minecraft
A woman walks her child to school as he is dressed as a character from Minecraft in New York October 31, 2014. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

When starting Minecraft, you have to know the first things to do to be as productive as possible. You increase your chances of survival and preventing threats by gathering resources and stabilizing. Here are your goals when playing Minecraft for the first time:

1. Gather resources. You need to gather wood during your first day on Minecraft. Make a crafting table. It is recommended to pick an axe as your first tool, which will make wood gathering much faster. Make a wooden pickaxe to dig a small stairway in the ground. Gather 29 cobblestone afterwards to get a full set of stone tools, plus a furnace. Next, make a shelter or stay in a village, if available. Smelt wood into charcoal then make some torches.

2. Shelter. Start looking for a home because spiders, zombies and other creatures spawn at night. It is ideal to find shelter near your spawn point so you can respawn close to your home if you die. Shelter is also ideal on the side of a hill or mountain, because it becomes easier to gather stone. Caves are not a good idea because monsters can spawn there.

3. Get food. After having the necessary tools and shelter, get food. You will not get hungry on your first day but pick up some food to avoid it. After you move around, your food bar will start to go down. You have to regenerate health if your food bar goes lower than 90 percent. You can no longer sprint if your food bar is at 30 percent. If the hunger bar goes to zero level, you will start losing health.

4. What to do at night. Your main threats at night are monsters so stay in your lighted shelter. Do not engage monsters unless you have a sword and full armor. Stay indoors especially on your first night. Setting up torches or glowstones will also illuminate your house and help you ward off monsters.

You might die and respawn a few times in the succeeding days until you master the techniques and activities, but these basics should be enough to last you the first night on Minecraft.

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