This is not a game guide, so if you're looking for definitions, you've come to the wrong place.
Dawn
You spawn in a world with water, sun, trees, animals and hills, move the mouse around quickly to discover the world.
Minute Zero
0:00 - 0:15
It is best to create a temporary landmark to indicate your spawn location before you move at all. This might help you in the future, so mark it in whichever way you can. If you spawn on land, the easiest way is to dig the blocks adjacent to the block you are standing on and then place them one top of the other to form a pillar below your feet. Next, look around, take note of your surroundings. See if there are any trees around you. With versions earlier than 1.3, you will spawn exactly on that marker if you die, but in later versions, there is a spawn chunk region and you will spawn anywhere within that region. This region has special importance in the game and you want to lay down enough markings to be able to identify it later. (Pro tip for direction finding: you're always facing north at the start of the game.) Pressing F3 to open the debug screen will also tell you your facing, "f".
0:20-1:00
Walk towards trees. If you do not see any trees, pick a random direction and walk. If you are on an island, surrounded by water, swim towards land by holding space. Throughout the first day, it's recommended to hit any Tall Grass you come across as wheat seeds are going to come in handy later on. If you're in a jungle, keep an eye open for a big green melon and punch it if you see one. In addition, take note of food sources such as animals and small caves (as housing) as they could be useful later on. Villages can become quick sources of seeds, carrots and potatoes for your farming.
Achievement Hunters: Open inventory to get "Taking Inventory" achievement and punch trees to unlock "Getting Wood"
Minute One
1:00-2:00
Punch down the trees in the surrounding area (click and hold left mouse). If you still do not see trees, then start collecting sand (as much as you can get) for 20 sec., then move on. If you are still swimming, keep at it. Get at least four Wood Blocks (logs for short). Any type will do. (tap "e" [default inventory button] to see what you have in your inventory and tap "e" again when you are finished)
Keep your eyes and ears open for animals such as chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, and especially wolves that you don't want to punch by accident. If you do, wolves will become hostile. You will need to find some animals in a couple minutes. Take note if there isn't any water in sight.
Achievement Hunters: If you don't get "Getting Wood" the moment you pick up your first log, simply open your inventory to get "Taking Inventory" to enable it. If you're done punching logs, you can simply drop one (default "Q") and pick it back up to get "Getting Wood".
Minute Two
2:00-2:10
Make a Crafting Table by pressing 'e' then clicking the logs into the 2x2 grid in the top right.(1 log = 4 planks) Then click the four planks you made into the 2x2 grid, one in each segment, on the right a crafting table will appear; once you have it, place it down and right mouse click to use it.
Template:Grid/Inventory Table
Template:Grid/Inventory Table
2:10-3:00
Make a wooden pickaxe (1 log = 4 planks = 8 sticks) Template:Grid/Crafting Table Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Achievement Hunters: You will get "Benchmarking" when you craft the crafting table, and "Time to Mine" when crafting the pickaxe.
Minute Three
3:00-4:00
Dig down or into hills using your fist on the dirt, and then use the pickaxe to gather at least 19 blocks of cobblestone. This hole can be your shelter if you want, so pick a suitable place. Remember if digging down never mine straight down.You can also look for a cave opening. These are quite easy to find, occurring in every biome. They usually have lots of ore, too, so keep an eye out. Notice coal and iron ore on hillsides if you see them. Note: If you go in a cave beware of zombies, creepers, spiders and skeletons.
Make a stone axe, a stone pickaxe, and a stone sword. Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Template:Grid/Crafting Table
It never hurts to get more wood, so try to have at least 10 logs for the night. It's okay if you don't get enough. You can collect more in the morning.
Chop up your Crafting Table and collect it and remember your spawn point. (If you have the Rei's Minimap mod, put a spawnpoint where you spawn by pressing "C" then typing "Spawn")
Achievement Hunters: You will get "Getting an Upgrade" and "Time to Strike" when crafting your stone pickaxe and sword, respectively. If you're on a console, craft a full set to get "MOAR Tools" (15G on Xbox, Bronze Trophy on PlayStation)
Minute Four
4:00-5:00
Now that you have your sword, start killing animals with it, and then collecting all their drops. Collect at least three pieces of meat, exactly six is best. Go after sheep if they're available because they drop wool, which is needed for your bed, and mutton for food. If you see a horse then do not kill it! Leave it alone or tame it instead by right-clicking it to mount it, and repeating the process until it stops bucking you off. So don't waste your time if you are behind. Don't bother attacking wolves, as they don't have any item drops, are rather dangerous if you attack when starting out, and can be tamed into dogs using bones dropped by skeletons that will protect you. If you are lucky enough to run into cats, then don't kill them either, or even scare them away, as they can scare away creepers and can also be tamed with raw fish.
Try to find coal and a place for your first shelter. Hillsides are best for both. If you do not see coal, collect at least sixteen more logs (craft an axe if you skipped that earlier.) Your shelter site must be within 100 blocks of water.
Achievement Hunters: Kill some cows. You get "Cow Tipper" with the first piece of leather that you pick up.
Midday
Minute Five
5:00-6:00
Walk around, looking for an ideal place for your shelter. If you see sheep, kill 3 of them to gather 3 blocks of wool. If you want to have an easier time later on by breeding sheep, don't kill sheep unless there are 5 or more around. (It is still advised to kill sheep whenever you find them until you have three blocks of wool, any color will do.)
