Everything you can press, and how to find your way in a world that looks the same in every direction. Print this and keep it next to the keyboard.
Everything turns blue underwater and you cannot see as far. Walk at the shore and you climb straight out. You cannot drown — take your time down there.
You cannot break water — the cursor looks straight through it, so you never accidentally dig a hole in a lake.
You can build in it. Put blocks down in the shallows and they push the water out, which is how you make a bridge or an island.
You step up single blocks automatically, so you can walk up stairs without jumping. In survival there is no flying — you walk and swim everywhere.
| Slot | Block | Slot | Block |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grass | 5 | Oak planks |
| 2 | Dirt | 6 | Oak log |
| 3 | Stone | 7 | Glass |
| 4 | Cobblestone | 8 | White wool |
You can reach 10 blocks — far enough to build a wall without walking up to it. If nothing highlights, you are out of range.
Plug a DualSense into the Mac with a USB-C cable, or pair it over Bluetooth by holding Create and the PS button until the light bar flashes. Then press any button — the browser will not admit a controller exists until you do, so nothing happens until that first press. The game starts straight away; there is no need to click the window first.
Square places and Triangle uses, kept apart on purpose: on a controller you want to put a block down next to a lever without flipping it by accident. On a mouse, right-click still does both – it uses whatever you are pointing at, and places a block if there is nothing to use. The mouse and the controller work at the same time, so one of you can use each.
A flat world looks identical in every direction, so you cannot navigate by landmarks the way you would outdoors. You navigate by numbers instead. Press F3 and read the top-left corner.
| Number | What it means |
|---|---|
| X | East and west. Bigger going east. |
| Y | Height. The ground is 41. Lower means underground. |
| Z | North and south. Bigger going south. |
You start near 0, 0. To get home, walk until both the first and last numbers are back near zero. In a flat world the F3 box also prints exactly where the tree and the cave are — they move with the seed.
Blocks go into your inventory. Stone gives cobblestone, grass gives dirt, and ore gives the material inside it — iron ore gives raw iron, diamond ore gives a diamond.
Nine slots in the hotbar, twenty-seven in the backpack, and a 2×2 crafting square. Click a stack, then click a square to put one in it.
Four planks make one. Put it down, right-click it, and you get the big grid — which is what tools need.
Break a tree trunk. 1 log → 4 planks (anywhere in the grid). 2 planks stacked → 4 sticks. 4 planks → a crafting table.
At the table: three planks across the top, two sticks down the middle. Now you can mine stone, and stone tools are the same shape with cobblestone.
Ore gives you raw iron and gold, which have to be smelted. The furnace is not in the game yet — wood, stone and diamond tools all work now.
Dead level in every direction. One tree in survival, and one hole in the ground with ore in it. Easiest for building something big.
Hills, valleys, lakes with sandy beaches, caves everywhere and trees scattered about. Ore is spread through the rock — the deeper you dig the better it gets. Diamond only appears below y 16.
When you make a terrain world you choose how big the hills are, how many caves, and how many trees. Every new world gets a fresh random seed, so no two are the same.
Survival worlds only, about 10 blocks from spawn. Read its X and Z from the F3 box, then walk until your own X and Z match.
About 15 blocks from spawn in every world. Look for the dark hole in the grass. Drop in and you land in a cavern with ore in the walls.
The shaft has a stepped corner you can jump up. If you get stuck, stack blocks under yourself: look down, jump, and place a block while you are in the air.
Stack ten wool blocks at your base. You can see it from a long way off, and it beats reading numbers.
Drop a block every few steps when you head somewhere new. Follow it home.
Before you wander, note your X and Z from F3. Any spot you can name, you can find again.
The same seed always builds the same world. A new seed is rolled for you every time, so every world is different — but type someone else's number in, pick the same settings, and you get their exact hills, caves and trees.
Your building saves by itself a moment after you place a block. Only the blocks you changed are stored, which is why a world file is tiny.