Survive Your First Night in Minecraft

So you've got Minecraft now, and start your first game. Now what? Chances are you've been plopped down on a beach somewhere in a deserted wilderness that is the Minecraft world.

It may look like a happy little world from where you're standing right now, but the Minecraft world will quickly turn not-so-friendly when the sun goes down. So you've got about 10 minutes to prepare a shelter for the night, or you probably won't survive it...

Making wood planks.

The first thing you need to do is gather some wood. Fortunately, wood is easy to gather in Minecraft... Just go punch a tree. Seriously, punch it, like with your fist (which means hold down the left mouse button on it). Do this for a few seconds and you'll get a wood block. Gather several wood blocks.

Once  you have a couple wood blocks, press 'i' to bring up your inventory and we'll turn these wood blocks into planks.Planks are much more useful than blocks, and you'll generally want to turn all your wood blocks into planks. Note that in the inventory screen, the bottom row is the items you will carry around with you and can use.

Making a crafting bench.

Next, make a crafting bench. A crafting bench is required for a lot of items, since it provides a 3x3 crafting area, instead of the 2x2 area in your inventory. Make a crafting bench by putting four planks in a square in your inventory, as pictured at right. Once you have the crafting bench in your inventory, go ahead and plop it down somewhere by selecting it in your current inventory and right clicking to place it. For a complete list of crafting items, check out the wiki page on crafing recipes.

Sticks!

Now make some sticks by placing two planks on top of each other in the crafting area, like shown at right. Sticks are just as useful as planks, and will be used in all sorts of tools. Sticks can be used in swords, picks, shovels, ladders, and all sorts of other useful items, so try to keep a constant inventory of both sticks and planks or rock blocks.

Making a pickaxe.

Now we can make our first tool, a pickaxe. Go to your crafting bench and right click it to bring up its screen. To make a pickaxe, enter sticks and planks in the arrangement seen to the right. You will need this pickaxe to dig a hiding spot for the night. You can make pickaxes from stone, iron, gold, and diamonds as well, just use those materials instead of the planks for the "pick" part. You don't need two of each item, I just put two of each so I could make two picks. It's always good to have more than one, because they do wear out with use.

Dig a hidey-hole.

OK, by now, its probably starting to get late in the day. Night is approaching and if you don't get shelter soon, you'll be zombie fodder. Dig a hole into the side of a mountain. Make it a 2 block high hall that is 1 block wide. Then make a small room attached to that hall. In all it shouldn't take more than a minute to make a small hidey-hole.

Coal!

You'll notice that it's super dark inside that hidey-hole. If you still have time left in the day, go find some coal so we can make some torches. Coal looks like the block shown at right. Once you destroy that block, and others like it, you'll have coal in your inventory. Make a torch by putting a coal on top of a stick in the crafting area. Torches will keep the hidey-hole light, and light is a very good thing to have during a Minecraft night.

Yay torches!!

Now, place a block on the floor of your cave's entrance. Zombies and skeletons need a 2x1 hole to fit through, and spiders need a 1x2 hole. So make your window 1x1 and neither can fit through, but you can still see when its morning. Just be careful, because skeletons will still try to fire arrows through this window. Come morning, just destroy the block there, and watch out for leftover creepers!

Now you're ready to tackle day 2, assuming you made it through your first night. Day 2 is usually best spent gather more resources to build a stable supply that you can depend on. Stay tuned for more tips.