Potatoes and Villagers

Today I found my first potatoes ever on Minecraft. They were in a village. At first I thought it was the village I had found before. But then I saw villagers, and the last village had no villagers, because they'd all turned to zombies and wandered away.

So I found the farm, and instead of wheat and carrots, it had potatoes and carrots.

I still haven't found anymore dogs. Where do they all go to?  The game is so much more fun with dogs. And they do the hunting for you, so you don't die so much.

Down the Drain

I was so proud of myself for getting all the way to level 35.  Then I was trying to kill a creeper in a hole. I fell in, and killed the torch and next thing I know about five things attacked me and I died. Poop.

Chickens Need Wheat Seeds and Other Tips

Today when I was stumbling around in a mine, I found gold for the first time. Woo hoo. I made myself a helmet of gold.

In other interesting news, I was swimming to an island at night with my dogs. I don't know quite what happened, but they all started to die. I don't know if they got tangled in sand, ice, vines or what. I tried to save them. Three died. I thought I had 7 but I never saw any dogs after that. I was bummed. That was 3 days ago. I haven't found any dogs since.

I did find cheetahs, but they want nothing to do with me, even though I'm carrying a fish.

I found out now to catch pigs you need a carrot. If you can find a village, you can steal their carrots. But the first carrot I got was from killing a zombie. But percentage wise, very few zombies carry carrots.

To catch chickens you need wheat seeds now. I had to find that out in the punchwood.com chatroom. Thanks for the tip guys.

I made a cool spiral staircase around a 4 trunk tree. It's hard to navigate but pretty cool to look at from a distance.

I also was deep in a mine when I saw a cage with fire coming out of it. But every time I tried to get a closer look, skeletons chased me. I killed about 10 skellies and gave up trying after that. So I still don't know what it was.

I'm enjoying lighting my houses with the Chinese lantern things you get on jungle wood with cocoa seeds. That's really fun. I harvest them when it pleases me and put more seeds on the jungle wood to get more.

I'm having fun with colored wool.  I accidentally smacked a sheep with cocoa seeds instead of the shears, and bingo, brown sheep. Ha. A pleasant surprise.

I've noticed that storage boxes don't work all the time. I'll add stuff, walk away, and find the stuff back in my inventory. Annoying.

I tried making a cake with an egg, one wheat, one sugar and a pail of milk. It didn't work. What am I doing wrong?

I built a four cobblestone column in a big pond. Then I dumped a bucket of water over it to make a fountain. It worked, but it was not particularly attractive. Maybe there is a better way. Must experiment.

My boyfriend hates Minecraft. Bah.

Black Screen Eats Minecraft

Until I figure out how to fix the black screen of death on my own computer, I'm can't play Minecraft. I miss it so much! I'd probably be playing right now even though its 3:30 AM. It was something I did when insomnia kept me awake. I've gone back to playing Castleville on Facebook, but I'd much rather be playing Minecraft.

Mushroom Stew

I finally got to make and eat a bowl of mushroom stew. It takes one red mushroom, one brown mushroom and a bowl. It's the first time I've had all 3 at the same time. Finally!

Grow Pumpkins on Minecraft

My big discovery today was that if you find a pumpkin and put it in the crafting table, it turns into pumpkin seeds. Yay. Then you can plant them the same way you plant wheat. So now you don't have to settle for randomly finding a pumpkin patch. You can grow as many as you want to. Most of what I've learned on Minecraft was through tutorials, so it's a nice surprise when I figure out something all by myself. Now if I could just figure out how to pick up lava in my bucket without dying. Anyone know?

Taming a Dog

I've known about cats a lot longer than I've known about dogs.  But I could never manage to catch a cat. I'd get hearts for feeding them and everything but they would never follow me.  So imagine my surprise yesterday when I captured a wolf and made it into a dog by smacking it with a bone. (Use left click because right click will kill it).  I had it for a while then lost it when it was attacked by a mob of spiders. But straight away I got another one, and so far I still have it.  I even died once, and assumed it would also vanish, but it was still there when I respawned.  In my current scenario, which I called Botanica, I haven't even seen a cat yet.

Kablooey

I think today takes the record for the number of times I've been blown up.  One house was blown up twice. And last night the explosion took out 3 enclosures and I had animals running everywhere. Sheesh.  I think that fuse sound is giving me a nervous tic.

Black Sheep in the Family

This morning I scored a chicken and a black sheep.  I just love the black sheep. I crossed it with a white sheep and the baby was black too.  I wonder if they'll all be black. (Update: The second time I did it I got a white sheep).

After the great chicken explosion, I finally got another chicken too, so now I can have baby chicks.
I still blow up fairly regularly.  Now if I see them in the distance I stay well away from those creepers.  Maybe if I get the hang of archery I can shoot them.  Now that I finally have chickens, I can get some feathers for arrows.

I crossed a black and a white sheep and got a black sheep.

