Minecraft Survival Guide

Minecraft Survival Guide by kurzacation

Now that you have a copy of the game (if you don’t have a copy of the game, go to www.minecraft.net and get a copy of the game) you start it by double-clicking the minecraft icon, wherever you chose to put it.

There are currently two versions you can play, single player and multiplayer. Multiplayer involves sharing the game with other people of all ages and levels of maturity, so advance there with caution. I will be covering single player game play for now.

You may wish to fiddle with the “Options” area before diving in to your virtual world, so let’s cover that first.

Music controls whether or not you hear music during play. Some people prefer to turn it off. You can adjust the music volume with the lighter grey slider.

Sound controls the other sounds in the game, creature noises, water effects, lava hissing, and other sounds of nearby activity. It is advisable to leave the sounds on, as some creatures in this game are extremely unfriendly. You need to be able to hear them coming.

Invert Mouse. Normally, when you move your mouse away from you, the ‘camera’ moves upwards and towards you for down. Invert Mouse reverses this.

Sensitivity controls how fast the camera responds to your mouse movements. Adjust for maximum comfort.

Difficulty. There are four modes of gameplay. Peaceful, in which no enemy creatures spawn. Easy, in which a lot of enemy creatures spawn, but they are easy to dispose of. Normal, in which an average number of enemy creatures spawn with an average difficulty to kill; and Hard, in which few enemy creatures spawn, which are more difficult to kill. If you find a setting too hard, you can always decide again during play.

Inside “Video Settings…” you find more options.

Graphics. Here, we have two options, Fast or Fancy. Fancy lets you see through leaf blocks and see extra effects during play. Those with slower computers appreciate the Fast option.

Render Distance controls how far you see. Slower computers may not like rendering lots and lots of little cubes, and ‘lag’ or ‘frame rate issues’ may occur. You can always re-adjust this to suit your computer or playing style.

Limit Framerate. This lets you chose whether the computer ‘stalls’ during a rendering issue or flat out crashes the game. Most choose to keep this on.

3D Anaglyph. This game is playable in 3D! Put those blue/red specs on and try it. You may find it more fun.

View Bobbing. This controls whether the camera bobs up and down as you’re walking. Some hold it’s more realistic. Others say it makes them seasick.

Smooth Lighting. This controls whether to use the new, smoother lighting or to turn it off and use the older, ‘chunkier’ dynamic lighting. This is purely an aesthetic choice, and doesn’t do much to your computer’s performance.

Once you have these set to your personal preferences, click “Done” to return to the prior screen. At this point, you may want to have a look at your controls.

You may also choose to change the keys used to play with. Many players dislike Q for ‘throw what’s in my character’s hand’, and have changed it.

Now you’re ready to play, let’s explore the very beginnings of gameplay.

When beginning a new world in Singleplayer, you will be asked to name your world and provide a ‘seed’. A seed is a string of alphanumeric characters (All of the characters you see on your keyboard except for the ` character, which is ignored. In the seed box, you can type any string of characters you so choose. Capital letters increase the likelyhood of overhangs, floating islands, and otherwise ‘epic’ scenery. For a full explaination of seeds and a list of cool seeds to try, see How to Play: Seeds and You.

At this point you see the landscape surrounding you, nine empty boxes at the bottom of the game screen, and your character’s right hand. Yes, that pink blocky thing is your right arm. You’ll be seeing a lot of it.

Before you begin walking around, harvest the block you’re standing on by looking straight down and holding the button you click with. This will cause your character to hit the block below you until it becomes ‘mined’ and turns into a smaller version of itself. (you may let go of the mouse button at this point.) You will automatically fall and a small ‘pop’ will sound. This signifies that you have successfully harvested that block.

Jump out of your little hole by pressing the jump key (it’s the space bar by default) and start exploring. You will see many things, but the thing you want best at this point is wood from the trees.

Punch some trees until you get all the ‘log’ blocks you can grab from them. You will need lots, but don’t spend all game-day at it unless you’re in Peaceful Mode.

Now, open up your inventory. You’ll notice that your avatar is as blocky as everything else in this world. There is a way to change how your avatar looks, but it requires a paid subscription, the downloading of a pre-created avatar (like those on worldofminecraft.com) or some technical knowledge and an image editor. There is no current in-game method to change your avatar.

You’ll see some blocks down the bottom, a lot of empty squares above those, and a small four-square grid to the right of your avatar. This is your initial crafting zone.

Pick up a stack of logs by left-clicking on them, then drop them in your initial crafting zone by left-clicking again. You’ll see that the square to the right of your crafting zone has become full of four new blocks. These are plank blocks, and you get four for every log block you craft. Turn some of your logs into planks. Logs take up less space.

Now, put four planks into your crafting zone.

This will make a crafting table. Put it in your hotbar – that’s the nine bottom squares – and return to your spawning point. You can choose what you use or place by using the mouse wheel or the numbers 1 to 9, corresponding with the squares from left to right.

Select your crafting table and place it near your spawn point by right-clicking where you want it to go.

Now right-click on the crafting table.

We’ll move on to how to craft tools after this important segment.

If you’ve been roaming around, then you’ve seen a few of these fellows roaming around the landscape. This is your handy guide to what they are and what they’re good for.

