Minecraft: Diary of a Total Newbie, Part 2 – Plus Doctor Who DLC Update

This is the second part of our two-part Minecraft: Diary of a Total Newbie feature. If you haven’t yet, check out the first part of our writer’s initial foray into the vast, wild world of Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, then come back and see what happens when he leaves the confines of the tutorial, and sets off to make a world all his own. When you’re ready to dive in for yourself, be sure to grab one of the many awesome add-ons (including the just-released Doctor Who skin pack) available for the game. Now then, it’s time to hear from the newbie! 

03:01
: Barely five minutes into my brand-new world, I’ve discovered a rich vein of coal underneath the mountain upon which I plan to build my lavish estate. It goes deep – seriously deep. Suddenly, I remember the passage of time, just as night is beginning to fall. I hastily build a wall and door to keep the zombies out of my new mine. I break through into an underground cavern soon after, remembering to explore for exits. I wall those up, too. I’m encased in a stone womb, and it feels good.

03:28
: Having exhausted the vein of coal, I’m considering just building my lavish estate down here. We don’t needs the light, do we Precious?

03:40
: I forgot about food. As part of that whole virtual-world thing, your character needs to stay well-fed. Otherwise, hunger pangs start depleting your health quickly. Fortunately, there are all kinds of farm animals roaming in my new world (albeit of the un-barbecued variety). Unfortunately, I’ve walled them all out of my mountain hall. Time to go forage.

03:45
: As my mountain sits near a fairly large body of water, I figure I’ll build myself a boat and go sailing. My first boat crashes almost immediately into the shore and disintegrates into its component parts. I throw down a crafting table and build another – plus a few extras – and take to the water.

03:49
: It doesn’t take long for me to realize there’s a lot more variety to Minecraft‘s environments than I’d realized. Just to the north is a snowy area, dense with pine trees. Beyond is a small archipelago of tiny mountain islands, topped with huge spreading trees. The far shore of whatever body of water this is looks shockingly distant. I opt to check out the nearby islands.

04:12
: Yeah, those trees I mentioned? Mushrooms. Ginormous mushrooms. Apparently, I can use them to make stew. I never really liked the taste of mushrooms, so instead, I check out some promising caves on the largest of the islands. One goes deep enough that I finally find my first vein of iron ore. Iron pickaxes for everybody! And just like that, I’m hooked on the mining part of Minecraft. I dig down to the bedrock of the world, building wooden stairways to allow me to travel quickly back to the surface. I encounter more coal and iron, some diamonds (yes!), a single lonely emerald, and a bunch of Redstone. This last one is most interesting: Redstone is a source of power in the game, and can be used to make mechanical devices like pistons, powered mine carts, and even musical instruments. I decide to take my haul back to my mountaintop home, and get back to building.

05:07
: With my pack filled with a wide variety of new supplies, I explore a bunch of new recipes at the crafting table. Turns out, many basic creations can be further refined into more aesthetically pleasing blocks. For example, rock is known as cobblestone when it’s initially mined. But refine it in a furnace, and it becomes stone. You can then take the stone to the crafting table and make stone bricks or stone slabs, then use those to make things like stone brick stairs or chiseled stone bricks. It’s glass that catches my eye: Heat sand, and it becomes glass blocks; combine glass blocks at the crafting table, and you get thin panes of glass. This gives me ideas. I start to build.

06:16
: My estate is now three stories of intricately crafted wood, stone, and glass. It sits atop a vast plateau flattened and extended to my exacting specifications, with picturesque oaks and birch trees that I’ve planted and trimmed for maximum visual appeal. An orderly garden welcomes visitors, neatly divided with cobblestone fences. Beneath is floor upon floor of dungeons – er, I mean, basements. Nearby is an island floating in the air, simply because it pleases me. I exert my will upon the world, and none can stop me. I am a god-king, ruling all of creation from my crystal palace.

06:17
: Oh crap, a Creeper. Turns out, glass doesn’t stand up very well to explosions. Looks like I’ll have to rebuild. But that’s OK. I’ve got some ideas…

Ready for some of your own adventures not unlike this one? Pick up your own copy of
Minecraft: Xbox One Edition already, and see what all the fuss is about! And if you’re a Doctor Who fan, you can also check out the just-released Doctor Who skin pack on Xbox One for just $2.99/ €2.85/£1.99 and bring some of the most-loved and most feared characters (including the First, Fourth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, Rose Tyler, Zygons, The Master, Weeping Angels, the Daleks and their evil creator Davros) in the series’ 50-year history into your creations.