So then I did it again and got a white sheep.

Rainy Day

Fishing always makes me nervous, because creepers and other nasties can creep up behind me.  So now I fish at the Alley Cat Lodge, right from the front door.  It's a pleasant way to sit out a rainstorm. It's a bit off the ground, so nothing can easily get to the front door and even if they did, I'm sitting in the doorway and I can whack them with my fish.

It's Curtains For the Chicken

A creeper just blew up my carefully and newly finished chicken corral.  Kablooey. I turned around to see what happened to the 2 chickens.  One was deep fried. I didn't see the other one but I could hear it.  So I went in my house and shut the door to try to live through the night, and when I turned around, there was the other chicken, in the house, sitting on the stove.

Tutorial Pet Peeve

Sometimes I get stuck on Minecraft and go to watch some tutorials, hopefully explaining how to do what I'm trying to do.  Today I went to find one on planting an apple tree.  Just one apple.  Just one tree.

I find a bazillion tutorials on apple tree farming.  They all compose of a giant apple farm with pistons and artificial lighting and canals and sliding auto harvesting modifications. For the love of god, can't you just show someone how to plant one apple in the ground?  I'm not Johnny frickin' appleseed. I'm not understanding why everything must be 'automatic' with 'pistons'. I'm not sure why you have to harvest 10 million apples or cocoa beans. I don't know why you need fruit that picks itself or why you need to chop down 300 trees at once.

In a strange parallel with real life, I just want a simple farmstead, with an orchard. I want it to be beautiful, not like the industrial age in Chicago. I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants that. Nor do I need to construct a flame thrower or set the whole forest on fire.

The other tutorial pet peeve is someone that starts out and never gets to the point, or gets distracted mid-course. The title will say apple tree farm, and 15 minutes into it they've talked about building a self-watering greenhouse.  Then he says, "And now it's the end of the tutorial"...but he never planted any apple trees.  Face palm.

Sheered to Death

I got to sheer my first sheep today. Unfortunately I was hitting it with the left mouse button and not the right, and I not only sheered it, I killed it.  My only sheep. I feel baaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhddddd.

At least the pigs are doing great.  And I captured 2 chickens today so now I have baby chicks.

Raw Beef Anyone?

Today I happened upon my two favorite houses.  I lost them last time I died. I found out that dragging your bed around with you won't keep you from getting killed. In fact I was standing right next to it in a sandy area when I was killed by an alderman (whatever that is). I never saw it.  And the pop-up said, "Your home bed is either missing or obstructed."  Judging by the wording I'm guessing you only respawn in your bed if it's in your 'home'.  I'm not sure how the game determines where your home is.  Is it the first spot you spawned?  Is it whatever house you built that happens to have the bed in it at the time?

Today's discovery was that when you get killed, the inventory in your hope chest stays intact.  And if you have different hope chests here there and everywhere, they don't have the same universal contents.  Somehow I ended up with two chests in one house and each of them had different things.  One has raw beef in it and I haven't seen a cow in 2 days so I know I've died since that went in there.  Cool. That means I'm not starting from scratch each time.

I also learned how to make bread and cookies and a cocoa tree.  Happy happy joy joy.

Oh and I almost died from eating rotten zombie meat.  Just saying!  The food bar turns a sickly green and I lost a few hearts.

Cats

When I was on a hill today I spotted what looked like a cat.  Before I could catch it and investigate, it bounded away into the jungle. Are there cats?

Update: I found another cat. It looked like a leopard so I killed it before it killed me.  It let out a pitiful wail when it died.  I thought 'uh oh, I thing it was a friendly kitty.'

So I looked it up on Youtube and sure enough, if you offer the kitty a fish or two it turns from wild to tame and follows you home. My friend on Facebook says if you die you lose your cats.  Sad. Now that I have some fish, I haven't seen any cats, so I'll keep you posted.

The House That Jack Built

Last night I found a meadow full of Jack-o-lanterns. So I scooped some up and added them to my new house.  I can't find my old houses.  So for now, I have the pumpkin house.  I wouldn't say I've perfected the art of making a roof, but at least I made one.

I also found cocoa seeds.  I tried planting them the usual way with a hoe and it didn't work.
I planted some seedlings.  Two days later they were huge and I could barely find my house. Who knew they'd grow so fast?

Gray Sheep

It took me half the day to find sheep again. I got 5 wools, and I needed six and couldn't find another sheep for the longest time. But then I had one bed made, so at least I missed most of the nights.  Now that it's all days, I'm getting a lot more building done. And I found a gray sheep, so that's my new discovery for the day. I'm not sure what you do with gray wool though.  Also, I don't know what to do with eggs. You can't eat them or cook them. Maybe they are part of a future recipe.

One thing about missed nights is you don't get to kill spiders.  The spiders have the string that is needed to make bows and also for fishing poles.  Now that I have a pretty secure house finally, I may stay up the next night to slay some spiders.