Sheep. Hit once, they drop cubes of wool. Some sheep are naturally black, grey or light grey. They drop black, grey, or light grey wool. You can also dye a white sheep if you have some dye(see, How to Play: How to Dye). If hit until they’re killed, they drop nothing. Completely harmless apart from their amusing habit of pushing you off edges. Baas.

Cow. Right-click them while holding a bucket and you get a bucket of milk. Hit them with anything else (fist through sword and arrows) until they die and you may get leather. Mostly harmless apart from their habit of pushing you off edges. Moos.

Pig. Kill them for meat. Mostly harmless, Can be heard by its distinctive grunts.

Chicken. Yes, I know it looks mostly like a duck. It is apparently a chicken. Blame the blocky rendering if you must. If left alone, they lay eggs, which can be thrown for the chance of spawning another chicken, or kept to make cake. Kill them, and you may get feathers. Also mostly harmless, apart from borrowing off the sheep’s joke book. Clucks.

Squid.  The first aquatic creature in Minecraft. Found in sunlit, watery areas. Mostly harmless. Kill them for Ink Sacs. When swimming along the sea bed, squids sound like a humanoid walking. They make no other known sound.

Spider. Only spawns in easy to hard modes of gameplay, and only spawns in dark areas. Harmless in the daylight, ravening threat to your health at night. Kill them for string. Makes a sort of slurping whistling noise.

Wolf. Spawns in forest (thick trees) or taiga (snowy, with trees) biomes. Neutral mob. Eyes turn red and it turns hostile if you hurt it. Right-click with a bone to tame. See How to Play: Your Wolf Friend. Barks and yips. Currently, what it drops is unknown.

Skeleton. Only spawns in easy to hard modes, in any dark area. Shoots arrows at you. Kill them for arrows and bones, or wait until daylight hits them and watch them burn from the safety of your bunker. Evil cackling optional. Makes a quasi-musical clinking noise. If you can get a skeleton to kill a creeper, you can get a record from the dead creeper.

Zombie. Only spawns in dark areas in easy to hard modes. Can only hurt you if they touch you. Kill them for feathers, or watch them burn in the daylight. Moans.

Creeper. Also known as “AAAAH! That (expletive deleted)!” for its habit of sneaking up behind you and then exploding on contact. Spawns in dark areas in easy to hard modes. Kill them for ‘gunpowder’. You never hear them coming. If you hear a hissing, rustling sound, it’s too late.

Slime. Spawns deep underground in lit and unlit caverns. Larger ones harm on contact. Large slimes, when killed, spawn medium slimes. Medium slimes, when killed, spawn little slimes. Little slimes are mostly harmless (they, too, can push you off edges), but you can kill them for slime balls. Makes a pancake-flapping noise as they move. For best slime results, slay with a sword.

Ghast. Found only in the Nether (See: How to Play: The Nether) The first flying creature in Minecraft. Spawns in any clear 5x5x5 (sometimes 4x4x4) area. Floats around aimlessly, periodically opening its eyes and mouth to drop firebombs on the landscape, or at you. You can bat the fireballs back with any object, or freehand. Drops ‘gunpowder’ when killed. Makes a giggling coo when not on fire. Screams when on fire.

Zombie Pigman. Found only in the Nether. Mostly harmless unless provoked. Wanders aimlessly and may push you off edges. Drops cooked porkchops when killed. Makes a lower grunting sound.

Seeds are strings of characters used as a basis for the landscape generator to create your new world. This means that different individuals can share similar worlds. There has been some debate as to whether what you choose to name your world has any difference on your spawning point and other, more subtle outcomes on the landscape. The same seed on different computers can, depending on circumstances, have different springs (lava, water or none) in the same location, but otherwise, the general layout of the land is the same. Dungeons and spawners may be found in the same location, but the creatures the spawners spawn could differ.

If you do not input a seed, you will get a randomly-generated world.

Seeds are case sensitive. When using a seed, be certain you have your caps lock off.

Seeds are spelling sensitive. Check and double check that your finger hasn’t slipped when copying the seed to your input box.

Seeds can be negative. Most negative seeds at the time of writing are numerals, but it won’t be long before someone experiments with a minus sign in front of a word.

All seeds are converted into a numeric code, so some words will give the same result as a numeral.

Zeroes (0) in front of a string are ignored, as is the single zero. However, a zero in a string (both before or after a decimal place) will yield different results.

Some seeds you may like:

Seed (Special characters are in quotes. Do not type in the quotes) Result
‘ ‘ Flat, almost featureless ice plain.
Glacier Awesome, epic mountains.
level.dat Brilliant enclosed valley at co-ordinates x: -131, z: 231
minecraft Nice area with some clay nearby. Recommended for people who are new at the game.
404 Dig in the gravel to reveal an awesome sinkhole that goes all the way to bedrock.
Cake Similar to 404, but less severe.
ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Floating islands and mountains made of awesome.
Minecraft Snow and ice as far as the eye can see. Very few trees.
epic world Exactly that.
Herobrine Reporter spawned on clay and found pumpkins at X:115 Z:183
Dungeon Deep caves.
Electric Light Orchestra Sand-covered dungeon at X: -34 z: -34
over9000 Large canyon, overhang, some surface lava
CREEPER Mountains, with natural tunnels through them.
gargamel Cave spawn, emerge into epic valley.
e=mc2 Massive desert.
worstseedever Sand behind spawn point reveals a dungeon

You may also wish to try Ego-Seeding, a practice in which a player inputs their own name, nickname, or online alias as a seed. The results can be interesting.

