Don't be a Minecraft tourist get expert tips and advice in this full-color primer

Minecraft For Dummies is the complete guide to playing within the Minecraft world. With easy-to-follow guidance from a team of Minecraft experts, you'll develop programming and engineering skills as you build amazing creations using in-game blocks and mechanical devices. Whether you prefer the PC, console, or portable platform, this helpful guide will walk you through the process of setting up and beginning gameplay, and engage with other users from all around the globe. With this trusty guidebook in hand, you'll navigate the infinite world of Minecraft with confidence, skills, and a storehouse of expert advice.

Minecraft is the sandbox construction game that has become a mainstream phenomenon with over a hundred million players. A virtually infinite world and versatile style of play offer endless possibilities for both the hardcore gamer and the total noob, andMinecraft For Dummies shows you everything you need to know before you break your first block.

Choose your platform, download the game, and play in all three modesGather resources, place and break blocks, and use circuits and logic gatesDefend your creations against spiders, skeletons, zombies, and the CreeperTravel across the biomes and defeat the enderdragon to win the game

Whether you play to win or just like to explore, there is a style of Minecraft that will spark your imagination. Create or destroy, make war or peace, attack or defend the game is whatever you want it to be. If you're ready to leave your mark on this digital universe,Minecraft For Dummies is the primer you need to get up to speed.

Jesse Stay is a social media technologist consultant and developer.

Thomas Stay, Jesse's 12-year-old son, eats, drinks and breathes Minecraft.

Jacob Cordeiro won an award for his game entry in the 2011 Scholastic Art and Writing competition.