I learned how to make glass from sand today. If you break it though, you lose it, so don't break it.

As far as weather goes, so far I've seen rain, snow and thunder storms.

Today I figured out how to build a roof starting with stairs on the top of my walls.  It's going to take practice but at least half the house is covered.

And I learned how to do screen captures so if I get readers they'll know what the heck I'm talking about.

Sheep give wool.

Go To Bed Sleepy Head

Update:
Well, my bed experiment failed.  I had placed a random bed somewhere.  Then I made a new one that I took with me.  I built 2 awesome cottages, and one morning, I walked out the door with my bed in my inventory and got killed by a zombie.  And no bed was found to respawn in. Gone, Along with all my inventory. I spawned next to a house I started on day one... with no torches or anything. So I guess if you are going to take your bed in tow, set it down when you get to your work spot and try not to lose it.

ORIGINAL POST:
After tooling around in the dark for far too long, I figured my number one goal should be to make a bed.  Now I'm thinking to tell new people to make the bed almost the #1 priority. And not just one bed, but two.

Since iron ore was so hard to find, and I knew you needed shears to sheer the sheep and get the wool, I thought making a bed was a lost cause. The only time I had the iron ore was when I was deep in the mine, and then I had no sheep.

Then I found out by chance you don't have to sheer the sheep, you just have to kill it and it gives up a block of wool usually.  So I killed 3 sheep, got the wool, and used 3 planks and 3 wool to make a bed.  Yay.  No more long nights. Or so I thought.  I put my lovely bed in my shack, and wandered away in chase of cows and never saw it again.

Once you die,  you now reappear next to your bed.  But I had an inventory full of stuff so I didn't want to just die and lose it.  I also assumed you could only have one bed. Not so.

Anyway, I lost my bed and it was another six or seven long nights before I died again and reappeared.  And then I so loved my little red bed.  And I grabbed it and decided to take it with me in my menu bar so I could throw it down as needed.  So now if it suddenly gets dark, I throw it down.

So I made a spare bed. I had one in my inventory and one in my menu bar. And I died.  Don't ask me how, but I got embedded in a wall and suffocated. Brutal.  So I lost both beds.

So after I went to my real bed, and thought on it, I came up with a new master plan.  Make two beds.  Immediately put one in the world, in case of sudden death. Keep the other in the menu bar, just in case night falls like an anchor in the ocean.  Throw it down quick and hop in and it will be daytime again.

Since I so rarely find coal, I don't really want to wait for nights to pass anymore.

So in short, 3 wood planks and 3 wool makes one bed. Make it a priority to make 2 beds. But put the first one somewhere you like right away, just in case you die looking for sheep.

Bed from Minecraft. They only come in red so far.

How to make a bed diagram.

Chicken

Pig's give pork.

Sheep can be hard to find, so grab then when you see them.

Big Hole Some Coal

Yesterday I had a number of firsts.  I got buried in a deep hole in darkness and was randomly digging myself even deeper.  Then I found out I had some coal.  Coal finally!  Unfortunately I never could get out of the hole and eventually starved to death.  But, I also found a vein of iron ore and made my first sheers.  And surely I'll find that hole again and be able to reclaim torches, ladders and everything else I off-loaded while stuck in there.

Beginning Minecraft

So far my biggest difficulty in surviving Minecraft is finding coal. The first demo game ever, when I knew nothing, I found coal. Now I've played about 12 other worlds, and haven't found coal once.  It's so frustrating because without coal, you can't make a torch and spend every night alone in the dark. I also need to find iron to turn into iron ore.

Most of the basic tools I learned how to make by accident or with the faqs or with Youtube tutorials. I lose everything each time I die though. It's brutal.

So here are some tips: 
Learn to make a pick axe. Otherwise if you break cobblestone, it just crumbles and you won't get any blocks of cobblestone to use for better tools.

Make a sword. Then you can kill spiders and get string to make a fishing rod or a bow.
 You can kill spiders with things like a hoe or a stick, but most likely they will kill you first.

Pick up things you no longer need, like ladders.  That way you can reuse them in your next hide out.

If you think you are about to get killed, dump whatever you can out of your inventory.  That way when you respawn you might find it again and pick it up. If you die, your inventory gets deleted.

Good luck. Let me know how it goes in the comments.

My Adventures on Minecraft

 About two weeks ago I caught my friend playing Minecraft.  The next day I tried the free demo version.  Then I told her how much I was enjoying it, and wanted to get the full version, but didn't want to spend $26 right now.  Next thing I know she's giving me a code and now I'm knee deep in spiders.  Thanks Carol!  You rock.

My name on Minecraft is Little Mouse Ears. That's what happens when you go to the pet store and look at the sweet little mice before you sign up for an account. Plus I live by Disneyland, so I can't get too far away from Mickey, right?

FAQS really help: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/606524-minecraft/faqs/63651