First, make certain you have plenty of wood and a secure area, as this can take time. Building an elementary shelter for the night is essential in any mode short of Peaceful.

Now, open up your crafting interface by right-clicking your crafting table. Note that the crafting grid is 3 squares by 3 squares. This opens up a world of item making.

This is how to make a door. You will find them useful in securing your shelters. Doors can be made of wood or iron, but iron doors must be powered with redstone. More on this in advanced chapters.
Sticks. The second most-useful thing to come out of a log block. They are nigh-essential for nearly everything, so make lots.
Torches. Lighting an area stops most harmful creatures spawning there (Slimes are an exception when deep underground). All reatures are attracted to light, so be careful, regardless. You will need a LOT of these. Torches can be made with coal or charcoal, and stack regardless of what they’re made of.

Axe, Hoe, Pick, Shovel/spade

Tools. Shovels make digging through soil, sand, gravel and clay easier and faster. Hoes make tilling soil for farming possible. Axes cut wood faster. Pickaxes make mining stone, coal and other ores easier. In the beginning, you will only have wood to make these with. As you progress, you can create stone, iron, gold, and even diamond-bladed tools. Simply replace the plank block with the material of your choice.

Sword, Bow

Weapons. You can use a short-range sword or, once you have arrows, the long-range bow. Swords, like the other tools, can be made of wood, iron, gold or diamond.

Signs. The in-game post-it note for players. Need to remind yourself that there’s a hazard in an area? Or just like to put signs around with catchy slogans? This is good for that. Place them, then edit your message.
Chest. Place two side-by-side to get a 64-square storage space. Chests must be placed one square apart and without any block on top. Very useful item. You will be making lots.
Flint and steel. Useful for setting creatures, blocks, or other objects on fire, or just satisfying that pyromaniacal itch.

There are more things to make, but they can wait.

Some blocks can be mined ‘freehand’, others require specific tools in order to harvest them properly. All blocks can be used as building materials. This is your handy guide.

Sand. Usually found near the ocean. If smelted, turns into glass. Can also be crafted into sandstone. Harvest freehand or with any shovel.
Glass. Building material made by smelting sand. Cannot be harvested, as it shatters with enough strikes. Place wisely. Snow does not collect on glass.
Grass block. Found on the topmost area of dirt only. Right-click with a hoe to till, and have a chance at harvesting seeds. Harvest freehand or with any shovel and it turns into Dirt. Grass will be different hues in different biomes.
Dirt block. Place on or near a grass block and it will turn into a grass block. Harvest freehand or with any shovel. Some players feel that dirt deposits underground also hide valuable ores.
Cactus, pictured here in a pre-update snow world. Found growing in sandy areas, is useful for making traps for spiders, which tend to climb. Can be farmed by placing on any sandy area in which there is plenty of light. Harvest freehand or with any axe.
Sugarcane is found on grass or dirt, near water. You can farm sugarcane by placing them on dirt or grass near water, with plenty of light. Sugarcane grows three blocks high. Harvest freehand or with any axe.
Wood, also known as log blocks. Found growing as parts of trees. Useful for making nearly everything in the game. Other forms of wood are Spruce and Dark wood. Can be smelted to form charcoal. Harvest freehand or with any axe.
Spruce wood. Found just like all other types of wood, as parts of growing trees. Harvest freehand or with any axe.
Dark wood. Just like normal wood, only darker. Harvest freehand or with any axe.
Clay. Looks amazingly like stone or ‘clean-stone’. Found near sand and near water. Harvest freehand or with any shovel. Harvests into four clay balls. Very rare.
Gravel. If seen near grey-stone, can hide important ores. Harvest freehand or with any shovel. One in five chance of dropping flint instead of a gravel block.
Snow. Found only in winter biomes, outside, and on top of other blocks. Snow harvests as snowballs, which can be crafted into snow blocks. Harvest with any shovel.
Stone. Known as grey-stone or clean-stone. Harvest it, and it turns into a Cobblestone block. Smelt cobblestone to get grey-stone. Harvest with any pick.
Cobblestone. If found in the ‘wild’, or an unexplored area, be on the lookout for lava or dungeons (more on these later). You’ll be making a lot of tools out of this stuff, but that’s no reason to hoard it as it’s everywhere. Harvest with any pick.
Mossy Cobblestone. Only found on the floors of dungeons. Harvest with any pick.
Coal. When harvested, turns into a coal lump icon it is an incredibly useful material. You will never have enough. Harvest with any pick. Used to make torches or as fuel for furnaces.
Iron ore. Smelt to produce iron ingots, which are also used for nearly everything, including armour. Harvest with a stone pick or better.
Gold ore. Smelt to produce gold ingots, which can be used for tools, weapons or armour. Not as useful as iron tools, they have less uses and quickly fail. Useful for crafting the watch. Harvest with iron pick or better.
Redstone. When harvested, turns into a number of redstone ‘dust’ icons Be careful when harvesting, as this block is frequently found near lava. Useful for gizmos and in-game gadgets. Harvest with iron pick or better.
Diamond ore. When harvested, turns into a diamond icon. Be careful when harvesting, as this block is frequently found near lava. Harvest with iron pick or better.
Lava. Be incredibly careful near this stuff or it will kill you and burn up all your stuff. Anything dropped or falling into lava is burned to nothing. Any creature that touches lava catches on fire. Harvest with a bucket by right-clicking. Place with extreme caution and paranoia. And from a long distance away. Flows downwards until it reaches a block. Flows across four blocks, including the dropped source block, before stopping.
Water. Lava’s natural enemy. Can also be yours if you drown in it. Useful for making traps to kill creatures for you. Harvest with an empty bucket by right-clicking. Flows downwards until it reaches a block. Flows across eight blocks, including the source block, before stopping.
Obsidian. Made by placing water so that it flows onto still lava. Toughest block that can be harvested. Cannot currently be crafted into anything. Use supreme caution when harvesting, as is generally on top of or right next to lava. Harvest with diamond pick only.
Adminium. Also known as Adminite, Bedrock, OP Block, and so on. Marks the bottom of the world. Allegedly indestructable. If you manage to dig through Adminium, and go through the hole, you will continue falling, as it marks the bottom of the world. You will eventually die, and lose all your items in the process. In case I haven’t made this very clear: DO NOT TRY TO DIG THROUGH ADMINIUM! It is a very silly thing to do.
Netherrack, formerly known as: brimstone, bloodstone, netherstone, or red cobble. Once set on fire, it burns forever. Possibly a material for the lantern or as an alternate lighting avenue. Found only in the Nether. Harvests with any pick.
Lightstone, formerly known as Australium or glowstone. Found only in the Nether. Harvests freehand or with any tool. Harvests as a single pile of lightstone powder and it takes nine powders to craft a new glowstone block. Shines under its own power. Harvest freehand with any tool.
Soul Sand, formerly known as: nethermud, slowsand, or mire. Found only in the Nether. Harvests with any shovel or freehand. Useful for slowing down walking creatures that may be chasing you.
Portal effect block. Non-solid and non-harvestable. Must be surrounded by Obsidian in a 2-wide, 3-high matrix. (The frame is 4 wide by 5 high) and created by setting fire to the interior of the Obsidian frame.
Sandstone. Useful if you spawn or choose to settle in a desert biome. Or if you want to make a shiny, sandstone castle. Can be harvested with any pick.
Brick block. Crafted block not found in nature. Made by placing four bricks together in a square formation in a crafting zone. Harvest with any pick.