Introduction 1

About This Book 2

Conventions Used in This Book 2

Foolish Assumptions 3

How This Book Is Organized 3

Part I: Getting Started with Minecraft 3

Part II: Learning Basic Survival Skills 3

Part III: Developing Advanced Skills 4

Part IV: Customizing Minecraft 4

Part V: Making Minecraft a Family Affair 4

Part VI: The Part of Tens 4

Icons Used in This Book 4

Beyond the Book 5

Part I: Getting Started with Minecraft 7

Chapter 1: Entering Minecraft 9

Getting to Know Minecraft 9

Registering a Minecraft Account 10

Purchasing and Installing Minecraft 11

Playing the Game 12

Logging in and operating the main menu 12

Starting your fi rst game in SinglePlayer mode 13

Understanding basic controls 14

Watching the Heads-Up Display (HUD) 17

Minecraft PE 18

Purchasing PE 19

Starting PE 19

Understanding the Heads-Up Display (HUD) for PE 22

Chapter 2: Surviving the First Night 25

Preparing for Your First Night 25

Devising a game plan 26

Using the inventory 27

Manipulating the inventory 28

Setting Up for Your First Night 29

Harvesting trees 29

Building a crafting table and shelter 30

Making sticks and wooden tools 33

Completing Optional Day One Activities 35

Constructing a chest 35

Mining cobblestone and coal 36

Building a bed 37

Surviving the Night 38

Switching from Peaceful mode to Easy mode to Normal mode 39

Surviving the first night: Three strategies to light the way 40

Surviving the Night 44

Implementing a Minecraft PE strategy for surviving the night 45

Part II: Learning the Basic Skills 47

Chapter 3: Surviving Hunger 49

Understanding and Avoiding Hunger 49

Finding food 50

Eating food 54

Saturation: Making the most of your food 55

Limiting exhaustion 57

Understanding Minecraft PE and Food 58

Attacking and Defending 58

Making Weapons 59

Wielding swords 59

Stringing the bow 59

Protecting Yourself with Armor 60

Wearing leather 62

Donning the helmet 63

Pounding the chestplate 63

Putting on leggings 63

Walking in your boots 63

Storing armor 63

Chapter 4: Discovering Blocks and Items 65

Starting In the Wooden Age 65

Making It Through the Looting Age 70

Surviving the Stone Age 74

Using the Furnace 76

Using the Stonecutter with Minecraft PE 79

Building an Effective House 79

Moving from Effective Houses to Bases 80

Part III: Mastering Techniques 83

Chapter 5: Understanding Biomes and Mastering Farms 85

Knowing Your Biomes 86

Generating worlds 86

Growing flowers 86

Playing in snowy biomes 86

Chilling in cold biomes 87

Living in medium biomes 89

Roasting in warm biomes 93

Exploring in neutral biomes 95

Building the Perfect Farm 96

Growing crops 96

Knowing the basic plants 99

Farming animals 102

Growing mushrooms 102

Knowing the PE Farming Differences 104

Examining Different Types of Mobs 104

Living with docile mobs 105

Protecting yourself from hostile mobs 107

Ignoring neutral and allied mobs 111

Raising pets 113

Playing with PE mobs 114

Chapter 6: Mastering Mines 115

Mining Efficiently 115

Cave mining 115

Digging into branch mining 117

Stepping into staircase mining 121

Building a quarry 122

Ripping into strip mining 123

Rushing into speed mining 124

PE Mining: Random Mining 124

Chapter 7: Increasing Resources through Villages and Excavation 125

Trading in Villages 125

Exploring village features 126

Trading with emeralds 127

Surviving zombie sieges 129

Exploring PE Villages 131

Excavating Structures 132

Excavating a Desert temple 132

Finding jungle temples 133

Breaking into a dungeon 134

Invading the witch hut 134

Exploring an abandoned mine shaft 135

Finding a Stronghold 136

Exploring the nether fortress 137

Discovering ocean monuments 137

Understanding Minecraft PE Excavation 138

Chapter 8: Developing Redstone 139

Playing in Creative Mode 139

Understanding Redstone Basics 141

Transmitting power with redstone wire 142

Using other redstone mechanisms 143

Applying redstone circuits 151

Advanced redstone circuitry 152

Counting Minecraft Ticks 159

Activating Command Blocks 160

Creating Self-Sustaining Farms 160

Chapter 9: Progressing Through the Later Block Ages 163

Exploring the Iron Age 163

Using Tools of the Iron Age 163

Playing with fl uid dynamics 166

Entering the Agricultural Age 168

Reaping the Benefi ts of the Age of Wealth 169

Finding the Nether and End 175

Coloring with dyes 179

Finding the Fun Stuff 180

Starting Big Projects 183

Farming hostile mobs 183

Farming golems 185

Exploring the block ages in Minecraft PE 187

Building Transportation Systems 188

Building boats 188

Riding pigs and horses 188

Transporting by way of minecarts 190

PE Transportation 191

Securing Your Base 191

Chapter 10: Powering Up 193

Enchanting Weapons, Tools, and Armor 193

Enchanting an item 194

Using enchantments 196

Repairing things on the anvil 198

Brewing Potions 201

Brewing basic potions 201

Using potions 203

Modifying potions 204

