ChromeReady’s beginner guide to Minecraft

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Minecraft has been around in the gaming industry for as long as one can remember. However, in the modern-day console and PC gaming era, this sandbox building-oriented title is available to play on various platforms, including the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, and macOS, and, of course, Chrome OS as well.

Over the 10+ years of its post-launch era, Minecraft has accumulated extreme popularity and is quite possibly the most successful video game franchise of ALL time. That’s no joke when it boils down to the exceedingly competitive gaming space. 

The game’s objective is overly simple, but little do the first impressions of many realize, the sky is the limit when Minecraft is in question. You can build virtually anything and everything in the title, given that you put the required amount of effort into it. It’s a dream come true for those who love building and are into creating both monumental and small-scale structures to quench their passion. 

All in all, Minecraft is undoubtedly an involved game, despite being nothing but uncomplicated as a whole. If you’re a new player trying to find your way with the title, you’re going to need all the help you can get to kickstart your building journey and start having some real fun. We’re going to talk about everything you need to know about Minecraft, including how to play the sandbox IP on your very own Chromebook.

What is Minecraft?

Minecraft is a video game whose initial launch date traces back to 2011. It originally came out for PC players even further back, sometime around 2009, but the game was in an unfinished stage by then. After going through several updates and improvements following the feedback of the alpha and beta version players, Minecraft saw a full release on 18 November 2011. It didn’t take long for this IP to become a massive hit, given how creative it was for its time (and still is). 

It started to appeal more and more to gamers, brands, and other developers, and everyone wanted a piece of this rising success. Today, Minecraft remains a regularly updated game with constant new additions, more ways to play, innovative enemy types, fascinating new biomes, which are specific environments in the game, each with their characteristics, and, of course, building blocks. The latter is something we’ll go into more detail about later in the article. 

Therefore, Minecraft is a game where you can live your deepest fantasies and run wild with your imagination. People have created full-blown Harry Potter worlds, including the Hogwarts castle, Game of Thrones-inspired towns, and even the USS Enterprise. From digital Roman empires to colossal structures of King Kong and Godzilla, you might now have a good understanding of the limitless potential that Minecraft is out here offering.    

What do you do in Minecraft?

The core ideology of the game is simple: all you have to do is build and survive in Minecraft. You erect structures as big as you want, as many as you want in the game, but bear in mind the dangers that loom around and cause a reason for concern.  The game puts you inside a boundless world filled with landscapes, a versatility of different terrains, and simply a lot to explore. However, all that doesn’t mean that you won’t be running into those who wish nothing but your demise upon you. 

Minecraft has a wide variety of enemies and bosses that you have to defeat to progress. The most formidable boss with many new players quivering in their chairs is the Ender Dragon – a vile, vicious beast with several skills and a sizable health bar that doesn’t make itself visible. You have to plow through the fire-breathing creature by devising a working strategy, or you’re toast otherwise. 

Other than that, Minecraft is exempt from a through-and-through story mode with a good narrative. Instead, the game pushes to leave stories and tales to be crafted by the player, thereby leaving the scenario purely up to your imagination. You gather resources to build and survive in the game and create your very own colonies and houses that you can call home. It’s as creative as you’re willing to let it be—just be sure not to wander out alone at night, or you might run into something you don’t want to mess with. 

How many game modes are there in Minecraft?

Minecraft isn’t a one-way plan for players to build in. The game features four unique game modes, each with its hallmarks and features that users love and admire. After all, the 600-million+ total player count of the game hasn’t been able to come up to that number without good reason. Let’s now take a look into each game mode of Minecraft, so you can better understand what’s what.

Survival Mode

The Survival Mode in Minecraft is the most popular and the most-played game mode. It came out originally in the game when it was first launched in 2011. The developers couldn’t help but introduce more ways to play in the mix, but when it cuts down to the OG game mode in Minecraft, it’s undoubtedly Survival. What you do in the game’s Survival Mode is eponymously survive. Sounds pretty simple right? It’s not.

You’ll have to go out in the world of Minecraft all by yourself as you start with your trusty axe by your side as you soon begin to craft in the game. You’ll have to defeat enemies, loot the world for resources and materials, keep a good eye out for the dangers of the night, and build yourself houses or full-blown fortresses to live in, depending on your preferences. 

The Survival Mode amounts to an authentic Minecraft experience with all the challenges that make the game enjoyable. Make discoveries, venture out into the world, explore different biomes, and learn to fight lurking baddies as you grow and become a more skilled player in the game. 