First, craft your smelter.

Place it anywhere you like and right click it.

To smelt items, you need fuel. This can be logs, planks, sticks, coal, or a bucket of lava. A log will smelt 1.5 items (You need two logs to smelt three item). A plank will smelt 1.5 items. Two sticks will smelt one item. One piece of coal or charcoal will smelt eight items. Buckets of lava can also be used to smelt one hundred items, but it consumes both the bucket and the lava beyond retrieval.

Most players choose to smelt with planks, as they are the most efficient fuel and a renewable resource. For more on renewing trees, see How to Play: Farming.

You can also cook meat in your smelter, but in order to maximise fuel efficiency, you have to ‘nurse’ your cooking, or choose sticks as your fuel. Have a Raw Porkchop ready for when the previous one is cooked, then place it in the smelting square and remove your finished cooked porkchop. Unfortunately, food does not stack, yet.

These are the things you can smelt:

Any kind of log smelts into charcoal, which can be used as a coal substitute if you can find trees, but no coal. Or if you don’t particularly feel like going into a dark, creature-filled cavern in order to find and mine some coal.
Sand smelts into Glass, which is useful for windows, greenhouses, or any traps where you want to watch the creatures as they die. Glass can also be used for Lava Lighting, which will be covered in How to Play: Building.
Clay blobs smelt into bricks, which can then be crafted into brick blocks. There are currently no other uses for clay.
Cobblestone smelts into grey-stone, which some people think looks prettier than cobblestone.
Iron ore smelts into iron ingots, useful for tools, weapons, armour and one known gizmo. See How to Play: Armour.
Gold ore smelts into gold ingots. Can be made into watches, but otherwise not very useful. May be more useful in future updates. Most players perfer to hoard it.
Raw Porkchop cooks into Cooked Porkchop. You don’t need this in Peaceful mode, but when used, food heals health damage.
Fish cooks into cooked fish, which heal more health than the raw ones.

Minecraft has dyestuffs that are crafted or made. These dyestuffs are: bones(white), Ink Sacs(black), roses or red flowers(red), dandelions or yellow flowers(yellow), Lapis Lasuli(blue) and cactii(cactus green).

Each of these dyestuffs can be processed (eg, smelt cactus to get cactus green dye, or craft bones to get bone meal) or mixed (red dye plus blue dye equals orange dye) to create a range of colours.

Once you have your rainbow of dyes, you have two options:

Dye one block of wool

Dye a sheep and harvest 1-4 dyed wool blocks

Naturally, most players prefer to dye a whole sheep by right-clicking them with dye.

