Day 3: Adventure!

Day 3 started out normally enough, with me gathering as much wood as I could find to burn down into charcoal, to then use for torches on a mining trip on a nearby island.  My objective was iron, so I could make myself a breastplate and a bucket.  I really, really wanted that bucket.  Do you have any idea what you can do with a bucket?  Seriously, I'm going to need to dedicate a blog post just to that.  Anyway.

After a success mining trip which netted me plenty of iron for my armor bucket, I decided it was time to start exploring the world a bit more, so I set off in a boat along the coast line to see if I was on an island.  I was in no great hurry, so when I came across a tempting looking hole in the ground, I decided I had time to do some exploring.  Bad idea.  Long story short, I fell down by mistake and got stuck, was shot at by skeletons, got lost three or four times, got trapped in the darkness, started digging my way out and ran into an underground river (twice) and nearly being swept away (twice).  Finally, I broke through to surface - under the ocean.  After nearly drowning (again) I decided it was time to be on my way.

Oh look, I'm lost.  And it's getting dark.  Time to dig a hole in a wall...

Shelter for the night.

 I know that all I need to do to get home is to follow the coast, easy, right?  I set sail, and, wait, is that squid!?  Yes, it's squid!  Yeah squid!

What's the plural form of squid anyway?

 Back on the move, I start to see some examples of just how beautiful Minecraft scenery can be:

You really need to view these screenshots in full screen - just click on them!

The whole coastline was just gorgeous, but made me realize the awkward truth - I'm sailing the wrong direction.  I should be seeing ice and snow, not amazing waterfalls.  Whoops.

I devised a system to help me tell where I've been - triangular stacks of cobblestone, pointing the direction I'm sailing at the time.

I'm still pretty uncertain about my direction, but hopefully turning around will put me back on the right track.  I really need a compass.

Will I ever make it home, I wonder?  Perhaps tomorrow I'll find out, as on I sail...

Day 2: The End of Twinton, and Creation of Sphereus

I started playing again this afternoon, and just wasn't feeling Twinton. It was getting annoying to be continually swarmed by spiders every morning, and after a few creeper explosions, I decided it was time to change. I went back to the menu, and create my fourth world - a world I decided to name Sphereus. I've been doing some reading online about the game, so I've got a good idea of what my initial priorities are, and quickly find a nice looking shelter to spend the first night in. Awkwardly enough though, that first night ends quite poorly - in a ball of fire. Thanks creeper.

However, that death turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, because as I was hurrying across the map to try and reclaim my lost items (which, incidentally, were vaporized by the explosion), I discovered the perfect spot for a base, and there's even some iron ore nearby! Time to start digging!


It turns out that that indeed was the perfect spot for what I was doing, and I soon made it home. Once I got the hang of not dying every night, things got exponentially easier and more fun, as I started really building and exploring the area around me.

Home sweet home! I added a second door was later, which made the whole thing feel less off balance.


I got a furnace up and go to refine my iron ore into ingots, and even roasted some pork chops with it. Yum!


This is the single most wonderful thing I've crafted in Minecraft yet - a bed! Finally, a way to actually sleep through the night instead of waiting up, listening to the monsters outside your window!

Another new discovery I made is farming and conservation - first, my "farm":

Sure, it's a small start, but once I harvest it, I'll have wheat and more seeds to plant, till eventually I'll have a full field of the stuff. I also discovered that those saplings that drop from the sky while I'm cutting down trees can be planted and will grow into new trees after a couple of nights - a very handy fact, especially considering how much wood I've been using.


I also had the not-so-original idea of building a giant tower to help me find my way back home if I should ever get lost. I built until I was almost even with the clouds, and decided that should be high enough.

I also built a shorter tower with a torch on top right on top of the entrance to my cave, which ended up saving my life. I was out in the fields nearby, implementing some farming ideas, when night suddenly fell. I was a little turned around, and probably would have gotten lost if I hadn't seen the light shining like a beacon of hope.

And that's it for day 2 - tomorrow, if I find time to play, I plan on starting a mine on the island across from me to see if I can't locate some more iron, and maybe, if I feel really ambitious, try and add an underground lake to my cavern home. We'll see.

Day 1: Beta & Twinton Worlds

After deleting Alpha World, I wasn't too sure what to expect in Beta World... turns out, it's awesome.