Creative Mode

Creative mode is a paradise for players looking to build and build only. The game starts you with an infinite number of resources, including all the blocks in the game, and allows you to go to town on an empty, blank world – just for the sake of building. There are no enemies in Creative Mode, so you can quickly rule out the prospect of dying and losing your progress from the get-go. There are certain blocks in the game that you cannot destroy once they are placed in the environment. 

In Creative Mode, there’s no block that you cannot destroy, and that too with just a single click. In Survival Mode, you have to take other, more demanding measures to erase accidentally placed blocks, but that’s not simply the case in the former. Another significant benefit of trying out the overly imaginative Creative Mode is that the player can fly. You can rise from the ground and go up to any length or height without breaking a sweat. 

This makes building a whole lot uncomplicated, especially when you’re determined to create gigantic designs with a ton of depth to them. The Harry Potter worlds and the Game of Thrones build that we discussed earlier are all made to come to life in the Creative Mode. If someone were to pull off something similar in Survival Mode, that would be a treat and a sure-fire wonder to watch. 

Adventure Mode

The Adventure Mode in Minecraft is the game’s best effort to give its players story-driven gameplay. This is for those looking for an interactive experience with the game itself and finding a purpose to play for. It lets you enter worlds that have been created by other Minecraft players. The developers of these worlds may include a quest or an objective within to give players an incentive to play. 

The Adventure Mode can fare quite similarly to Survival Mode because players can take damage from enemies, and they have to go out in the world to gather resources themselves. In addition, you can indulge in trading seamlessly and craft items like you usually would in the game. However, that’s about it as far as the similarities are concerned between the two games. 

The primary factor that puts Adventure Mode apart from the rest is that you cannot destroy blocks without having a unique tag on your material. This makes killing the player-created world unlikely, and you have to stick to the original layout of that specific world. Moreover, in Survival Mode, you can spawn anywhere in the vast stretches of the land, but there’s a fixed spawn point in Adventure Mode that’ll serve as your starting area.  

The Adventure Mode is pretty restricted and isn’t recommended for those who crave a solid, roomy Minecraft experience without rules or regulations. This leaves us to discuss the final mode that players can try out: Hardcore Mode.

Hardcore Mode

Hardcore Mode is exactly what the name depicts it is. This is Survival Mode on steroids that pushes players to compete and try their level best to survive. This is because it’s simply game over for you if your character dies in the game. Typically, you would just respawn in a random area of your Minecraft world, but in Hardcore Mode, you commence your efforts all over again and start from scratch. 

The enemies are also relatively more challenging in Hardcore Mode. They hit harder, cause you to lose more of your life points, and the game is locked in the “Hard’ difficulty mode. This introduces various challenges for the player, so bear in mind that Hardcore Mode isn’t for the faint of heart or the lackluster of skill. 

To up the difficulty even more, zombies in Hardcore Mode can make their way past wooden barricades and doors, so you’re not safe until you build yourself a consolidated homestead. In addition, spiders in the game can spawn with a unique set of abilities that do no less than become a menace for the playing character. Pillagers are another enemy type in the game that come equipped with a weapon, mainly a crossbow, and can deal a ton of damage to the player. In Hardcore Mode, Pillagers begin to spawn near the player’s location, thereby compelling you to be fully alert at all times.

Another point worth mentioning here is that this unique way of playing is only available in Minecraft: Java Edition. The game has different editions to its name, and we’ll be discussing this in-depth in the next section. For now, you should remember that Hardcore Mode is a Java exclusive in Minecraft. 

Does Minecraft have different editions?

Yes, Minecraft has multiple editions to its name. Each edition boasts its unique features and gives players options otherwise absent in the counterpart edition. The following are three of the most popular variants of Minecraft. 

• Minecraft: Java Edition
• Minecraft: Bedrock Edition
• Minecraft: Education Edition

Let’s take a close, hard look at each Minecraft edition so you can have an easier time deciding which one sounds the best to you. 

Minecraft: Java Edition

Minecraft: Java Edition is the go-to version of the game for PC players. This variant is only available on PC and boasts Hardcore Mode and Spectator Mode. The former, especially, can be something to consider if you’re a seasoned gamer who looks for a challenge in their games. The Spectator Mode lets you move around your Minecraft world as if you were a ghost and enables you to examine your surroundings and everything in between. You’re automatically thrown into Spectator Mode as soon as you die in the game’s Hardcore Mode. 