Your range of coloured wool can be used to create block art, colourful houses, or anything you can imagine. Wool of any variety currently has no other use. And, of course, here are your dye recipes. Please note that the configurations shown here are not necessary, as any arrangement of dyes in any crafting area will yield the samne result.

White. White wool (or white sheep) a superior white. Or mix with other dyes to create paler colours.
Black. Ink sac obtained by killing a squid. Dye your wooly target black, use as pictured, or mix to create darker colours.
Red. Dye your wooly target red, or mix to create other colours.
Yellow. Dye your wooly target yellow, or mix to create other colours.
Dark green. Dye your wooly target dark green, or mix to create other colours.
Grey or dark grey. Dye your wooly target grey, or mix to create other colours.
Light grey. Dye your wooly target light grey.
Pink. Dye your wooly target pink.
Orange. Do I need to spell it out from now on?
Light blue.
Blue. Obtained by mining Lapis Lazuli.
Cyan.
Lime green.
Purple.
Magenta.
Cocoa beans produce brown wool. These are only found in dungeon chests.

Armour can be made out of leather, iron, gold or diamond. Leather armour is the cheapest and most readily available, since cows are a renewable resource. It takes 24 units of material to make a full set of armour.

Armour is useful when hunting hazardous creatures, as it absorbs some damage and helps you maintain your health for longer. The heavier your armour is, the more difficult it is to swim. Leather armour is the lightest, but also the flimsiest. Gold is the heaviest armour and not much better than leather.

Recipes shown here are for iron armour. You can use the material of your choice in the same pattern as the iron blocks shown here, in order to get armour in the desired material.

Helmet. Protects your head. Takes damage when blocks fall on top of you, so take care when mining gravel or sand.
Chest-piece. Protects your main body. Useful against arrows and melee attacks.
Pants. Also takes damage in melee attacks.
Boots. Protects you when landing from high drops.

Armour can last a long time, depending on which material it is made of. Leather wears out the quickest, followed closely by gold. Iron is the next most durable material and diamond is, of course, the toughest.

Keep in mind that diamond is a rare material. You may not get diamond armour for quite some time.

Sooner or later, you are going to be concerned with how pretty your fortress is. This is the creative side of Minecraft and the only real limit is your imagination.

Planning is essential, so you don’t waste materials by placing them incorrectly and then have to destroy them. Be certain to have a ‘stock’ of expendable material like dirt or gravel handy so you can reach those high spots without having to suffer a fall.

If you’re playing in a mode where enemy creatures spawn, you may want to have a temporary bolt-hole prepared, just in case.

And, as promised, here is how to construct a lava-powered light.

First, make certain you have room. Lava lights take up a lot of physical space. You will need glass, some expendable, easily-dug material(dirt is used in the example below), buckets of lava, and good timing if you’re placing one near a wall.

Mark where you want your lava to go. Dirt is good for this task because it doesn’t obey gravity and you can place most of your glass blocks around it. Make certain you leave a space so you can dig out your dirt block and place the lava with ease.
Place yourself so that you can both effect the dirt block and not get hit by any lava, should it spill out.
Dig out the dirt.
Place the lava where the dirt was.
Seal in your lava with another glass block.
Remove all dirt from around your light, being careful not to harm the glass.
…Congratulations, you have a lava-powered light!

It’s advisable that you place these so that you can walk under them. If you manage to ‘clip’ the lava by bumping a corner, you can catch on fire. Lava lights can be placed eight to ten blocks apart (spaced from the lava source blocks) for efficient lighting. They are just as effective at preventing hostile creatures from spawning in your lit area.

Other alternate methods of lighting are:

The Netherrack block, set on fire.
A single block of Lightstone.

Redstone dust can be used to create mechanics, like “automatic” doors or warning alarms.

One player even made a functioning clock.

It’s all down to knowing how redstone dust works.

This will make a redstone torch. They are not very useful as lights, but they do come in handy for making gizmos. You will need a good amount of actual dust, so don’t make too many torches.
Pressure plates also come in handy for mechanics-creation. These are made of wood or greystone.
Redstone repeaters can pass power along a long chain of redstone. To ensure the circuit is unbroken, place a pressure plate one block away from the end of your redstone chain, then place the repeater. It can be set to delay by right clicking. Zero clicks is little to no delay. Three clicks is a second’s delay. The pressure plate can be removed after the repeater is placed, with no ill effect.

Buttons & Switches

Buttons and switches are essential, too.
Iron doors, made with iron ingots instead of wooden planks, can only be opened with the use of redstone.
Buttons, switches and levers provide power to redstone for as long as they are active.
Redstone dust will only carry power for fifteen blocks.
Redstone torches are always ‘on’, unless acted upon by powered redstone.
To provide power underneath a block, a redstone torch must be placed under the desired block.
Do not cross the lines.
Experiment before you set up anything in your new, prettier fortress. Keep in mind that you cannot place blocks directly on top of or next to redstone-encrusted blocks, or you will literally break the circuit.
Redstone circuits work on logic; using on and off instead of true and false, respectively. You may wish to do complicated things using redstone. You may only wish to open a door on cue.
This is your handy reference guide.

