Minecraft First Day/Night Survival Guide

This guide was intended for the 1.8.1 BETA release version of Minecraft, but supports all older, and possibly even newer versions of the game, including Minecraft 1.0.0 (Full Release)
This guide will tell you (one way) how to survive your first day/night in Minecraft, what items to create (and how) and how/where to build a shelter for your first night.

 TheMinecrafterz All Rights Reserved

"This guide requires the minimal knowledge over video games, including the usual controls: WASD for moving, SPACE for jumping, etc... If you wish to learn more about Minecraft's controls, please go read this page on Minecraft Wiki."

--> Remember that you can (and should) play the game in the way YOU want to and feel comfortable with. <--

Let's begin with the actual guide, shall we?

After your world fully loads, take a quick look around yourself and try to get an overview of your surroundings. All information is useful, but focus on mountains above all, as that is where we are going to make our first shelter in order to survive the first night.

The second thing to do, is get wood.. Lots of it. All you need to do is walk close to one and hold the "Let Click (Mouse 1)" down. You do not need any special tools for this - your hands will do just fine.

Keep repeating that process until you have gathered about 15-30 blocks (the more, the merrier*). 

You should probably make an axe (wood) as soon as you can (see next phases).

Tip: Remember to walk to the fallen blocks in order to "gather" them

*In my opinion, wood is the single most important base resource in Minecraft, because it is required in order to craft most of the "craftable" items, and you can even make charcoal (same as coal except has a different name) from it by burning wood with planks (created from wood) as fuel -> a furnace is required. 

That is why you can never have too much of it.

You can open your "Inventory" by clicking the button "E" on your keyboard. This will bring an interface as in the screenshot above. All you need to know about for now are the "crafting square" (used to craft "simple stuff" such as planks, torches, crafting tables, etc...) and the inventory itself, which is used for storing items. 

You should move items between your "actionbars" and inventory, depending on your need to use an item and the frequency of that need (= you should put the items that you use a alot into the actionbars, and the items that you use less into the inventory).

Now that you know the basics of an inventory, you should make at least 4 planks by simply putting one (or several) wood into any of the crafting squares.

...then, with the 4 planks, you should put them all in different squares in order to make a crafting table. This is an extremely important thing, because most items and tools require it's usage in order to be crafted.

To use the crafting table, simply click it and put it into one of the actionbars. Then just choose the correct actionbar (by clicking "2" if you put it in the second actionbar for example) and "Right Click (Mouse 2)"

Next up are sticks. You didn't actually need a crafting table to craft these, but you will need both sticks and a crafting table to create the next thing...

Optional: You can make a wooden axe out of planks and sticks to gather wood even faster.

Optional: You can create a wooden sword out of planks and sticks in order to kill mobs easier (faster).

This is especially useful if you decide to kill (or if you manage to even find) any animals during your first day.

One of the most important tools in Minecraft is the pickaxe, as it is needed to gather many different resources such as cobblestone and coal. 

A wooden one is easy to craft, but breaks quite fast as well. It will do just fine for now though, so create one by putting planks and sticks into the same squares as in the screenshot above.

Optional: You might encounter some of these creatures shown in the screenshots above during your first day, but it is not required to kill them. You may do so, however, because they all "drop" (when they die) resources that are essential for your survival.

Pigs: Pigs drop porkchops, which can be cooked into cooked porkchops. Very useful, since nowadays you need to regularly fill your "hunger bar" by eating.

Sheep: Sheep drop wool, which is used for many things, among crafting beds. Very useful, since beds reset your spawning point to where you last slept, and because you can sleep in them during night time in order to make it become morning.

Cows: Cows drop both leather (used in leather armor) and raw beef. The leather armor isn't that good, however it is easily obtainable since the beginning of the game, so many prefer to use it as additional survivability in the beginning. Raw beef can be cooked into stakes, which is great of course.

Chickens: Chicken drop both feathers and raw chicken. They also lay eggs on average about every 7 minutes (it took 40 minutes for 9 chickens to lay 50 eggs = 7.2 minutes/egg) <-- Unconfirmed. Chickens also have a 1/8 possibility to spawn from a thrown egg.

Tip: Interestingly enough, all, cows, pigs and chickens drop cooked food (porkchops/chicken/stake) upon death by fire.

The next thing to do is to get to one of those mountains you located earlier, or if you didn't, you should now. More specifically, try to find gray blocks with black cracks in them. These blocks will drop coal if picked with a pickaxe. Now mine all the coal that you can find in that small area.

OR

...if you can't find any coal, just skip the next phase.

Now equip your wooden pickaxe and start mining all the coal you can find.

Now just keep on mining rock in order to make your shelter a little bit bigger.

(if you didn't do the previous step, just make a hole in a mountain and THEN do this step)

When you have gathered at least 3 cobblestone, it would be wise to make a stone pickaxe that is more durable and faster than the wooden one.

You will need to put 2 sticks and 3 cobblestones in your crafting table as shown in the screenshot above.

When the sun start's setting down, you should get inside your new "hole" (if you already aren't) and follow the following tips...

A furnace is crucial for anyone wanting to survive. It allows you to cook stuff (by placing the "raw ingredient" on top, and the "fuel" (planks/coal/charcoal) below).

Just put 8 cobblestones into your crafting table as shown in the screenshot above.

Optional: If you already have coal, you can skip this phase. If not, you should put both wood and planks into your brand new furnace as in the screenshot above in order to create charcoal, which is exactly similar to coal excluding their names.

Torches might be your most important item when it comes to building a shelter, as creepers, zombies archers and other "creatures of the dark" cannot spawn into lightened areas, so you should make sure to light your whole shelter.

Make as many torches as possible by putting sticks and coal (or charcoal) into your crafting table or the inventory crafting square, as shown in the screenshot above.

 Next up is an EXTREMELY important task; covering all holes where hostile un-wanter creatures could enter your shelter from. You can use any material, but I prefer to use dirt, as it is easily removed.

Optional: You may also make a wooden door with 6 planks put into your crafting table as shown in the screenshot above.

A wooden door is 2 blocks high and "1" block thick.

Tip: In order for it to look like in the screenshot below, make sure to place it on the ground from outside your base.

Now that you have a relatively safe, lightened shelter, you can use the rest of the night mining for example.  

OR

...if you by some miracle managed to find and kill 3 sheep during your first day, you can now build a bed with 3 wool and 3 planks as in the screenshot below.

Optional: You will need to put 3 planks and 3 wools into your crafting table as show in the screenshot above. 

Sleeping in a bed will reset your spawn point to that bed, and the night will pass faster (in a matter of seconds). Sleeping in a bed is only possible during night time.

Now unfortunately... This was it for today. Hopefully after reading this rather short guide, you will know how to survive your first day and night in Minecraft.

Check out TheMinecrafterz for more guides, tutorials 
and other content concerning Minecraft.