How to Survive in Minecraft/Day 1

The first day of any Minecraft world influences all future decisions, and can make the difference between thriving, survival, or death. Managing your resources is important as well as getting food and keeping yourself safe.

Structures
The first thing to look for are structures. Things like shipwrecks, jungle or desert temples, or villages help to jump-start a player's journey, sending them from the wood age to the iron age or higher. Villages are particularly helpful as they provide a ton of food in the form of hay bales and wheat which can be crafted into bread, making a lot of food, which is especially important early game when food options are more scarce.

Wood
If you can't find any structures, the next best thing is to look for wood to craft basic tools with, either in trees or abandoned mineshafts, although trees are preferred as there are few hostile mobs in forests.

Once you have found wood, look at it to highlight it, and then break it by holding down the  control, which is usually left-mouse click. When you break one block, move your field of view until another block of wood is highlighted, and then break it by holding down the  control. Repeat this with all of the other wood blocks. You may need to move under the tree, where the 2 blocks of wood were, in order to see the rest.

Basic tools
In order to get planks, you have to craft the logs into planks. One log inside the crafting menu by itself equals four wooden planks of that type. Then, you want to craft some sticks with the planks, which can be done by 2 planks in a column, which makes 8 sticks. Make sure not to do one plank by itself, as that gives wooden buttons, which are used for redstone, which is unlocked later in the game.

Mining
Use the planks and sticks to create a pickaxe. A pickaxe requires 2 sticks in a column starting from the bottom, and a plank for each space in the top row. After this, use the pickaxe to mine 19 stone to get 19 cobblestone. Use the cobblestone to make one stone pickaxe, axe, sword, shove, hoe, and a furnace. From there, you can mine directly for iron, or just mine for more stone and coal, as iron is already common enough to find within 10 minutes.

Iron
If you do happen to find iron ore on your first day, then feel free to mine it. This will drop 1 Raw Iron per iron ore, which you can bring up and smelt with a furnace using coal or wood. If there is no coal, then you can smelt wood to make charcoal, then use that for torches and iron. Gradually use the iron to make tools and a shield, which will protect you against zombies, skeletons, and creepers, oh my!

Food
While hunger may not be an issue on the first day, it is still important to get food for the second day or beyond. Use your stone sword to hunt some animals such as Cows, Pigs, or Sheep. Sheep have the added benefit of dropping wool, so killing three of them give you enough wool to make a bed, which is useful to skip future nights as well as avoid PhantomsAfter getting some meat, you can smelt it the same way you smelt iron to get the cooked version, which restores more hunger and saturation than the raw variants.

Farming
Animals will be good for a while, but they will eventually become scarce. When this happens, it is important to get a renewable food source, such as breaking grass to get seeds to plant in tilled soil made with a hoe to eventually grow wheat which can be used for bread.

Shelter
Surviving the first night will be difficult without walls to block yourself from hostile mobs such as zombies and creepers. There are a few different options that a person can use for their shelter.

Cave Home
This could mean either a cave AS a home or a home made by digging into a cliffside. This book refers to the latter. To make a cave home, you may use the hole you just mined if it was into a cliffside or steep area. This is like a hole but you can actually see when it is daytime and is less cramped.

Advantages

 * Surrounded by stone so non-flammable and explosion resistant
 * You gain materials instead of losing them

Disadvantages

 * Size is dictated by the terrain you mined into


 * Not a lot of light can enter

Hole
This shelter just consists of you digging a three block hole in the ground, jumping in it, then sealing the top off to protect yourself from mobs. This is effective, but also a bit cramped and dark, and you don't really know when it will be sunrise.

Advantages

 * Quick to make
 * Mobs are not able to see you

Disadvantages

 * Cramped
 * Dark
 * You don't know when it is daytime

Sky Block
This shelter consists of building up into the sky and avoiding mobs via them not detecting you. Make sure to build up at least 10 blocks!

Advantages

 * Mobs are not able to detect or get to you
 * See everything from up high

Disadvantages

 * Can't jump down due to fall damage
 * Long time to build then destroy

Proper House
Making a proper shelter from wood or stone can be rather time consuming and lead to it being unfinished by nighttime if it is 5 by 5 or more, but a 3 by 3 living space is sufficient for your current needs. Stone is preferable as it is not flammable and is better able to resist explosions by Creepers.

Advantages

 * Can be expanded into a permanent shelter
 * Can be any size

Disadvantages

 * Takes a relatively long time to make compared to the other shelters
 * Not safe to build at night

First Night
After your shelter has been constructed, the sun should probably be in a sunset and hostile mobs should start spawning. Stay in your shelter and mine a bit for ores like coal for torches or iron for iron tools if you want, but don't go down too much otherwise mobs will spawn in your home, which would be a problem. You can also just play another game to pass the time, but don't take too long! You can also expand your shelter to have more rooms like farming if you have seeds, or a future bedroom.