My journey in the world of Minecraft!

Click the link to see the full posts in order

+ Step 1: Basic Shelter
+ Step 2: Tree Farm
+ Step 3: Home Improvement
+ Step 4: Mini-farm
+ Step 5: New Roof
+ Step 6: The Barn
+ Step 7: Animal Farm and Nether Portal
I explored a lot of the land and found quite a few pumpkins! I will find places to use those coming a bit later. I also spend time time in my cave system digging (through the iron door in my previous photos).

I also put on a new wood roof on my base. It still needs some work, but good enough for now.



Here is the back. You can see both the crop farm and tree farm.



In future updates I am going to be making my farms bigger. While in my cave system, I poured water on a lava pool and it make some obsidian. I will be making a portal to the nether soon!

I started out building a portal to the Nether. Normally I put my portals underground in a "portal room" (a room dedicated and designed specifically for the portal), but this time I have committed myself to building as much as possible on the surface. I wanted it to be in the open so you could see it outside from around my base.

As I began putting my portal together my animal farm just kind of end up surrounding it. It is just a matter of time before some poor cow ends up in the Nether.

Here is a front view of my current base. You can see the portal and animal farm in the back. I have already been mining glow stones in the Nether. I will show more about what I have been doing in the Nether next update.



In case you are wondering what an Animal Farm is: I just mean a safe, lit, green space where animals can spawn. It is important to be well lit so they can spawn day or night.

Here is a view at night of both levels. For some reason most of the animals end up at the bottom level with the water even though there is less grass. I suspect they fall down the small water fall.



Here is a side view for a better look at the two levels. That wasn't planned, but a by-product of the natural terrain and building the portal suspended in the air. I think it turned out quite nice. A little unconventional, but efficient. Keeping everything close together makes it easy to navigate around the base.



This whole time I am making small tweaks to other areas of my base. Soon I plan to make a video tour or make my world available for download if people are interested.
Step 6: The Barn

I wasn't quite happy with my farm. For one it was way too little. It also needed a barn that will eventually lead into an animal farm. This update I spent a lot of time exploring the land looking for sheep to sheer and red flowers.



Here is the view from the back. The backyard is pretty plain right now. I did add a little stream for my sugar cane that looks nice extended down the hill. I plan on putting in a portal to the nether back there soon. I really want some glow stones!




Step 4: Mini-farm

The next step to making myself just a little bit more self-sufficient, I need to grow my own wheat for bread and sugar cane which I can use to make maps from paper or books. Maybe some nice bookshelves down the road. I also built a well to fill my buckets. This way I don't have to run down to the beach if I need water.



OMG.. I found that pumpkin and got excited. There was only one. Normally there are several together. :( I must have explored for over an hour looking for another pumpkin patch but had no luck. I only have the one. booo...



This is the first picture from behind my base. I know.. my base is plane right now. That’s okay. I can change it later.

Step 3: Home Improvement

From fighting monsters, hunting animals, and gathering resources my inventory is already getting full. I also have more coal now and it is not uncommon to have up to 3 furnaces cooking at once. My one inventory and one furnace base it getting a little cramped. I am going to focus on expanding my base to include addition furnaces and organize different inventories for differing kinds of materials. Normally I dig down when I need more room, but this time around I decided I am going to build up and stay on the surface.

Its early in the game, I am trying to stay on the surface as much as possible, and I already have a nice safe tree farm therefore most of my building material is wood. I hope to add different materials soon. As you can see in the images it is not a very nice looking base. :(

Here is an the outside of my new base. I am not very pleased with it, but as time goes on I can alter it as I get better ideas and different kinds of materials.



This is the inside of the basement. It is mostly stone walls and wood everywhere else. If you take the stairs to the right it leads to my tree farm. If you take the stairs to the left it takes you to a side door on the hill. The iron door in the middle leads to a huge natural care system I got most of my iron, coal, and red dust from.





The upstairs is not furnished yet. It looks a little plain. I will be focusing on the upstairs more because I will be adding a farm outside that door real soon.



This is the view from from the upstairs balcony.


Step 2: Tree Farm

Wood is the most important early resource in Minecraft because you can make almost anything with it including charcoal for torches! I normally start my base off by making a safe place where I can go and farm wood. Then I replant the saplings and they grow back. Normally I do all this underground, but I am going to try to stay on the surface as much as possible this time around. It is not as safe, but it should be fun.

The first morning I wake up and look outside I see tons of zombies burning in the sunlight! Yites, glad I got my shelter made! Time to get busy. First thing I do is find some pigs for pork to replenish health and cows to make leather armor. Then I find a birch tree to cut down to collect saplings to make my tree farm.



Once I have a few saplings I start leveling off a palce near my base to make the tree farm. While waiting on my trees to grow I explore a few natural caves nearby and found a good amount of coal and some iron.

Finally I put a fence around my tree farm and make the only entrance though my base. I also put touches by each tree to keep bad things from spawning in there. Spiders can still get in, but I am not too worried about them. Later on when my base gets bigger I won’t have to worry about spiders that much anyway.

Step 1: Basic Shelter

I spawned on a nice looking beach completely undeveloped. I have limited daylight before monsters come out at night so I got busy right away punching trees and gathering wood. When I had plenty of wood to make tools, charcoal, and a door (and I sheered some sheep while I was out to make a bed) I found a side of a hill to dig a small shelter into for the night. I almost always opt for digging into the side of a hill for my first shelter because it takes no resources and you can create a safe shelter in a few seconds which leaves more time for gathering wood.



In my first shelter I had a bed, inventory, furnace, and crafting table. I typically only use the bed for the first few nights because I eventually have enough lit up outside to provide a safe zone outside of my base that I don’t need to sleep away the night.