An Introduction to Minecraft

The whole world is made up of blocks; you can dig up, chop down and mine these blocks to add them to your inventory and place them. The easiest blocks to obtain are dirt, sand and wood - you can dig or chop these with your fist. Most other things require you to make tools to collect them. 

Using these blocks you can make pretty much anything from a simple shelter to a 1:1 scale replica of the Starship Enterprise. You can harness the power of electricity, creating intricate mine cart systems or even working clocks. 

There's also a social aspect to the game! It can get a bit lonely wandering around this strange world with nothing for company but a couple of curious chickens, so you can create or join a server and play with your friends. Grouping together you can work on huge projects, building villages and cities, or setting traps in each others houses. 

When I was first introduced to this game, the first thing I was told is that there is only one rule of Minecraft. Don't dig straight up, Don't dig straight down. Naturally, upon starting a new game this was the first thing I did. So from a now more experienced standpoint, let me just reiterate this. Do Not dig straight up, Do Not dig straight down. There's a very good reason for this - If you dig straight down for long enough you'll fall into lava and die. If you dig straight up you run the risk of being suffocated by collapsing sand, gravel, water or lava and dying. It's my firm belief that the chances of this happening increase tenfold if you're carrying something valuable.  

Ok, you're in your new world. You're alone and without possessions, also you notice that you have a health bar, a hunger bar and an experience bar. The hunger bar is the main one to worry about right now. As time passes this bar will get emptier until your health starts to deteriorate (down to half a heart). While this means that you can't starve to death, it also means if you get hurt you won't recover health. There are many reasons you might get hurt - you can fall off a cliff, drown or get attacked by the creatures of the night. If you're not careful you will die, and lose anything in your inventory. You'll also be taken back to your original spawn point. 

 For starters punch down a tree. Yes, you have fists of steel, punching down a tree is no problem for you. Now you've got some wood you can create a crafting table and some tools, such as a sword. With this sword you can get some meat (Your character can be vegetarian if you really want, but you're really at the hunter/ gatherer stage of the evolutionary process right now. Agriculture comes later).

Now you have some food you know you're not going to starve in the immediate future, so you can focus on building yourself a shelter. You'll want to work on this quite quickly to avoid first night terror. Most minecrafters remember the horrifying consequences of spending the first day aimlessly wandering around enjoying the scenery and panicking when it gets dark. The problem with darkness is that it's when all the monsters come out. Don't be ashamed to dig a hole in the ground and block yourself in until morning, we've all been there. Working on a home should be your next goal though, it's not much fun sitting in a hole all night. 

There's a lot to discover in the Minecraft world, so really the only way to learn is to play! There are no limits to what you can achieve, so go and explore. The world is your oyster. 

You can buy Minecraft for the PC or Xbox 360, and well as on ios and android phones. The website is https://minecraft.net/store.