Other than that, it’s popularly known that Minecraft: Java Edition is a tad bit taxing to run on a PC as it requires higher-end specifications. If you happen to have a dated PC, the game’s performance might not be buttery smooth. On the plus side, the Java edition of Minecraft has another facet that just might win you over, and that is modding. The PC gaming community is famed for developing mods and taking the user experience of games from one level to ten levels up. 

In Java Edition, you can grab community-created mods online without paying a single dime. Resourceful mods such as texture and HD resolution packs all get together to make the game look visually stunning. Then, you have the creativity of modders to tend to. Transform your game inside out with some of the most fun-looking mods in the game to play with your friends and family. 

Speaking of which, cross-platform multiplayer is locked in Minecraft: Java Edition. If you have friends that have purchased this version of the game already, you will have to buy the Java edition too to play with them. You cannot interplay with different versions of Minecraft. One last thing that’s important to acknowledge before moving on to other versions of the game is skin customization. You’re free to use many skins in the Java edition and even create or upload your own to the mix. 

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition is the second version of the game that’s also insanely famous around the spectrum. Right out the gate, it’s worth mentioning that you won’t find Hardcore or Spectator Mode in the Bedrock edition. Instead, the title is considered more suited for beginners. It is available on a wide variety of platforms instead of Java Edition that only PC players can purchase from the official Minecraft website. 

Therefore, Minecraft: Bedrock Editions accommodates a more diverse audience, including players from PC, Xbox consoles, PlayStation consoles, Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS. Getting the Bedrock edition would mean that you can play with players on any of the platforms above. Here is a quick comparison with Java edition players: they can only cross-play between PC, Linux, and macOS. 

Furthermore, Bedrock Edition is considered more easy-going on the system since it boasts extensive optimization not only for PC but also for other systems. That is why you’ll find it running stable on your PC even if you’re using a low-end one. However, the disadvantage that arises here is the lack of modding in the Bedrock edition of the game. You’ll have to resort to purchasing add-ons from the official Minecraft marketplace, and the same goes for skins too. 

A horde of players, even you perhaps, might be put off by this. Still, if modding and skin customization aren’t your priorities, the Bedrock edition will serve nicely due to its smooth performance, extensive cross-playability, and the added option of using a controller to play the game. Again, the latter cannot benefit from Minecraft: Java Edition. 

Minecraft: Education Edition

The final version of the game worth mentioning is Minecraft: Edition Education, especially for organizational institutes and classrooms. Schools have picked up Minecraft to boost their teaching and make students learn more actively. The Education Edition of the game can also be played on Chromebooks, so keep on reading until the end to find everything you need to know about this version of Minecraft, including its installation. 

Is Minecraft for free?

Minecraft’s classic version that can be played online is free, but as for the rest of the game versions, Minecraft is a paid game. You can purchase it directly from the official website for about $26.95. In addition, Minecraft: Pocket Edition, which is the mobile iteration of the game, costs about $7.  

How do you build in Minecraft?

Building is a core mechanic in Minecraft. You build blocks by using your mouse’s right-click button and using the left-click button to destroy them. If this button configuration doesn’t suit you, you can always adjust the controls using the game’s settings section. 

To build in Minecraft, you first need to have blocks. The game is centered around blocks. Everything that you see in the game is made out of blocks, apart from specific items like lanterns, crafting tables, and a bunch of others. To gather blocks, you need to have resources. Resources can be harvested by either going out into the world of Minecraft and getting them yourself or through the process of crafting. 

For instance, punching down trees by using the left-click button will get you wood. When you have enough wood and combine some to make sticks, you can use the combination of wood and sticks to make yourself a wooden axe through crafting. As you play and progress in the game, you’ll see how different materials play different roles in crafting and yielding foliage. 

As for the building, you place blocks in an organized fashion to make any structure. For instance, if someone were to make a house, they would first use a basic layout of 8 by eight blocks in length and width. After creating the base, they would then place blocks atop the foundation to whatever height the user wants and then proceeded to form the house’s roof. There is an endless variety of how-to videos on YouTube that detail everything you need to know about making complicated builds in the game and easier, more undemanding ones as well if you’re a beginner. 

What can you build in Minecraft?

There’s virtually no limit as to what you can build in Minecraft. Minecraft can be a life simulation game from houses and castles to barns and farms where you can become a modern-day construction worker with all the tools and materials available at your disposal.

