Minecraft is, without a doubt, one of the most popular sandbox games ever. Its simplified graphics, easy to understand gameplay and seemingly endless possibilities make it perfect for anyone; whether you’re a dedicated gamer or a newbie just starting out with something basic. You can choose from survival mode – where you’ll fight to survive against creatures of the night, farm some food and find shelter – or creative mode, where you can do anything from building a castle to an actual working hard drive using red-stone (I swear, someone actually did that.)

But before you get down into all that technical stuff, here are a few things you might find useful to know when starting up a brand new Minecraft world in survival mode.

1. Get yourself a crafting table and a furnace.

Let’s get straight to the point: you’re not going to get anywhere without a crafting table and a furnace – both of which can be made very quickly and simply in your first day in your Minecraft world. Find some trees and some stone and you’ve got what you need. After this the possibilities are endless.

2. Make shelter and a bed.

Whether you’re in survival or creative mode, your best friend is your bed. Days go quickly in Minecraft, so creating a bed for yourself is the best thing you can do to get started then put it under some sort of shelter, whether that’s a cave or a structure you built yourself. Beds can be made with wool from sheep and wood planks from trees, both of which can be found very quickly. That way, until you’re fully prepared to go and battle monsters in the night, you can skip right forward until day time again – it’s a helpful tool that shouldn’t get overlooked while you’re preparing equipment for whatever quest you’ve set yourself.

3. Chests are life savers.

A clumsy and messy inventory is almost guaranteed when you first start mining. Within a few in-game days your personal inventory will more than likely be full of cobblestone, random chunks ore, bits of meat or random other bits and pieces you’ve picked up on your journey. Building some chests with wood is the perfect way to solve this issue. You can transfer everything you’ve collected and store it all neatly away at your base and keep going out and collecting more without the issue of needing to empty your inventory. These, plus a few signs to keep your storage organised by marking which chest contains what will make your gaming experience all the more easy.

4. Make all the equipment you can.

A sword, a pickaxe, a spade, an axe and even a farming hoe can get you going on your journey quickly. These can be made with all types of materials, but the first thing you’ll find is wood. Make a pickaxe out of wood (you need sticks and wooden planks for this) then with this you can mine stone. Once you’ve collected enough cobble stone, make the rest of the equipment and a new pickaxe with this. As you scurry along on your journey and collect more materials you can upgrade this equipment as you go and, if you carry on playing and mining long enough, you’ll have a diamond set in no time. Tools help speed the mining process and move your game along so that you can get into the real nitty gritty (eg. Creating an axe will help you gather your wood a lot quicker than you would by just punching a tree).

5. Cook up some food.

In Minecraft you have a health bar and a food bar. Keeping your food bar filled will keep your character energised so you can run and make your way around quicker. Also, if your food bar runs out you start starving to death, which is very inconvenient if you’ve strayed a little far from your spawn base with your bed. When you die, you lose your inventory so you have to make your way back to where you died to collect everything you lost. This is extremely annoying, especially if the reason is that you forgot to have lunch. Kill some animals (pigs, cows, chickens, etc.) and cook up the raw meat they give you in a furnace.

So there you have it. Hopefully this list has helped you and you’ll be able to get started without a hitch now in your brand new Minecraft world. With these tips you should be able to get going on an adventure in no time, be it to kill the Ender dragon or build a fortress.

Charlotte Mednick is an English Multimedia Journalism student, wannabe game journalist, Disney expert and lover of the interactive story game genre. She’s steadily working her way through university with a Diet Coke in one hand and a PS4 controller in the other, binge-watching Netflix and avoiding all deadlines for as long as humanly possible.