Beginner's Guide: What to Do First

Punch trees to get wood and start crafting right away to survive your first night. Read on to learn our beginner's guide and what to do first on your first days in Minecraft.

Beginner's Guide

★ Tips for Getting Started ★
Punch tree, get wood Start crafting Craft a bed and build a shelter Find coal and craft torches Gather food Build a farm Breed animals Upgrade your equipment

Punch a Tree to Get Wood

The first thing you might wanna do upon entering the world of Minecraft is to punch wood. Literally!

By punching wood, you can get logs which you can then turn into planks. In Minecraft, wood is very essential. Without it, you won't be able to start crafting.

Start Crafting

Now that you have wood, you can start crafting!

The first thing you need to craft is a crafting table. Having one allows you to craft multiple items from equipment to decoration that you want to put up in your future house. A crafting table is a must-have item for every player.

The second thing you need to craft are equipment. Remember that time is of the essence on your first day. You need to equip yourself with the proper tools before the monsters come out at night. Craft some sticks. Afterwards, craft yourself a sword, axe, pickaxe, and a shovel.

Craft a Bed and Build a Shelter

Next, you may want to build a shelter so you can protect yourself from hostile mobs at night. Create a small shelter with a door so no mobs can get in. Set your crafting table inside and craft a furnace, bed, and a few chests where you can store important resources you have gathered. This can help keep your items safe just in case you get killed by a mob.

To craft a bed, you need to have at least 3 blocks of wool of the same color. Go ahead and kill a few sheep to get wool and craft it along with a few wooden planks to make a bed. A bed is important because it sets your respawn point after sleeping on or interacting with it.

How to Build a Starter Base

Find Coal and Craft Torches

The next thing you need to do is to find coal. Coal is very essential because you can craft torches with it.

Use these torches to light up your base so no mobs can spawn in it. Try spacing your torches out every 8 blocks to ensure they'll never spawn inside your shelter. There's nothing more frustrating than setting up a shelter, only to have a creeper blow everything up in an instant.

Gather Food

Next, you need to gather food. This can be done in plenty of ways.

Chop Oak Trees

First, you can chop an Oak tree and wait for it to drop an apple. This method can take a while but if you're chopping Oak trees anyway, you might as well wait for them to drop apples.

Find Food in the Wild

Next, you can explore and try to find food that naturally spawn in the wild. An example of this is a watermelon. They come in different numbers in the wild and destroying one will give you more than 1 watermelon slice. Every slice gives you 1 heart - enough to keep you healthy early game.

Loot Villages

If you're lucky, you can try finding a village to loot their houses and farms for food. The chests inside their houses usually have food and other important items that can help you survive.

Kill Animals

Killing cows, chicken,sheep, or pigs that you see in the wild will give you meat that you can cook to restore hunger. Do not kill all animals you see though! It's much better to breed them so you'll have more food.

Build a Farm

Gathering food through the methods mentioned above is only good short-term. It's better to have a stable food source by building a farm.

Use a hoe to till soil near a body of water. This way, your crops will stay moist and won't dry out. Next, simply plant the seeds you have gathered and wait for it to grow! You can get seeds by destroying grass and planting it will give you wheat. You can then use wheat to make bread using a crafting table.

Breed Animals

Although crops are a good source of food, there is nothing better than meat from killing animals. Cooked meat restores a lot more of your hunger bar than crops.

To breed animals, you'll need to build an enclosure first. Next, gather two of each animal and lead them to the enclosure using their favorite food. You can lure cows and sheep with wheat, chickens with seeds, and pigs with carrots. Afterwards, give them their favorite food so they can start multiplying.

Once you have plenty of each animal, kill them to gather meat and other items that can help you craft even more useful items in the future.

A cow has a chance of dropping leather when killed so it's objectively the best animal you can breed in the game. You can use leather to craft books which you can then use in enchanting your equipment to make them stronger!

Upgrade Your Equipment

Lastly, do not forget to upgrade your equipment so you can fight hostile mobs better.

Start out by upgrading your wooden equipment to stone equipment, then from stone to iron, and eventually to diamond equipment!

Cook Raw Materials in Furnace

You can get raw materials in the wild but some of them still need to be cooked before you can use them for crafting. Place some coal inside a furnace and put the raw material you want to use so you can get new resources for crafting.

Minecraft Related Guides

Gameplay Tips and Tricks
1.18 Ore Distribution	1.18 Diamond Level
Villager Trades and Jobs	How to Join and Create Realms
Walkthrough and Progression Guide	List of All Commands
How to Show Mob Hitboxes	Best Enchantments
How to Use Texture Packs	What is Simulation Distance?
Beginner's Guide	How to Get to the Far Lands
How to Update Old Worlds	How to Update to Newer Versions