The massive community of the game has been hard at work to make fantastic builds, and some of them are just genuinely unbelievable. To give you a hint of the boundless building potential in Minecraft, take a look at the following image. 

This imposing build shared on YouTube by Floo Network is the epitome of the potential of Minecraft’s Creative Mode. The creator of this map might have taken them months to achieve this feat, but given that you put in the time and effort, anything is possible to build in Minecraft. 

However, most of the outright exorbitant and flashy builds are only possible in the game’s Creative Mode due to the unlimited number of resources available. We suggest practicing your skills there first and improving upon the game’s fundamentals and basic mechanics to get a better idea of planning your Survival in Minecraft’s Survival Mode. 

Now that you know why Minecraft has been so famous throughout the years, let’s discuss more aspects of the game to understand everything more profoundly. 

Can you play Minecraft online?

Yes, Minecraft’s online servers let you join multiplayer games. You can also set up a LAN game to make other players in close vicinity join your game, so they can all play on their screens and dive into multiplayer. Keep in mind that all of the players need to be on the same version of the game to play with each other. You won’t be able to connect otherwise. 

To play online, you can also create your server. It’s possible to download the server file from the official website if you’re required to do so. If you do not want to participate, join online servers created by other players.

You can also play split-screen on the Xbox consoles and the Nintendo Switch, which is an evergreen way of playing in multiplayer mode. 

Is Minecraft difficult?

Minecraft houses different difficulty levels, ranging from Peaceful and Easy to Normal and Hard. If you’re a beginner who would like to learn about the expansive world of Minecraft first without engaging in any conflict with enemies, you can play the game in Peaceful mode. This is where no enemies are going to spawn in your Minecraft world, even if you use a forceful command of spawning them. They would vanish instantly after you get them to spawn. 

In addition, you cannot die from hunger in Minecraft, as you usually would in the Normal difficulty level. However, it is still possible to die if you fall into lava or anything of the like. Your health also regenerates rapidly in Peaceful mode, and the fact that there are no lurking enemies around makes you breathe easy during your playthrough. 

If you want to turn things up just a little, consider trying the Easy mode next, where enemies do spawn, but they barely deal any damage worth taking into account. However, in Easy mode, your hunger meter will be depleted if you’re not eating enough. Still, you won’t die from starvation, and your health will come down to 5 hearts only. There are certain enemies in the game that can poison the player. In Easy mode, that’s also not a possibility. 

Moving on to the Normal mode, this is where things start to get a little truer to the original Minecraft experience. Expect a balanced game where you have to keep your eyes peeled at all times to survive.

Enemies, or dangerous mobs, as the game likes to coin them, deal moderate damage, and your hunger meter can reduce your health to half a heart if left unattended. In addition, you can be poisoned by mobs like Cave Spiders, and particular enemies like the Vindicator is potent enough to break down doors. You’re going to need solid fortification of your homestead to survive. 

That leaves us with Hard mode, which is the most challenging setting of the game. Enemies dealing a ton of damage and spawning more frequently than ever are some of the hallmarks of Minecraft’s Hard mode. In addition, you can die from starvation if your hunger points come down to nothing. Lastly, more enemy types can break down doors in this game mode, such as Zombies, which are a menacing threat to watch out for during the night. 

Therefore, the game’s difficulty entirely depends on you, whether you want to take things in a balanced manner or test your will and skill and let Minecraft throw everything it has your way.  

How do you survive in Minecraft?

You can up your chances of Survival in Minecraft by being aware of a couple of things after getting started. One of the first things you need to do in the game is to build yourself a Crafting Table to make more advanced materials come to life and thereby revamp your Survival. An Enchanting Table is created using 4 Planks. This material can be of any type, including spruce, oak, dark oak, birch, and jungle. 

The next step is to construct a shelter to spend your night in. If you’re playing the game in either Easy or Normal mode, you’re going to need someplace to live in and spend your days. That is because the nighttime in Minecraft is dangerous. It gives rise to the undead and multiple other mobs that seek your demise. It also gets pretty hard to see during the night in Minecraft as the moon acts as your only light source.

Once you have all of that over with, it’s now time to get into creating your bed to sleep on. On PC, all that requires to sleep on your personally created bed is the tap of the right-click button, but the question here is: how do you construct a bed in the first place? For that, you’ll be needing wool. Wool is obtained by killing sheep in the game. Therefore, venture outside, find some sheep, and kill them for instant gains. Once done, create your bed using a combination of blocks and place wool in the middle. This will get you a full-fledged bed. 