In the tables below, the following code is used:

[+]
redstone dust
[#]
undecorated block
[=]
redstone on block
[i]
torch on block
[-]
torch on side of block
[|]
upright torch
I
Input
O
Output

Input/output Physical layout

I[+][+]O
(basic straight line) True in = true out,

I[+][#][-][+][+]O
Not Gate True in = false out.

I[+][+][+]
[+]
I[+][+][+][+][+]O
Or Gate – input from either switch, or both, results in output.

I[+][+][i]
[=][-][+]O
I[+][+][i]
And Gate – input from both switches produces output.

I[i][-][+][=][-]
[=][=][-] [+][+]O
I[i][-][+][=][-]
Xor Gate short for exclusive or one input or the other will trigger output, but not both.

I[+][+]
[=][-][+][+]O
I[+][+]
Nor Gate short for not or. Produces the opposite results to an Or Gate.

I[+][+][i]
[=][+][+]O
I[+][+][i]
Nand Gate short for not and. Produces the opposite results to an And Gate.

I[+][i][-][+][=][-]
[=][=][-] [+][=]
I[+][i][-][+][=][-][-][+]O
Xnor Gate short for exclusive not or. Produces the opposite result to a Xor Gate.

[-][=][-]
[+][+][+][+]O
[-][=][-]
Rapid Pulser turns something on and off rapidly. In this practice setup, it fired the dispenser at random intervals. Makes an annoying, sporadic hissing sound.

No input is necessary and breaks the clock.

[#][-][+][#][-][+][#]
[+] [-][+]O
[-][#][+][-][#][+][+]
5-Clock a ‘circle’ of five blocks used to make a repeating signal. This is far more regular than the rapid pulser and, as in the example above, needs no input.

Trees can be renewed by placing Saplings on any soil block with access to light. Saplings in snow worlds benefit from the placement of a torch nearby.

Reeds can be farmed by placing a single reed block on a soil block next to water. In time, and with sufficient light, reeds grow three blocks high, when they can be harvested and re-planted.

Cactii can be farmed by placing a cactus block on sand, in sufficient light. Cactus blocks must be placed one block apart, and away from any other vertical surface.

Right click a hoe towards a soil block to till the soil for planting. You also have a chance of harvesting seeds from doing this to grass blocks.

Place the seeds by right-clicking.

Seeds will grow into wheat if they are placed on tilled soil, near water. Some players believe that wheat grows faster if constantly illuminated, and build greenhouses with permanent lighting to ensure that this occurs. They can be grown underground with sufficient illumination.

Newly-planted wheat | Ready for harvesting

Wheat can be harvested freehand, but if you walk on tilled soil, it may turn back into dirt and need hoeing again. When harvested, wheat drops both wheat and seeds.

Wooden bowl. An essential part of mushroom soup.
Boat. Sail the ocean blue and discover brand new ways to get lost. Place by right-clicking. Enter and exit by right-clicking. Move around by the familliar keys you know by heart. Be careful when pulling in to shore. Go too fast and your boat will be destroyed. Exit the wrong way and your boat will head out to sea without you. Try to fight a creature while sailing and you also run the risk of destroying your boat.
Compass. Points towards your spawn point. May be useful on those long ocean voyages.
Watch. Tells the difference between night and day. Lets you know when it’s safe to come out of that cave/mine and forage for material.
Fishing Pole. Useful for catching fish.
Ladder. Climb vertical walls with these. Place on alternating blocks to save on materials and prevent some creatures following you up them.
Fence. Keep the creatures out (or in) with a chain of these. One ‘fence’ alone is only seen as a fencepost. two next to each other make a fence. you cannot make fences go diagonally, yet.
Tracks for your mine cart.
Basic mine cart. You can ride in these by right-clicking. Once inside, you can’t make them move like the boat. You have to get them moving, then hop in.
Storage cart. Put all the stuff you want to take back to the surface in here.
Powered cart. Right click with fuel to start it along in whichever direction you want it to go.
Mushroom soup. Another foodstuff to heal your health. The order in which you place the mushrooms does not matter, the soup will come out the same.
Bread, also good for your health. Unfortunately, you can’t craft sandwiches, just yet.
Cake. Can be placed in the world, but acts like slightly less than half a block. Do not mine the block you placed cake on or the cake will vanish. Cake can be placed on top of cake. Eat by right-clicking the block and a slice will vanish. Cake can only be consumed after it has been placed.
Turn spider string into a wool block. Cannot be crafted back into string.
Build a house of bricks, provided you have enough clay, bricks, and brick blocks. Brick blocks do have the advantage of being explosion-resistant. Harvest with any pick.
Iron Block. Made with nine ingots of iron. Used mostly to solve storage issues, can be crafted back into 9 ingots by placing in your crafting interface. If placed in the world, they can be harvested by a stone pick or better.
Gold block. Can be used to solve storage problems, or build with if you have enough of them. Also handy when crafting Gold Apples. Can be crafted back into ingots. If placed, they can be harvested by an iron pick or better.
Diamond block. Another storage issue solver, or a really interesting way to show off how lucky you’ve been. Can be crafted back into diamonds. They can also be harvested by an iron pick or better.
Gold apples heal all your health. Apples are only found in dungeon chests and can not be cultivated as yet.
Painting. Decorate your fortress with style! If you don’t like the painting, knock it down and put it up again. Paintings are random and come in a variety of sizes. When placing a painting, you always place the bottom left-hand corner. The colour of the wool you use has no outcome on the resulting painting. You can also knock down the wall behind the painting and leave the art standing in midair. Be careful, as it may despawn when you are away.
Sugar. Used to make cake.
Paper. Useful for making books.
Book. Useful for making bookshelves.
Bookshelf. Decorative block only. Cannot be harvested, so place carefully.
Stairs. Made with cobblestone or plank blocks. Can’t be made with grey-stone. Turns into a single block of the source material when mined. Harvest with any pick.
Slab. Alternative to Stairs. Can be made with Sandstone, Cobblestone, Smooth stone or wood Planks. Place alternating with full sized blocks or on top of each other for a full block effect with twice the resources. Double slab blocks only drop one slab when mined. Harvest with any pick.
Record player. Right-click while holding a Record and hear some music. Right click again to take the record out. Records are only found in dungeon chests, or dropped if a skeleton kills a creeper.
Note block. Tune with repeated hits, and use in combination with redstone to play your own music. Note blocks placed on different substances make different sounds. Left click to tune, right click to play.
Dispenser. Fill with the ammunition of your choice. Arrows, slime balls, snowballs and eggs launch as weapons and cause damage to anything in their path. Other blocks are spat out over a much shorter range. Must be triggered by a redstone circuit. Harvest with any pick, but be careful to empty it first, or you will lose the contents.
Bed. Place to decorate your base or use to sleep through the night unmolested. Be warned, if it’s used too often, you get a fatigue debuff that slows you down. Also, you can not use the sleeping function to speed up your smelter production.
Cookie. Heals half a heart when consumed. Cocoa beans, needed for the recipe, can only been found in dungeons and can not be cultivated yet.