Brewing negative potions 204

Brewing splash potions 206

Reverting potions 206

Brewing order 206

Fighting witches and potions 206

Building the Beacon 207

Chapter 11: Advancing to the Nether, the End, and Beyond 213

Reaching the Nether 213

Building a portal 213

Surviving the Nether 215

Finding the Stronghold 217

Playing PE Minecraft the Nether 218

Conquering the End 219

Staying busy in the afterglow of completing The End 221

Surviving Hardcore Mode 222

Part IV: Expanding Your Minecraft Experience 225

Chapter 12: Playing in Multiplayer Worlds and Cheats 227

Starting or Joining a Multiplayer World 227

Setting up a LAN server 228

Joining a public server 229

Joining regular and bukkit servers 230

Playing PE MultiPlayer Mode 231

Using the Chat Menu and Cheats 232

Entering commands that can be used by all players 232

Using operator-only commands 233

Using operator-only, public-server-only commands 236

Using nonspecifi c parameters 237

Playing Mini Games 237

Chapter 13: Customizing Your Experience 241

Implementing Additional World Options 241

Using seeds 242

Customizing a superflat world 243

Choosing large biomes and amplified worlds 244

Playing in Customized mode 245

Playing in Debug mode 246

PE Old World Type 247

Using the Profile Editor 247

Managing the minecraft Folder 248

Using minecraft 249

Recovering minecraft 250

Exploring Adventure Mode 250

Playing Custom Maps 251

Using CTM maps 251

Exploring adventure maps 251

Using game maps 252

Navigating the Escape Key Window 252

Earning achievements 253

Adjusting your options 258

Customizing Skins 259

Installing Resource Packs 261

Installing Mods 262

Installing Mod Packs 264

Customizing Gameplay Through Apps 265

Chapter 14: Minecraft in the Larger World 267

Checking Out External Sites and Resources 267

Watching YouTube 268

Subscribing to Redstone YouTubers 269

Finding Minecraft YouTube groups 270

Watching building-focused YouTube channels 271

Learning about plugins 271

Finding map makers 272

Listening to Minecraft music on YouTube 272

Going Beyond YouTube 273

Going to Minecon 274

Part V: Making Minecraft a Family Affair 275

Chapter 15: Choosing the Platform That Works for You 277

Playing Minecraft PC 278

Exploring Minecraft PE 280

Using Minecraft on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PlayStation 3 281

Using Minecraft for Raspberry Pi 282

Anticipating Future Editions of Minecraft 282

Chapter 16: Understanding the Minecraft Game Modes 283

Entering Survival Mode 283

Practicing with Creative Mode 284

Navigating Adventure Mode 286

Torturing Yourself Through Hardcore Mode 287

Seeing the World Through Spectator Mode 288

Dying and Respawning 289

Dying in Hardcore and Peaceful mode 291

Implementing cheats 292

Understanding Game Modes in Minecraft PE 292

Chapter 17: Understanding What Every Parent Needs to Know about Minecraft 295

Teaching Through Minecraft 296

Knowing Where to Buy Minecraft 299

Differentiating between game types 299

Ordering your childs first Minecraft account 301

Registering a Minecraft account 301

Purchasing and installing Minecraft 302

Keeping Your Kids Safe 303

Knowing whom your kids are playing with 303

Understanding Minecraft channels on YouTube 304

Installing safe software 306

Teaching Proper Minecraft Etiquette 307

Preventing server crashes 308

Stealing is wrong 308

Asking permission 308

Playing with Your Children 309

Mastering the basics 309

Playing in Creative mode 310

Winning the game 311

Part VI: The Part of Tens 313

Chapter 18: Ten Helpful Survival Tips 315

Dig Safely 315

Cook Efficiently 316

Obtain Obsidian and Portals Quickly 317

Mine In the Right Location 318

Avoid Overexertion 318

Defeat Basic Mobs 320

Obtain Experience Points 321

Craft Quickly 322

Check Basic Equipment 322

Find Natural Comfort 324

Chapter 19: Ten Helpful Building Tips and Tricks 325

Making Your Starter Home Stylish 325

Improving the Exterior Design in Three Stylish Ways 326

Hiding Lighting 327

Combining Blocks in Different Ways 329

Understanding Circles, Spheres, and Domes 330

Designing the Interior 331

Building tables 332

Arranging chairs 332

Creating bunk beds 333

Lighting the fi replace 333

Playing with Sand and Gravel 333

Laying Roofs 333

Terraforming the Terrain 336

Using Pressure Plates 336

Chapter 20: Ten Helpful Redstone Tips and Contraptions 339

Keeping the Power On with a T Flip-Flop 339

Building Design A 339

Building Design B 340

Building Design C 342

Getting Hopper Help 343

Building a Block Update Detector (BUD) Switch 345

Creating a Constant Signal Switch with the RS-NOR Latch 346

Walking Through Walls with a Double Piston Extender 347

Creating Short Pulses with a Monostable Circuit 348

Extending Pulses with Pulse Extenders 349

Creating Hidden Doors with Sticky Piston Doors 350

Creating Hidden Inputs 353

Blowing Things Up with TNT Contraptions 354

Index 357