Minute Six
6:00-7:00
Clear the area for your new shelter. You can make an easy shelter by digging into a hill or digging steps downwards into the ground (called a "dugout" or "hideyhole".) Don't get fancy if there isn't any water (or land), animals, or trees in sight because you won't be using it for more than one night (An especially desperate shelter is a 3×1 hole in the ground with one block covering the top.) If you find a village you could stay in one of its houses.
Minute Seven & Eight
7:00-9:00
Build your basic shelter (worry about size and looks later, focus on functionality). For now, build it with dirt, wooden planks, or sandstone (if you spawned in a desert biome and collected sand during Minute One).
Template:Grid/Inventory Table
Craft some torches to light up your shelter. Template:Grid/Inventory Table
Deploy your Crafting Table and make a furnace. Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Earlier, you hopefully collected some meat by killing animals - "...at least three pieces of meat, exactly six is best." Now, it's time to cook it in a Furnace with some planks: Template:Grid/Furnace
Mine the coal you spotted earlier while waiting for the meat to cook. If there isn't any, craft another furnace so you can make charcoal. Make your first charcoal by cooking a log in a furnace. Template:Grid/Furnace
Use this charcoal to cook up to 8 more logs. You can keep using this method to get charcoal until you find coal ore. Charcoal can also be used to make torches (see the earlier torch recipe.) On advanced survival maps, such as Skyblock, you will never find coal (because you spawn on an island well above the altitude coal ore spawns), so this is a trick to remember if you ever get into such things. Template:Grid/Furnace
A furnace batch always takes ten seconds to complete. Coal and charcoal last 80 seconds, and so do 8 batches. Planks last 15 seconds, so two can do three batches. This is consistent for all furnace recipes, even ones late in the game. Template:Grid/Furnace
See Smelting for the details.
If you have additional wood, make a wooden door. Zombies have the ability to break doors (only on hard mode, which a beginner should never play on - this is just for you to keep in mind). Please keep this in mind when building your entrance/exit to your shelter, and to place the door go outside and place it to outer side of the block of your entrance to your shelter.
Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Achievement Hunters: Crafting your furnace gives you "Hot Topic"
Minute Nine
9:00-10:00
Get ready for the night and craft a bed if you gathered wool. Note that the color of the wool doesn't matter; you can use any color of wool you have (and any combination of wood you have.) This, however, does not affect the output's colors. Template:Grid/Crafting Table
And while you have this extra time, it would be a good idea to craft a chest to store unwanted and unnecessary items to carry around at all times such as seeds, eggs, leather, and extra food (meat).
Template:Grid/Crafting Table
Minute Ten
10:00
Go to bed. If you have not gathered enough wool for a bed or do not want to use one, first check to see if your base is secure (is lit, has all four walls, and has a roof. It is not recommended to add decorations to your house on the first day).
If you don't have enough wool then what you need to do is start to make a mine. From mines you can get lots of useful items such as iron, coal, redstone, gold, lapis, diamond, and emerald. Never dig straight down, as it is very dangerous. You could fall into a mob-filled cave or into lava. Mines are also a good way to find caves.
If you don't have enough coal to make many torches for the mine you can organize your items and house to make finding and moving easier.
Dusk
If you decide to start making a mine, there are many methods to dig for resources. While a safe method would be simply to dig a large room, lighting it up as you dig while looking for ores, a more profitable (and risky) decision would be to look for a cave and start spelunking. If you decide to find and explore caves, a sword, food, enough wood (20 to 30 logs) and a light source (presumably torches) are absolute necessities. If you come across any ore other than coal, stone, or dirt get a stone pickaxe before you mine it, as using an inferior pickaxe will not only take longer to mine it, it will break the ore without dropping the resource. You will need ladders, and crafting bench just in case you find a good cave and decide to stay underground for long. If you run short on food, you can survive on rotten flesh dropped by zombies, but it is not as nutritious and can poison you with hunger for 30 seconds. If you are living on rotten flesh, it is best to wait until the hunger bar is low and then eat multiple rotten flesh in quick succession, because the hunger penalty doesn't stack up per. Be prepared for hostile mobs, as it is a common but fatal mistake for starters to think that the moon spawns hostile mobs, and not simply darkness. If you come back with enough iron, you will be able to experience many more features of Minecraft, mainly redstone, pistons, diamond, and much more. You have started on your path to your success in Minecraft, whether you found iron or not.
Other options
One good idea is to chop extra wood and burn it for charcoal. With practice, you can start a new game and as long as you are near trees when you spawn, you should be able to make basic tools, a furnace and have enough wood for torches before midday (5:00).
Often people would rather use up wooden tools before switching to their newly made stone tools, but the stone tools really are better — if you don't want to "waste" the wooden tools, you can use them as fuel to smelt single items.
If possible, and if you can spot a position where you would like to build your house when you spawn, try to gather the resources from nearby, and only dig where you would otherwise dig to construct your house to save time later. Replant all saplings (which have a chance of falling when tree leaves are mined) as soon as they fall if this is the case so that you have less distance to walk later.
If you're more adventurous, find an ocean. As soon as you have a lot of wood blocks, build the crafting table and wooden axe as above, then build 3 or 4 boats and go sailing. Spend nights at sea while perusing the coastline for a nice place to make your base. Once you do, put ashore at dawn and proceed with the guidelines above.
Crafting
| Ingredients | Crafting recipe |
|---|---|
| Any Wood Planks |
Remember, dig right and don't let the zombies bite.
Video
Video Credit - PaulSoaresJr