

8. Dig under mountains

Mountains are a good place to start digging. Many mountains yield mine shafts and large caverns that not only have more ore but chests and tracks.

9. The right tool for the job.

When you see gold, emerald or red stone make sure you use an iron pickaxe to mine it otherwise it will yield nothing.

10. Gold is not as good as you think

Gold is semi-rare in Minecraft and should be mined, but it is a soft metal and no good for weapons and armour. Save it to create powered mine rails to race around the map.

11. Get there faster

By double-tapping up/forwards on the controller, you can do a speed run, which, when combined with jumping is a faster way to travel.

12. Fast travel for lazy people

By laying mine cart tracks you can use minecarts to zip across the landscape easily and quickly. On easy mode the mine carts also have little or no issue going uphill as well as down so you can circumnavigate your world with ease.

13. Tactical suicide

Making a substantial marker tower requires it to be tall… very tall. Make sure you have put all valuable items in a box and have a spawn point nearby (a bed that you have previously slept in). Then take a lot of dirt or cobblestone and a few torches. Look down and jump up placing a block underneath you each time. This will elevate you to a ridiculous height and you can place a torch or two at the top to act as a map marker for safe houses, mines or temples. Getting down will kill you unless you land in water so once you have had a good look around leap to your doom.

14. Hot stuff

When going down mines remember to take an iron bucket. Before returning to the surface bring back a bucket of lava to pour into water. This creates obsidian which can be used for creating a nether portal.

15. Diamond is lava’s best friend

Always look underneath diamond as in many cases there is lava underneath.

16. Farming Islands

When farming, find a small pool and place a dirt island in the centre (keeping a channel of water around the outside). Use a hoe to treat the ground and plant wheat seeds for a constant supply of wheat. Wheat makes bread which restores lots of energy and can be used to lure cows and sheep into pens.

17. Keeping cows

As you get deeper into the game you will want to keep a steady supply of food around as starving can cause death. Use wheat to lure two cows into a pen and feed them wheat to breed them. The more cows you have the more food you can make (without having to go too far from base).

18. Listen, can you smell something?

When digging down, listen out for enemy sounds as this help identify nearby caverns. When you hear the chirp of a spider or moan of a zombie, try digging sideways in a few directions to locate them.

19. Get Minecraft Pocket Edition

This will give you twice as much game time but one can be used to learn what things do and experiment and the other can be your main game.

20. Don’t blow your diamonds on a hoe

his is an important life lesson in general. A wooden hoe works just as good as a diamond one. Diamonds are better used for pickaxes, swords and enchantment tables. Bonus tip: it’s easy to get addicted… Set yourself a mission or task and stick to it… You can lose hours, days and months in this game!