These are the basics of surviving in Minecraft. You also need to craft weapons to take down dangerous mobs, so don’t hesitate to take to the Crafting Table and discover new weapons and their according enchantments. 

How do you play Minecraft on a Chromebook?

This is one of the best parts of this guide. If you have a Chromebook, you might find it comforting to know that there are multiple ways of playing Minecraft on your device. Check out the following for a basic outline of them: 

• You can play Minecraft through the Google Play Store
• You can install Minecraft through the built-in Linux container
• You can play the web-based classic version of Minecraft online

We’ll be going into each of these methods briefly, so you know your options and can choose between them flexibly. 

Google Play Store method

Minecraft: Education Edition can be readily installed from the Google Play Store. However, you must know that not all Chromebooks are compatible with the Play Store, especially those manufactured before 2018. Take a look at this descriptive guide article for a list of all those Play Store-supported Chromebooks. If your particular device isn’t on the list, you should approach the second and third methods of playing Minecraft on Chrome OS. 

You can click on this direct link to get straight to the official app page of Minecraft: Education Edition. The game has more than 500,000 downloads on the Play Store and a respectable 4.1/5.0 overall rating. One thing worth mentioning here is that the Education variant of the game isn’t the most full-blown method of playing Minecraft. Since this version is primarily intended for school and organizational use, you’re probably going to get a restricted Minecraft experience. 

This is because Minecraft: Education Edition is mainly focused on learning. You’ll be surprised to read that schools taking up and employing Minecraft in their teaching isn’t a fresh prospect. The practice has been in effect since 2013 as educational institutes from around the globe believe that the game can improve problem-solving skills, implement the concept of collaboration, and make students more intellectually active. 

This automatically makes Minecraft: Education Edition one of the best ways to get your little one started with gaming on Chrome OS. The benefits here are two-fold: enjoyment and learning side by side. However, if none of this suits your situation, keep reading for another method of playing Minecraft on your Chromebook.

Linux method

Chrome OS has benefited extremely well by integrating with the Linux subOS. The prospect has brought about a significant buff in a regular Chromebook’s functionality and opened up a seemingly limitless world of possibilities. For instance, you can 3D print on a Chromebook, install and run WordPress, use Spotify, utilize high-end video editing software, and even do programming—all thanks to Linux. This brings us to talk about this feature paving the way to the second method of playing Minecraft on a Chromebook. 

You can check out our specialized How to Install and Play Minecraft guide for a step-by-step explanation of accomplishing the feat at hand. We’ve laid out the process in an easy-to-follow manner, so even if you’re someone with little to no technical background, installing Minecraft through Linux is going to be fairly straightforward for you. Note that you can only install Minecraft: Java Edition through this Linux method. 

With the second method all dealt with, it’s time to get into the third and final way of playing Minecraft on a Chromebook. 

Classic web-based version of Minecraft

For web surfing enthusiasts, the developer—Mojang Studios—has come out with a browser-based version of the game called Minecraft Classic. This is the fastest and simplest way of playing Minecraft on your Chromebook directly through the Chrome web browser without having to download or indulge in anything like that. 

This version of the game was released for public use on the 10th anniversary of Minecraft. There was another free version of the game before this scenario, but it necessitated using the original Minecraft desktop client. You don’t need that any longer now with a web version of the game fully up and running. 

You can easily click here to get straight to Minecraft Classic. That’s all that you have to do to play the game. We advise sporting a competent Chromebook for this matter, though, that resembles the processing power of something like the Acer Chromebook 713 or the HP Chromebook x360 14c. The better the device you have, the smoother the game will perform. 

Conclusion

Minecraft is one of the most popular games globally, with a player count of millions. It’s available to play on a wide variety of platforms, and Chromebooks are no exclusion from the list. It can get pretty inclusive for a game that revolves around the usage of mere blocks, so getting started nicely with the title may seem like an overwhelming task for beginners and newcomers to the game. That is why we’ve put together this guide to help you find your way with Minecraft by answering some of the most burning questions related to the game. 

From the game’s difficulty and its different editions to the building potential in Minecraft and the ways of installing and playing it on your Chromebook, we’ve covered most of the initial confusions a new player has when starting Minecraft. Be sure to read each section to achieve the best results when playing the title. Chrome Ready wishes you a happy gaming and good luck!