by Timothy Dumont Jr.

Created on: July 25, 2011

Minecraft. A brilliant game made by a man named Notch. If you aren't prepared then there's a good chance you won't survive even your first night. However, you're in luck because I'm here to give you several pointers that will not only help you on your first night but will be very useful for the entire time you're playing.

First thing you need to know is that day lasts about ten minutes, same with night. So when you start you only have a short time to get the supplies you need before darkness and the creatures that hide within the darkness get you. If you do not get all the supplies you need then you'll find yourself either fending off Skeleton Archers, Zombies, and an explosive green creature famously known as a Creeper; or you'll spend ten boring minutes sitting inside a hole in the ground trying to avoid death.

The supplies you need are pretty simple and very easy to find. All you absolutely need is Wood and Stone. First, find trees and start punching them until you obtained about 25 to 30 blocks. It should take only three of four large trees to get the amount needed.

Once you have a good amount of wood, you need to turn it into planks. You do this by opening your inventory (I) and taking your wood blocks and putting them into the crafting area. Take the planks from the box to the right of that until you have about half of your wood blocks left. You need several non-plank pieces of wood. Do not turn all of them into planks unless you feel like spending the time to find more.

Take the planks and put one in each of the boxes in the crafting area of your inventory to create a crafting table.

The crafting table is a box separated into nine smaller boxes. In order to craft something in Minecraft you have to put the ingredients into the craft area relatively in the shape of what you want to create. For example to make a stick, you put one block of plank is one box and another in the block above it. Do this now and take the sticks that will create and put them in the middle column one on top of the other just like the planks. Finally take the planks and put them across the top row to create a pickaxe. Once you have the pickaxe, it's time to get stone.

All you need to do to find stone is dig, but don't dig with the pickaxe. Use your bare fists until you hit stone. It should be gray. You need eight stone blocks and your pickaxe is the only thing that can get them. As soon as you get them go back to your crafting table and put the stone all around the outer edge of the nine boxes to create a furnace. Put down your shiny new furnace and put the wooden blocks in the fuel section and the material section; They should be to the left. Make sure it's the non-plank wooden blocks. After a while you should have charcoal which is exactly like coal in every way.

Now use the materials you have to build walls and a roof. Then craft a torch by putting the charcoal in a box and then a stick in the box directly below it. Use the torch on the walls to light up your small house.

At this point you should be safe for the rest of the night. To find out whether it's daytime again just punch a hole in the side of your home to check, or experiment with different crafting combinations to make a door.

But most importantly, have fun.

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