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BEGINNER'S Guide for Minecraft
Steve with a pickaxe and a wolf on a grassy cliff, looking over glowing waterfalls into a sunlit blocky canyon

Your first adventure starts here

Explore endless worlds, build castles and survive your first night. Everything a new player needs to know.

The first night

Survival guide: four steps until sunrise

Done: 0 / 4
  1. 1

    Punch a tree

    Walk up to a tree and hold the left mouse button (tap on a phone). Four or five logs are enough to get started.

    Tip: leaves sometimes drop saplings and apples.

  2. 2

    Craft a table

    Turn logs into planks, then use four planks to make a crafting table and place it on the ground. Right-click it to open the 3×3 grid.

    Tip: two planks make sticks, and you need sticks for a pickaxe.

  3. 3

    Make stone tools

    Craft a wooden pickaxe, mine some cobblestone, then make a stone pickaxe and sword. Found coal? That's enough for torches.

    Tip: stone drops nothing without a pickaxe, so make that first.

  4. 4

    Build a shelter

    Dig into a hillside or put up a small house of planks and cobblestone. Block the entrance and place torches inside.

    Tip: monsters don't spawn in lit rooms. Wait for sunrise.

A full day lasts about 20 minutes and the night about 7. Tick all four steps to earn an achievement.

Three dimensions

Tap a card to see how to get there and what to expect.

Test your luck

Open the Lucky Block and see what drops. Match three to win.

Lucky Block Spin

Open the block and see what drops.

For fun only. No purchase needed and no cash value. See the Terms.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You won 3 DIAMONDS

Your bonus code

CRAFT2026

Interactive crafting table

Pick an item from your inventory, then click a grid cell to place it. Click the same cell again to remove it. Try a pickaxe: three planks across the top and two sticks down the middle.

Inventory

Crafting 3×3

Select an item in your inventory and place it in the grid.

Items crafted: 0

Recipe book

Click a recipe and it fills the grid.

Fun facts

A pixelated creeper with glowing green eyes standing in a jungle cave

The Creeper was a mistake

In 2009, while modelling a pig, creator Markus "Notch" Persson mixed up the height and width values. The result was a tall green creature, and the Creeper was born.

60,000,000 World size

The world is limited to a 60 million by 60 million block square. If one block is a square metre, that's roughly seven times the surface of the Earth.

Ghast sounds

The ghast's eerie wails were reportedly made from recordings of a cat belonging to the game's composer, Daniel Rosenfeld (C418).

20:00 One game day

A full day-night cycle takes 20 minutes of real time. About seven of those are the dangerous night.

300M+ Best-selling game

Over 300 million copies have been sold, making Minecraft the best-selling video game of all time.

1 : 8 Fast travel via the Nether

One block in the Nether equals eight in the Overworld. Dig a tunnel through the Nether and you'll cover huge distances in minutes.

Ready to play?

Your world is waiting. Grab Minecraft, start in Survival and follow the four steps above. You'll be ready before the first sunset.

Steve with a diamond sword and Alex holding a torch, with a wolf, in a sunlit blocky valley