Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world, it's available on practically every gaming system you can think of, and the Minecraft: Pocket Edition is specifically designed for mobile!
This adventure game focuses heavily on mining materials, crafting objects, and building things, and quite a few people have dedicated many hours to building some truly impressive works of block art.
If you're hoping to dive into the world of Minecraft and create your own masterpieces, here's everything you need to know to get started.
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Create a world
When you start playing Minecraft for the first time, you'll want to create your first world. You can build a world practically from scratch by using the texture packs of your choosing.
When you first create a world, start by giving it a name. Then, select the game mode from Survival or Creative. If you select Survival, you'll be vulnerable to attack from other creatures in the world, as well as other players if you've created an online game with others.
You can then select your level of difficulty from Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard. Each level provides different adventures with increasingly harder means to survive, even in Creative mode. Decide whether your world will be available for online gameplay. If you create a multiplayer game that your friends can join when they see that you're playing Minecraft.
Biomes
Minecraft divides the world into biomes, which are essentially connected areas with a variety of specific features, adding a sense of exploration to your game. Different biomes are home to various resources and animals, as well as multiple NPC buildings, like temples, huts, and villages. Here's a list of some of the the biomes you'll find in Minecraft!
- Plains
- Forest
- Dark Forest
- Birch Forest
- Beach
- Desert
- Cold Beach
- Stone Beach
- Swamp
- Jungle
- Mesa
- Tundra
- Hills
- Mountains
Crafting
A huge part of Minecraft is crafting materials, which you can then use to build structures, sculptures, or whatever your heart desires. To craft most things in the game you'll need a crafting table, however, you'll need to craft wooden planks before you can make a crafting table.
The first thing you should do in order to start crafting is mine some wood. You'll need about 12 pieces of raw wood, so find some trees and start mining that wood!
Once you're done collecting the wood, head into your crafting menu to create some wooden planks. You'll notice after you're done crafting those, you should be able to make a crafting table.
From here it's just a matter of finding as many different materials as you can and experimenting accordingly. Weapons, armor, plants, building materials, and more, the world of crafting will be open to you!
Death
Although Minecraft is very much an exploration game, there's still lots of danger lurking around the world.
At night or in caves you'll notice a variety of creatures wandering around that will try to do you harm. Zombies, skeletons, creepers, and more monsters will attempt to kill you on sight, so be wary. Also, falling from an extreme height will cause you to take damage as well — and if it's high enough, it will kill you outright.
You have a health meter in the top left corner of your screen represented by hearts, when you run out of hearts you will die and lose all your materials that you have collected. You recover health slowly over time, so try to stay away from monsters until you have the proper equipment to deal with them.
Tips and Tricks
There are lots of ways to make your time in Minecraft: Pocket Edition go much smoother. Whether you're looking to build colossal structures or just need help finding precious coal, we've got you covered!
Use a MFi Controller
This is a bonus tip specifically from me; use a MFi controller if you have one. While the controls have been optimized decently well for a mobile experience, the game still feels much easier to handle with a proper set of controls.
I would highly recommend the Steelseries Nimbus MFi Controller if you're looking to pick one up!
What else would you like to know?
Let us know in the comments below!