While exploring a cave or digging through a mountain, you may discover a structure made of cobblestone, inside which you can hear harmful creatures. Congratulations! You have found a dungeon.

Proceed with caution.

Inside every dungeon is a single chest, a monster generator, and a lot of angry monsters. The chest has lots of interesting goodies inside.

You need to have with you: Digging tools, a weapon, and some TNT, just in case. If you don’t have these, mark your path so you can find your way back once you have them.

Dig a hole in the wall so you can peek in and see which monsters are spawning, and the approximate location of the chest. Have your weapon handy in case the monsters get too close.
You can close the hole if you wish.
Dig around to where the chest is, then dig out the wall behind the chest.
Empty the chest.
You have two options, now. Turn the dungeon into a loot factory, or blow it up with your TNT. Blowing a dungeon up destroys the monster generator and is a bit of sadistic fun. Turning a dungeon into a loot factory requires a bit more planning and digging, as well as some buckets of water and elementary trap knowledge.

Find naturally-occurring cobblestone.
Dig your way around, being wary of openings in which the creatures can come through. Chests can be mined at this point.
Build a temporary stair to the top.
Check out the situation. If you haven’t already obtained the chest(s) and their contents, this is your chance to triangulate their position and gather them.
Seal off any openings. Glass is optional. The spawner, seen as a cage block with fire inside, can be stopped by surrounding it with torches, or letting sunlight in.
Make sure the creatures can fall into the drowning pit, otherwise, they won’t drown.
Fill any areas necessary with water.
Make sure your trap is drowning your creatures
If your ‘mob washing’ setup has a gap…
Add a little water! Then remove it again. The water below will ‘remember’ to flow so it fills the gap.
Remove the stairs. You don’t need them any more.
Longer style of sluice, designed to deposit the creature drops ion one square.
Another look at the sluice.
Enjoy the rewards!
Decoration optional.
Creepers, Skeletons and Zombies:

These are all vertical monsters and can be exterminated via a simple drowning sluice, as shown above.
Spiders and Slimes

These are horizontal monsters, so your extermination trap should involve making them rub up against cactii or fall towards some lava. Lava is more predictable and less likely to cause flow problems than cactii, but you need to be ridiculously careful when handling lava. You can kill creatures with lava and still be able to harvest their loot.
The trap shown here is a dual purpose trap. Spiders rub against the cactii, whilst skeletons, zombies and creepers drop into the drowning pit, below.

Be absolutely certain that the monsters can’t escape your clever trap before allowing them to fall victim to it. There is little worse than editing a trap while creatures are still falling into it.

There are two types of multiplayer servers. The creative servers and the survival servers. Both can fall victim to a kind of player known as a Griefer.

Griefers are people who gain joy out of destroying other people’s work. Many servers ban, expel, or otherwise prevent griefing, but some follow the theory that griefing adds to the ‘flavour’ of the game.

On the creative servers, you are given an infinite supply of blocks and a large, but finite space in which to build whatever you desire. You may also toggle the effect of gravity, allowing your avatar to fly. Some creative servers hold arenas for a game called Spleef, in which opposing players attempt to knock blocks out from underneath the other’s feet, causing them to fall into lava, thus ending the game.

Creative Realms you can have you very own realm and be the admin of it for free on WoM: Realms servers. See http://WoMRealms.com for more.

