Minecraft tips for beginners, by the Just About community

Ask a veteran of the game for some Minecraft tips and they could probably be there all day making a list, since this open-world survival sandbox is a far, far more complex game than it seems on the surface. But rather than collecting knowledge fit for a Minecraft king, we asked our community of players - you folks - for your beginner tips, the things brand-new players need to know within the first hour or two of playing.

You delivered in earnest, with 11 excellent submissions ranging from the super simple to absolutely vital advice that will have any player well on their way to slaying the Ender Dragon. Here are your top Minecraft tips from real players with hands-on experience, via Just About Video Games.

Don't dig directly down

This is the top unwritten rule of Minecraft that every player will forget at least once in their lives, then vow to never forget again: don't dig directly down! We had two players recommend this tip - Stella and BeyondBelief - which shows just how essential it is. This is because under the surface of the Minecraft overworld lies all manner of open spaces, filled with hazards that include but are not limited to lava, ravines, creepers, and monster spawners. Any of these could be the end of you if you dig down and fall into them unprepared.

If you must dig down instead of exploring a natural cave formation, you should dig in a staircase pattern rather than a direct downward shaft. It takes a little longer, but it means any openings you find can be peered through to ensure they're safe. You'll also collect more dirt, stone, and resources along the way.

Hunt for coal as soon as you spawn

One of the first things you should do as soon as you land in a new world is look for coal, suggests Sturmer. Coal blocks look like stone with black specks in them and can be found pretty much everywhere, including wherever there's exposed stone on the surface.

Coal is essential because it's used for creating torches when combined with sticks, and it fuels your furnace which will cook meat to improve its healing and hunger-satisfying properties. You can't do much at night or underground without light, especially on an empty stomach!

Make your first home either underground or out of dirt

While we all have grandiose dreams for our bases in Minecraft, time is ticking from the moment you spawn in a new world, so you need to act quickly. For a fast-and-simple setup to survive the first night, NeoKazuho suggests building your first home underground. Dig a few blocks deep - enough for you to stand up - and excavate space for a chest, a furnace, and hopefully a bed, then cover yourself up to avoid hostile mobs.

Alternatively, if you've collected enough dirt blocks on your first day, Makster reckons you should build your first house out of dirt on the surface then convert it to wood or stone later down the line. Dirt is more vulnerable to creeper explosions, but is much quicker to build with.

20 logs is all you need

On the topic of surviving the first day, EveOnlineTutorials has a detailed plan for how you can get enough resources to set you up for the future. He reckons all you need is 20 logs to begin with. Split these into two stacks of ten logs apiece, then in your crafting inventory, turn one stack into 40 wooden planks.

Dig into the side of a cliff face for your first base, then use the planks to build a door, alongside wooden tools such as a pickaxe and an axe. Mine for eight cobblestone, make a furnace to cook any food you find, and convert some more planks into sticks for torches as soon as you find coal. Voila! A functional base that will see you through the start of the game, which you can expand at your leisure.

Villages are safe havens

Pre-built structures can be found randomly generated throughout every Minecraft world. Some, such as mine shafts and strongholds, will be full of hostile enemies, but the same cannot be said for villages. Typically spawning in Plains or Desert biomes, villages house numerous friendly villagers, complete with pre-built houses, farms full of food, and chests with loot inside.

BeyondBelief suggests seeing if you can find a village early on. Jenna agrees, explaining they're a great source of wheat for bread, so it's worth running around your starting area to see if you can spot one. You can also trade with villagers once you have emeralds, and they don't mind if you move into their houses for a while.

The dangers of fire and lava

A few of our members mentioned how dangerous fire and lava can be, and for good reason. Few things are worse than setting your wooden house on fire, or indeed, perishing in flames. Limal recommends always ensuring you don't have a lava bucket on your hotbar when in your wooden house - and Jenna recommends you also put the flint and steel away to avoid any rogue sparks.

The watery yin to the fiery yang comes from Laser-Bicep, who has a slightly more advanced tip. If you always have a water bucket to hand while caving or mining, you can quickly place it beneath your feet to transform the lava into obsidian. They also suggest that any lava you do collect in spare buckets is used as fuel in furnaces, as it lasts for much longer than the usual wood or coal.

How to deal with creepers

Creepers are those tall green chaps that have an annoying tendency to hiss and explode when they get too close. Until you have a weapon strong enough to deal with them in one hit, they can be quite the pain, especially if they somehow sneak into your base and destroy… well, everything.

Jenna 's method is to hit the creeper once, then turn and run for a moment. These enemies are quite slow, so you should be able to put some distance between you and the foe before hitting it again. Repeat this tactic, and you should be able to net yourself some handy gunpowder by killing it before it blows up.

Maximising your enjoyment

Stepping back from specific game elements for a moment, avrona has some general tips on how to maximise your time with Minecraft as a whole. He suggests avoiding looking things up online unless absolutely necessary because "you can only experience being new at Minecraft once" - which somewhat defeats the purpose of this guide, but here we all are - and that you should also set a clear goal for your world. Do you want to slay the Ender Dragon? Gather enough resources to build a city? Go on an epic voyage? It’s fine to just go with the flow, of course, but if you’re the type of player that regrets suboptimal decisions, you should know that your goal for your world will affect the best things to build, gather, and so on.

Jupiter_Hadley has another similar tip, and that's to play with friends whenever possible. It's all well and good having a solo world, which can be especially fulfilling as everything you create is yours, but Minecraft is also great fun as a social game, so again, it pays to be clear on what you want to get from the experience. Setting up your own multiplayer server is fairly easy these days too!

Hardcore mode adds some tension

Another tip from Makster is to play on hardcore mode if you're finding the usual Minecraft routine a little dull. Hardcore is essentially an ironman mode, in which dying even once will end your playthrough and prevent you from playing in that world again.

This adds some serious tension. Makster explained it often had him "fleeing in a boat until daybreak before sailing to another part of land and starting again". If you can cope with the perils of losing all your progress, then this is the mode for you.

Llamas, orientation, mob pushing, and farming

Minecraft expert Laser-Bicep also has a bunch of helpful tips to bear in mind when you've got the basics under your belt. The first piece of advice is all about using llamas for extra storage because if you click on one while holding a chest, this becomes their inventory, and you can use it to store lots of items and materials. The stronger the llama, the more inventory space it has, and you can breed llamas to increase their strength.

Water is also an excellent tool to push hostile mobs away from you if you're getting swamped, and when you're really well-versed in Minecraft, you can create water elevators. You can also hydrate a 9x9 area with a single water source block to maximise your farming space and crop yield. Having an empty bucket to hand when underwater can save you if you start to drown too, by momentarily clearing the water in any given block and allowing you to breathe.

Finally, my personal favourite tip from this bounty is also possibly the most niche. Laser-Bicep explains that blocks always break on the northmost face: "When you break a block, the breaking pattern on the top face points north, so you can use this to check your orientation." It's the sort of thing you'd never realise without being told, and despite having played Minecraft myself since 2010, it was news to me.

Do you have any more Minecraft tips? Let us know in the comments and keep your eyes out for more Minecraft bounties on Just About Video Games.