Top Tips for Beginners

As a sandbox game, Minecraft accommodates a wide range of playing styles. But let's face it, we could all use some help from time to time.

Chests
Once you've constructed your first shelter, you'll need to start digging into the ground for minerals. Consider building some chests in deeper tunnels. Instead of walking back to the surface every time your inventory fills up, you can simply dump everything in a chest. It also prevents you from losing everything to a surprise creeper or unexpected lava.

Diagonal Digging
Always dig a block away from your current position.

Digging out the block directly above? That can lead to sand or gravel falling on your head and suffocating you. Digging out the block directly below? A quick fall into a cave or lava.

Farming Obsidian
Use a bucket (iron ingots in a V-shape in the 3x3 crafting grid) to bring lava to water or vice versa when creating obsidian blocks. I prefer to carry lava up to the surface. Using underground lava to farm obsidian can make it difficult to remove every block without falling in.

Peaceful
Sometimes, all you want to do is build an amazing structure without a creeper surprise ruining your hard work. Change the difficulty to Peaceful until your structure is complete.

Shelter Protection
Consider building a moat or a wall around your shelter, particularly if you're building in the open on the surface. Walls should be at least 2 blocks in height, and moats should be 2 blocks in height and 2 blocks in width. Moats and walls are a simple way to protect your shelter from mobs without wasting lots of torches.

Shift Key Bridges
Hold the shift key when trying to place a block on an edge. It will keep you from falling to your death when building air bridges.

Surface Mining
Hilly and mountainous maps have surface coal and occasionally surface iron on their sides. It may take some exploring, but surface minerals can be a quick way to find raw materials without having to dig deep into the ground.