Minecraft is a real giant in the world of PC video games, with a huge community of players, hundreds of variations on the game so that it is always different according to your preferences.
Minecraft is a creative game of construction and survival , with retro-style 3D graphics, infinite possibilities of movement and growth that all depend on what the player wants to do.
Since this game is a phenomenon of the last 2/3 years that has not stopped evolving becoming the most played in the world, those who have only heard of it or who want to have fun with a new game considered among the best of the decade, can start playing starting from this preliminary guide .
Given the vastness of the game, the tricks, the possible changes and the freedom to choose what to do and how to play, this guide will only touch the surface, referring to the practice and to the more specialized sites (reported at the end) to discover the whole world of Minecraft.
First of all it is important to know that Minecraft is not a free game, even if it costs little.
You can download Minecraft for free to try it, but for the real game you will be required to purchase from the official Minecraft.net site (do not buy from other sites because due to the popularity there are many scams related to this name) by paying 20 Euros with credit card or via Paypal.
If, before spending 20 Euros, you first want to take a look at Minecraft to understand what it is, you can always download the Demo from the official website, which only requires free registration on the site.
Minecraft can be played on Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, Playstation, XBox and also exists as an application for Android , Windows Phone and iPhone in a Pocket Edition that costs only 5 Euros.
After downloading Minecraft to PC , you will be asked to log in.
If the game has not been paid yet, you can still play the demo mode , very limited, but more than enough to get an idea of the game.
Minecraft can be played online or offline : some player information, such as results, is saved online, but all the rest of the world remains stored on the computer.
You can therefore play even without internet connection in single-player mode, without problems.
Then choose Single Player mode to start the first world.
Obviously the list of saved games will still be empty.
Press the button to create a new world, give it a name (it can be changed later) and choose the game mode .
You can play Minecraft in Survival mode , the default one, where you have to fight monsters, find food to survive, find agricultural resources and handicrafts to build things.
There are different difficulty levels and if you die you can start over from the saved point.
The creative mode where you only have to build the world, without monster attacks and with full access to all resources.
The Hardcore mode, on the other hand, is the one for expert players, like survival mode, but with one life.
So if you are killed, you lose everything that has been done and you have to start over.
At the first game you can finally enter the strange graphics of the world of Minecraft, initially empty, with grass, trees, maybe a little water or animals.
It may even happen to start in a desert land or a snowy mountain.
In any case, you start early in the morning and have a whole day at your disposal to prepare a refuge and face the first night , when the monsters will come out ready to attack us.
A day in Minecraft lasts 10 minutes of play, so it is good to understand the controls immediately and move to do the initial things.
With Minecraft you move with the mouse and the keyboard .
Using the mouse, the left button breaks the blocks and attacks an enemy while the right button is multifunction: move blocks, command levers, open doors, launch missiles, eat and drink, open containers, use some tools (hoe for the land or clipper) for sheep), access the inventory and other things.
From Keyboard the main keys are
W – Forward (double-tapping Forward takes a snap).
S – Back
A – Left
D – Right
Space – Jump
Shift – Inspect
E – Open the Inventory (to be used also to go out of the game without pausing)
Q – leave the object in your hand by putting it on the ground (it would be better to change the key for the “Drop” to avoid accidentally throwing stuff into the volcanoes and losing it).
Ctrl Q – Eliminates a pile of objects on the ground.
1 to 9 to select an item from the toolbar.
Esc – Display the game menu and pause.
F1 – hides the interface
F2 – take a photo
F11 – full screen mode
T – Open the chat
TAB – opens the list of players in multiplayer mode.
The interface
Many indicators, toolbars and buttons appear on the game screen.
There are the weapons list bar, the health bar, the hunger indicator (if you are hungry you will not be able to run and if the bar reaches zero, your health will drop while it is full of health).
Then there is the Experience bar, which indicates the progress to level up earned in battles with monsters.
Experience levels can be swapped for enchanted weapons and armor, but will be thought of later in the game.
The inventory that appears by pressing on the E shows the Toolbar of buttons contains 9 slots in which it is possible to insert useful elements that can be selected quickly with the keys 1 and 9 or with the mouse wheel and other special slots with the armor and the area of the crafting .
Crafting is one of the main activities of Minecraft and is used to combine elements to create objects.
For example, to make a table, you need to put 4 pieces of wood on the 2X2 grid.
Crafting can also be used with food, for magic potions, for the furnace and other combinations.
Face the first day and survive the first night
The first step is to obtain wood , the main resource in Minecraft for building the basic tools.
Once you find a tree, hit it until a piece comes out to put in the inventory with the mouse (pressing E).
Repeat the work until you have collected all the wood from the tree and have 4 or 5 blocks of wood.
The next step is to work the wood to make the boards: press E to open the inventory screen, move the items with the mouse and drop them on a box.
Take the wood and place it in the crafting area to convert it to boards.
Do the same with the tables to create a working table to move on the playing field with the mouse.
Right click on the table to see a 3X3 grid.
Place two boards on the Crafting plane, one on top of the other, to make some sticks and then use sticks and boards to make a wooden pickaxe.
The drawing is a T with the sticks at the bottom and three pieces of boards on the head.
You can also make an ax to cut more trees faster (by placing 3 wooden planks and two sticks in the shape of an inverted L), a shovel (with a board overhead and two sticks in the shape of an I) and a sword of wood (two boards and a stick at the bottom always in the shape of an I).
You must then quickly find a nearby place (so if you die you will find it easily) in which to build the first house or, better, to dig an underground house along the side of a hill or a cliff.
The ideal place to build a house is an area with coal mines, sand, sheep and wood nearby
Using the pickaxe you can dig the house with a 2 block high and 1 block wide door and a larger space inside.
Place a Crafting table inside your new home and create some flashlights to illuminate it.
The torch is made with coal and sticks.
If no coal has been found in a mine yet, an oven can be made using 8 stones (Cobblestone) which are found by digging.
From the crafting table then make an oven, place it on the ground, right click on it and put 3 wooden blocks in the upper section (“Ingredients”) and 2 wooden boards below (in the “Fuel” slot) to make coal.
The torches made can then be placed on the floor or on the wall and it is important that every corner of the house is illuminated so as not to discover hidden monsters and to take advantage of the night by building other things, enlarging the environment and improving the house.
Finally, build the door that will keep the monsters out, using 6 wooden planks, placing it at the entrance.
You can also make windows to watch the sunrise without leaving home.
To make the window use the oven, use the sand to make glass blocks and create the window.
You can then build a bed (killing sheep), a container chest for objects, search for food, dig mines, look for armor skins, make weapons, cut down trees and do everything possible to survive.
After learning how to handle the interface and become fast with constructions, only imagination can limit Minecraft which offers infinite game evolutions and growth possibilities.
You can play for hours, days and months without ever getting bored, having more and more fun in the online multiplayer mode.
To deepen and discover all that you can do in Minecraft the best site to visit and keep in your favorites is definitely Minecraft-italia.it , where you can find every type of guide, the list of objects that can be built with crafting, the server to play online, mods to download,
