Minecraft For Beginners



What is Minecraft?


Minecraft is a java based game developed by gaming company Mojang, which was first started off by a man called Notch, a techy Swedish man with a love for games. If you want to read more about them, go here.

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The main objective of the game ( In singleplayer ) is to get materials, make a house, survive attacks from mobs, build amazing structures. The game is endless.

As you probably know the game is made of blocks, which gives it a very retro feel. Another cool and important thing to note is the the map is endless, yes endless, and is completely random, as you move throughout the world it gets bigger and different with you.

Note: The game isn't finished yet its in Beta, so gltiches and bugs are very common

How do I play?


The controls are as follows:

Mouse
Left Click - Break blocks.
Right Click - Place blocks.
Wheel scroll - Switch through your hotbar.

Keyboard
W - Move Forward
A - Strafe left
S - Move Backward
D - Strafe right
SpaceBar - Jump
Left Shift - Sneak/Crouch
1-9 - Picks a certain item on the hotbar
E or I - Opens up your inventory
Q - Drops the item you are holding in your hand
F - Toggles fog, which is the render distance
T - Chat, multiplayer only
Esc - Opens up the menu


What do I do?

Okay, you've started a new game, and your in a strange blocky world, like lego land. Now you want to find the nearest tree and hold down left click to break it into blocks which you can make things with. Press I to bring up your inventory. Drop the logs into the box at the top to convert them to planks. Then follow the instructions. Refer the the Minecraft Wiki, linked at the bottom of this section.

Logs > Planks > Crafting Bench > Tools

From there you make a house with the wood you have gathered. Keep in mind your in a race against time as you try to make a shelter before zombies chase you down at night.

Now you have a house, tools and thats all you need. But now you need coal! So make a pickaxe ( Refer to the wiki ) and go look stone, its a grey block. Mine it and you will get cobble stone. Now instead of using wood tools, use stone tools! Once you have some stone tools look for more stone, but this time it will have black specks in it, this is coal. Mine the coal and make some torches ( Again refer to MC wiki ). Now your set! You have a lit up house and tools. From here on its just you and the game, venture outside the areas you know, explore!

Use the Minecraft Wiki for reference on how to make these items
Minecraft Wiki

OMG A GIANT GREEN !@#$ TRIED TO KILL ME!?!

Yes, there are things that can kill you.

Skeletons: Very skeleton looking, duh! Shoot arrows from afar and drop feathers, bones and arrows. They can ride spiders as mounts, rarely happens.

Spiders:Extremely large spiders just like in harry potter. Will get close to you and bash you, can also climb walls. Drop feathers and string

Zombies:The walking dead, extremely slow and not very agile, easy to outsmart and also drop feathers and bones.

Creepers:Giant green guys with 4 blocks for legs, resemble the shape of a male genitalia. Bounce around and once close enough explode, destroying all the surrounding blocks, except obsidian. Drops sulfur.

Common Terms

These are common terms used in the Minecraft world.

Adminium - See "bedrock".
Alpha - The stage of development for Minecraft Survival before beta and after infdev.
Bedrock - An unbreakable block at the bottom of maps.
Beta - The current stage of development for Minecraft Survival, preceded by alpha.
Biome - An area of a certain climate. (very vague, see the question)
Cartograph(er) - A program made to view your survival game's map.
Chunk - A 16x16x128 section of a map. Maps are generated by the chunk
Dungeon - A room composed partially of cobblestone with a monster spawner in the center.
Hell - See "The Nether".
Herobrine - Also known as "Him", is a hoax character with the default skin and completely white eyes.
Him - See "Herobrine"
Indev - The stage of development for Minecraft Survival before infdev.
Infdev - The stage of development for Minecraft Survival before alpha and after indev.
MCmap Live - Used as a mac alternative to the cartograph. Thread here
Minecraft - A sandbox/adventure MMO created by Notch. (Did you really need that definition? )
Mob - A non-player "being". Such as a spider, skeleton or pig.
The Nether - Formerly called Hell and The Slip, it is a scary parallel world to the main one.
Mojang/Mojang Specifications/Mojang AB - The company developing Minecraft.
Notch - The creator of Minecraft.
Redstuff - Another name for "redstone".
The Slip - See "The Nether".
SMP - Short for Survival Multiplayer.
SSP - Short for Survival Single Player.
Vanilla server - An unmodified server.



I will update this, if something is missing, tell me!