Hacks for Minecrafters: The Unofficial Guide to Tips and Tricks That Other Guides Won't Teach You

INTRODUCTION

You’re a miner! You’ve mined for diamonds, killed a couple or a million zombies, and know not to dig straight up or straight down! Now what? Plenty. Minecraft is a constantly evolving sandbox game. This means the developers of the game add new things each year and there are many ways to play. For version 1.12, also known as the World of Color Update, Minecraft added colorful concrete and concrete powder blocks, patterned glazed terracotta blocks, a variety of parrots, the Illusioner illager, colored beds, and more! You can expect this game to grow and change as you learn, so there are always new things to explore and experiment with.

And each year, thousands of players find new tricks to get things done better, faster, or with more fun. This book will show you lots of ways to help your game, whether you like to fight zombies or build castles, including:

•how to save a village from a siege of zombies

•what to do first to defeat the Ender Dragon

•how to find one of your world’s strongholds

•how to make automatic sliding doors using pistons and redstone

•how to move between Creative and Survival modes using cheats

NOTE: The tips in this book are based on Minecraft 1.12, Java (PC) edition, so if you are playing a different version or are playing on a console, you may find that some features work a little differently.

CHAPTER 1

PLAYING YOUR WAY

Minecraft is a sandbox game, which means there aren’t any rules for how you play. In a sandbox, you can build a sandcastle, dig a road, or throw a bunch of sand around. In Minecraft, you can build a massive railway system, make friends with wolves and ocelots, explore the oceans, or kill an army of zombies. Or do it all. There’s no goal that you must achieve, but if you like goals, Minecraft has a few you can set your sights on. It’s up to you to decide how to play, and you can mix it up any way you want to.

Minecraft Game Modes

Minecraft has different game modes you choose at the start. They are geared to the different types of gameplay.

•Survival and Hardcore: In Survival mode you have to find food and shelter, and you can be killed. If you are killed, you respawn at your starting point without your inventory. (Your inventory items stay at your death scene for five minutes before they despawn—so you do have a chance to get them back.) There are four difficulty levels: Peaceful (no mobs), Easy (mobs do less damage), Normal (mobs do normal damage), and Hard (mobs do more damage and you can die from hunger). In Hardcore mode, you play at Hard difficulty, and you can’t have cheats. If you are killed, you can choose between respawning in Spectator mode or having your world completely deleted.

In Hard difficulty, mobs are more likely to spawn with weapons, armor, and enchantments, and they will cause you more damage.

•Adventure: Adventure mode is like Survival, except you can’t interact with many blocks. It is designed for playing on adventure maps.

•Creative: Creative mode is perfect for building. You can fly around, and you have access to all the blocks. Your inventory changes to an item selection screen with a search page.

•Spectator: In Spectator mode, you can’t touch or do anything, but you can fly all around the world and straight through blocks!

•Changing Mode: To change game mode while you are playing, create your world with cheats on. Then, to change mode, open the chat window by pressing T and type the following:

For Survival mode: /gamemode 0 (or /gamemode s or /gamemode survival)

For Creative mode: /gamemode 1 (or /gamemode c or/gamemode creative)

For Adventure mode: /gamemode 2, (or /gamemode a or /gamemode adventure)

For Spectator mode: /gamemode 3 (or /gamemode sp or /gamemode spectator)

In Creative mode you can fly around, which is a huge help if you’re building a tower in sky!

Want Some Goals?

If you are goal-oriented, you can play that way, too. Minecraft has a series of about forty advancements you can use as quests. Accomplish one and make your way to the next. These can also guide you through the Minecraft survival skills. They start off very simple, and you have probably already accomplished many. You can open the Advancements screen by pressing Escape and then Advancements, or by pressing L. (The Advancements screen will be blank until you have accomplished at least one - the easiest may be creating your first crafting table.) Advancements are organized into tabs, and you can complete them in any order you wish. Tabs will open up through very basic in-game actions, like killing a mob or eating food.

If you like playing with goals, use your achievement screen for new tasks.

You can track everything you’ve accomplished in your statistics screen, from how much iron you’ve mined to how many zombies you’ve killed.

There’s also a way to win at Minecraft in a special final battle against the Ender Dragon in a realm called the End. It’s difficult to get there, because to prepare you must learn how to use potions, kill Endermen, and survive the Nether to gather essential items. You can return to battle the Ender Dragon multiple times. Each time you defeat the dragon (up to twenty times), a new End gateway is created to take you to an Outer End Island with more places to explore.

Making the Most out of Minecraft

Don’t Stress Out

You’re going to die. Unless you are in Creative mode, something will get you at some point. Even in Peaceful mode, it might be a fall into a lava pool. But that is part of the game. Prepare for this as best you can by storing your goods in chests you can find later and, of course, remembering where your chests and home are.

Switch It Up

If you need a break from the mobs for a bit, switch to Peaceful mode. To change the difficulty level in Survival, press Escape on your keyboard and change the options under Difficulty.

If you enabled cheats when you created your world, you can type commands in the chat window. Press t to open the window, and then type a slash and your command. /time set day changes the game to daytime.

Use Cheats Wisely

Using cheats, or commands, can make survival game play feel less rewarding. But if you are playing in Creative mode and need to work free of mob attacks, you may want to also use commands. To use commands you must create your world with Cheats on. Then you can open up the chat window by pressing T. (The chat window only works for chatting if you are in multiplayer.) You type your command into the chat window, preceded by a slash. (You can also open up the chat window by typing the initial slash of the command.) So to change to Creative mode, type /gamemode c. To switch back to Survival mode, type /gamemode s. You can also change your difficulty level by typing /difficulty 0 (for Peaceful) through /difficulty 3 (Hard). Another popular cheat is to grant oneself experience, through /xp X (where X is the number of experience points). You can also teleport anywhere, if you know your coordinates, with /tp X Y Z. For a list of available commands, type /help.

Worlds and Seeds

If you just like to explore worlds, or if you’re having a hard time finding structures like jungle temples, you can play in worlds other players have found. Each world is started with a seed. When Minecraft creates a world, it generates a random number called a seed to spawn the world. You can see your world’s seed by typing /seed in the chat window.

You can visit a world someone else found by entering the seed number for that world in your world’s options screen.

You can also enter your own random number or sequence of characters in the More World Options screen, under Seed for the World Generator. Users share the seeds they have used online, at websites like minecraft-seeds.net. Find a world whose description you like at one of these sites, make sure the world was created using the same game version you are using, and type the seed for that world into your World Options screen. You can enter letters for a seed number, too. See what world is generated when you type in your own name! You can also change the basic type of world by clicking the World Type button:

•Superflat: A flat world with one grass layer above two dirt and one bedrock layer. You can customize the layers of a superflat world by clicking Customize or use some premade