Minecraft Beginner’s Guide: Tips and Tricks For First-Time Players

There are very few limits to what you can accomplish in Minecraft, even without the endless power of mods. Mojang has consistently been updating this game with even more ways of letting players truly make the game something of their own.

What started as a fairly simple sandbox has grown into a gigantic game where you’re only limited by you’re creativity. Because of this, it can be tough for new players to pick up on some of the game’s mechanics or even understand what they’re supposed to do in a new world.

Fear not, this Minecraft guide will walk you through some of the most essential beginner’s tips and tricks that will help you get a running start, whether you’re on Minecraft Java or Minecraft Bedrock.

If you’re playing with friends, by the end of the guide, you’ll be able to teach them more than a thing or two about the game.

Starting Your First Minecraft World

These tips also apply to the mobile version of the game. Since you’re here for tips and tricks, this walkthrough won’t cover the basics of punching wood, making tools, or building your first dirt base. Instead, we’ll go over some information that you can use to strengthen your Minecraft knowledge.

Before we get into that, though, there are some settings we can change in your to-be world. Ideally, you’ll want to set the world’s difficulty to Peaceful or Easy just for now.

Peaceful mode is the safest. It makes it so that mobs don’t spawn, your health regenerates very quickly, and your food bar does not deplete.

Easy will spawn mobs, but they deal lower damage compared to other mobs and you won’t get status effects. While your food bar can deplete, it’ll stop after a while and it won’t kill you.

When you make your basic set of tools, prioritize finding Coal and Iron as soon as possible.

You’ll need Coal to make Torches, and Iron to make a better Pickaxe (required for certain Ores), Armor, a Shield, and a Bucket: all of these things will make exploration less stressful, especially if you’re going underground.

Coal in the early days can be extremely scarce. If find yourself running low constantly, you can burn Log, Stripped Log, or Wood in a Furnace to make Charcoal, which works the same as Coal. To conserve your Coal, you can use a Bucket of Lava as Fuel and different forms of Wood.

If you’re trying to cook a type of Raw Meat, make a Campfire instead. You can use these to cook Meat as many times as you want without having to worry about Fuel. Be careful not to put out the fire though (done by interacting with it while holding a Shovel).

The Building Blocks to Get Better at Minecraft

Before you start building your base in your Minecraft world, don’t hesitate to do plenty of exploring around. You don’t want to end up spending hours building a house in a place you thought was okay, until you found a much cooler spot and started regretting it all.

While you’re exploring, note down the coordinates of any interesting places you find. If you’re looking for a more immersive way to play, you can create a Book and Quill and make a note of that. Do remember that it’s possible to lose this item if you die and can’t pick it back up, so be careful with this.

When you decide on where to set up base and start building, start a few simple farms nearby so that they can progress as you work on other things. Sugarcane, Cows, Chickens, and Wheat are some of the easiest farms you can make with the least resources.

Here’s a table quickly summarizing why each one is beneficial:

Farm type	Why build it?	How to start
Sugarcane	Required to make Paper > Books > Bookshelves for having an Enchantment setup.	Plant Sugarcane along any source of still water. Let it grow a few blocks tall, and harvest it from the second block up.
Cows	Cows are a source of Meat and Leather. The former is one of the best Food sources and the latter is required to make Books.	Chickens are a source of Meat, Feathers, and Eggs. Feathers can be used to craft Arrows, while Eggs can be used to create more Chickens or bake Cakes.
Chicken	Chickens are a source of Meat, Feathers and Eggs. Feathers can be used to craft Arrows, while Eggs can be used to create more Chickens or bake Cakes.	Repeat the steps from the Cow Farm guide, but replace Wheat with Wheat Seeds.
Wheat	Wheat can be used to make Bread or lure and feed Cows for mating. Wheat Seeds are also useful for luring and mating Chickens.	Plant Wheat Seeds (obtained from breaking grass or Wheat) near a water source. Wait until it’s fully grown, and then harvest for a few pieces of Wheat and a Wheat Seed.

If you’re starting for the first time, we recommend you build your base near a Village for easy access to a ton of resources. They come with Villagers you can trade with, lots of Crop fields, different kinds of Utility Blocks, and more.

More importantly, there are a lot of Beds you can sleep in and houses you can borrow until you’ve built your own. Or, you can just permanently room with a Villager if you’d like.

Understanding the ‘Mine’ in Minecraft

In terms of mining, there are a few things you want to keep in mind. Bring plenty of resources before heading into Minecraft‘s many cave systems, with the most important being Food and Wood.

You can always make more tools with the ores you find down under, but you’re limited to the number of sticks you can make with the Wood you have.

On that note, always carry a Crafting Bench, no matter where you’re going! You never know when you need to plop it down and make something but have no or limited access to Wood.

Carrying a Bed is also a good idea, especially if you’re traveling on the surface and you don’t have a base yet. You can prevent mobs from spawning if you sleep right as the sun starts setting and continue your journey immediately.

With that, we’ve covered some of the most important tips and tricks that you’ll need as a new Minecraft player.

If you enjoyed this Minecraft walkthrough, please leave us a comment below and let us know if there are any other aspects of the game, you’d like to get assistance on. Happy mining!