Survival Multiplayer is similar to survival on singleplayer, save that you also have to safeguard your fortress against other players, as well as hostile creatures.

Start off with absolutely nothing in a strange, cubist landscape. Dig out the square underneath you to mark where you started and take a look around while the daylight’s good.

You will need to gather wood, so collect every possible log that you can reach from any tree that’s in your way. You may find it wise to plant some saplings.

You will need to find a shallow cavern or cliffside nearby that has visible coal. This will be your new base. If you can’t find one close by, build your base around your spawn point.

Turn your logs into planks and create a crafting table. Build some walls to define your starter fortress. Place your crafting table and make some pickaxes and go mine that coal. Or, if you can’t find coal, mine some stone, make a furnace, and smelt some charcoal. Make some torches and light the inside of your base.

Note: Sand or gravel are good for walls, but they both obey gravity, and can’t make roofs. Sand can be crafted into sandstone to make gravity-defying blocks. Use dirt or planks if you have to.

Make a weapon. Bows never break, but you have to keep making arrows. Swords don’t need ammo, but they eventually fail. You do not have to go out hunting during the night, but you do have to be ready to encounter the ones that survive the dawn. Spiders turn friendly in the daylight. Creepers do not.

There is a certain radius that, once inside of it, some creatures decide that you look very appetising and they must have a piece of you. You will discover what this radius is very soon.

Once dawn has incinerated all the skeletons and zombies, go out and collect the dropped resources. Keep a look out for creepers and kill them if you can. Run away if you can’t. Once they start hissing, get out of there before you get blown up.

Gather more logs and re-plant saplings if you get any. This will keep you constantly supplied with logs.

Make some stone tools, a chest, and a furnace if you don’t already have one. You will need them later. Place them inside your fortress.

Make a wooden door and install it in one of your exterior walls. This is so much easier than digging your access point and re-sealing it all the time.

Your options at this point: hunt for meat and leather, or mine for iron ore.

Hunting for meat and leather is relatively easy. Run around the countryside (not too far from home) and gank pigs and cows for their loot. Once you have enough leather, make yourself some leather armour.

Always make sure you’re inside before dark.

Mining is slightly easier. Dig out rock and hope you find something. If you hit gravel, dig it all out, as there’s increased chances of finding coal or iron on the other side of gravel. You may also choose to dig out dirt if you find pockets of it. Always be certain you have a way back to your base.

Never dig directly under you and be cautious when digging overhead.

Once you have iron ore, smelt it into ingots. Do not immediately swap to iron tools, as iron is rarer than coal. Keep the iron tools for when you need them (ie, mining redstone, gold or diamonds). Or better, keep the iron ingots for when you need them.

It’s advisable to have a few buckets to use how you whist.

If you do have to dig a vertical shaft, make some ladders before you begin. That way, you always have a way of getting out.

Make some glass and add a skylight to your fortress. This lets the daylight in, but keeps the monsters out at night.

Remember: When mining, if you dig down far enough, you will encounter lava, or the bottom of the world.

If you dig into a cavern, make sure your weapon of choice is right next to your torch supply in your hotbar. Place a torch so you can see where you’re going and proceed slowly, weapon at the ready. Do not wait until you can barely see the walls before placing the next torch.

Always light the area thoroughly and make certain no monsters are within aggressive distance before you go mining anything you find.

Be extremely careful when mining redstone, diamond, lapis lasuli and gold. They are often near lava.

If you know there is lava nearby, carry a bucket of water with you. It can turn lava into obsidian or cobblestone, depending on whether it is still or flowing. Plus, it can put you out if you catch yourself on fire.

If you don’t know there is lava nearby, always have a clear way to run. Catching on fire can ruin your whole day.

Return to the surface and improve your fort. Harvest and smelt sand so you can make a greenhouse. Farm wheat and reeds to make bread, cake and bookshelves, as you desire.

Lay traps for unwary creatures around your home.

Experiment with redstone. Make something wonderful

Take pictures and brag to the minecraft community(optional).

Minecraft Community IRC

A lot of players hang out on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) where they can get support or simply have a friendly chat with other keen players within the Minecraft community.

All Minecraft communities are located on the Esper Network (irc.esper.net).

Common Minecraft Channels

Community

Network

Channel

Website

Official Minecraft irc.esper.net #minecraft minecraft.net
Official WorldOfMinecraft irc.esper.net #wom worldofminecraft.com
Official CraftHub irc.esper.net #crafthub crafthub.net
Minecraft General irc.esper.net #mcchatter

I still don’t know how to use this IRC thing

There are 2 ways to get onto Esper IRC Network:

Internet Browser

If you’re just starting off, this may be the easiest method.

Simply go to http://www.esper.net/publicirc.php and use their online IRC Client.

IRC Clients

If you already have an IRC client installed on your machine, connect to irc.esper.net:5555 and choose a #room from the above list.

Don’t have an IRC client? Searching google will bring you lots, to name a few good ones: X-Chat (windows & Linux), X-Chat-Aqua (OS X), mIRC.

okay then. This took me a long time to write, If i have missed anything please please please let me know so that i can add it, and also it wouldnt let me include pictures to show all the different crafting recipes and such. so sorry about that.