I start out quickly, and even figure out how to make tools. Unfortunately, the game glitched during the night, leaving me trapped inside solid stone, killing me, and leaving me defenseless on my spawn point till morning. Lame. Rather then wait patiently for dawn, I decide to save Beta World and create another, new world - which I name Twinton (after a tape dispenser that happened to be nearby. Hey, don't judge - where'd your parents get your name?)

The above picture is my a screenshot of the very first moment in Twinton. I'm getting used to starting over at this point, and it doesn't take me long to throw up a shelter and spend my first night.


As I start out, I'm really enjoy Twinton, but that doesn't last long. For one, the area is mostly low, rolling hills, which makes mining difficult. For two, the area I decided to build my shelter in turned out to me a swarming spot for skeletons, creepers, (as I found out those green exploding things are called) and giant spiders. This could be interesting...

Next: Day 2!

Day 1: Alpha World

Having just purchased and downloaded Minecraft, I open the program for the first time and select single player, and create my first world. Alpha World.

There it is - a land of my own, to explore, create in, and hopefully, survive. Now, even though I've never played the full version of Minecraft, I know enough to know to that being caught outside after nightfall is a very, very undesirable situation. That means I need shelter, and quickly. I immediate start looking around, and though I know time is of the essence, it's hard not to just wander around and explore. Luckily, I read a survival guide for new players a few days ago, so I have a basic idea of what I need to do to survive the night.

First things first - I need wood. It doesn't take me long to find a tree, but harvesting the wood takes quite a bit longer. Eventually, I figure out how to do it, and pick up my small collection of wood pieces. By referring to the controls listed in the options menu, I'm able to craft my wood into wood planks. Hooray, progress!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what to do next. I play around with the wood and wood planks for awhile, and finally discover that I can make both sticks and a "crafting table" with them. I'm pretty sure I can use the crafting table to make tools, but before I can figure out how, it starts to get dark, and I panic. There's no time to build any sort of ordered shelter, so I get close to a wall and start throwing sand and dirt down in front of my as fast as I can. Soon, it's so dark that I can't see what I'm doing, and decide to just wait out the night in the pitch black and hope that I made a wall that will keep night creatures out.

Let me tell you - one of the most beautiful sights you'll ever see in Minecraft is the sunrise. Despite my utter unpreparedness, I manage to make it through the first night alive, though not unscathed. At some point during the night, I was shot by something or someone, but only once. Curious. As my courage returned with the sun, I started to look around again. I discovered two wool, an arrow, and a bone on a nearby hillside - curiouser. Shortly afterwords, a seemingly-random explosion rocks the area I'm standing by and nearly kills me. Yikes.

Having learned my lesson the night before, I immediately start looking for a better place to make a shelter, and find a nice looking spot near a inlet. I still haven't figured out tools, so I just smash a small 2x2 in the side of the wall:

It's crude, but it should keep mysterious archers out and me safe till I can come up with something better. I've got a little time till darkness falls, so I play with my crafting table some more, without any luck. Soon dusk falls, warning me that night two in Alpha World is about to begin. I quickly retire into my hole, and block up the entrance, and realize just how awful this shelter design really is. I have no room to move, it's pitch black, and there's no way for me to see when morning arrives. This will never do. Luckily, I was facing the entrance when I blocked it up, so I just had to clear the area in front of me to make a window. So passes night two.

In the morning, as I clear my way out, I suddenly notice movement on the hill opposite me - it's two green, um, things, that are hopping around. Oh, and a swimming spider:

As I stand quietly, wondering what my next course of action should be, something even weirder happens - the green things spontaneously burst into flames. Okay.

Despite being nearly dead, and a little cautious about the very-not-on-fire-spider, I'm feeling pretty good about surviving two nights in a row, so I loop around the spider to investigate what's left of the now-charred-and-dead green things. Turns out, that was a bad idea. Sure, I was able to find another bone, and deduce that whatever shot on night one was probably burned alive just like these green guys, but it also meant that I had to climb the hill, and then get down. Long story short, I fell a little bit further then I intended, and died. *headdesk*

Sure, I could have respawned and had a second go at it, but after that embarrassing death, I decided I needed something new. I back to the menu, delete Alpha World, and create Beta World.