I was placing minecart tracks tediously (5 stacks of 64) around the my SP map when suddenly my playlist started playing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXtRLTdxrU, it was the single deepest moment in my Minecraft career, it almost make you homesick. I actually recommend it to anybody else out there tediously placing tracks for t'pence a day.

There is no dungeon whatsoever , we have like no dark corners in the cave, the cave can go to the surface to the bedrock it is insane.

so the cave has a lot of openings then? that may be the reason. Creatures either wandering about or noticing you might be entering through the openings.

How my first two "days" went in Minecraft (the demo):

- Found a high ground and crafted some things. Got a hang of the basics.
- Crafted a shovel and started shoveling away at things.
- Survived the first night with only one Creeper and one skeleton (I can't pick up the arrows? Whyyyy?!?!)
- Next day, ventured out for a bit to get wood and try to find coal after crafting a pickaxe and axe.
- Barely made it back to my "home spot thing" before nightfall. Then came the spider and the zombie and everything else.

So I die. I respawn and PC gamer has so generously left me some supplies in a chest. Yay! Except it's still night...so I get surrounded and die again. Then I respawn, realize that there's nothing in the chest, take a couple steps, get surrounded and die again.

Does everyone die a lot in this game?

Also, where the hell can I find coal?

Short answer: yes. It gets better, though. Eventually you get to be more efficient on the first day. Once you can get a quick shelter or bunker made, you're basically set. Then it's just a matter of expanding your operations in whatever direction you see fit.

Coal can sometimes be seen out in the open - look for the black spots on cliffsides, usually. If there's no readily available cliffsides or you're just not seeing any, well... Dig. Eventually there's gonna be some.

You can also make coal by using Cobblestone to make a furnace, then heating raw wood with raw wood.

Spanky you should definitely make use of the http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Minecraft_Wiki, it'll help a lot.

Also, I don't know if the demo has a difficulty setting but if you lower it to the lowest setting (Peaceful) you can actually play the game at night instead of waiting in your house for the sun to rise. Alternatively, and I don't know if the demo is of the version that has this but you can also make a http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Bed and sleep in it to skip the night.

Yeah, I'm looking at the Wiki. It helps, but it's a whole new experience, so it's just getting used to the mechanics.

I may switch to Peaceful next demo run, but I actually have a house this time (and sheep/cows that have kinda migrated to my front yard....maybe I made farm...).

Instead of searching for coal, which can be hard to find, you might just want to make charcoal from burning wood logs in a furnace. It's so much easier to get than coal, and does the exact same things.

So i just found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGo7iMUcxLc

apparently it is inspired by Minecraft. looks fun.

If it's free, I'd try it out. I'm a svcker for side scrollers. Spelunky is fun/addicting as hell.

Well, I played through the demo again and I'm definitely catching on. Had a nice house on top of a mountain with a huge stone archway over the entrance. I was pretty proud of it being my first creation. Gonna play through it again and make a small hut for safety and start digging down into the world. See what I can do.

So... Minecraft + JRPG? Awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udp5ozoYfxM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

I havent come in to the server since yesterday (Power went out 15 hours (Thank you storms >:I)) but if Simpson hasnt had it moved/dismantled, could you please move that tower to another spot? The one between Starn and My homes is just so out of place and cramps up the aread.

Phew! I'm up to just over 1000 blocks of Obsidian mined... I've been making runs of 10 buckets of lava into the Nether, filling them up, then running back out again to make Obsidian. I've made this trip over 100 times...

And I'm still nowhere near done. This is gonna be my entire turn, just mining obsidian. D:

However! I have staked out a location for my tower, and am planning several neat little things for it. I've crafted up some deadly traps that I want to test out, plotted some decidedly ominous decor... I just wish Obsidian didn't have those purple flakes embedded into it. Makes the 'black tower' look a little odd.

1000 blocks * 15 seconds a block = 15000 seconds = 4 hours

You've spent four hours mining obsidian, not even counting the time it takes to get to and from the nether. This building had better be amazing.

This is why I'd prefer punching sheep. Wool can be done in any color, and the black is very black. Though collecting it (and the ink sacs) would take far longer even than the obsidian.

In any case, you can always apply a texture pack to improve the look of obsidian.

Been playing a bit of SP Minecraft. Figured I'd show off some screenshots of the little castle I threw together.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Lemunde/Minecraft/2011-04-27_142204.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Lemunde/Minecraft/2011-04-27_141505.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Lemunde/Minecraft/2011-04-27_141558.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v662/Lemunde/Minecraft/2011-04-27_142028.jpg

I had to lighten up that last room a bit since it was taken. A creeper was occasionally spawning in a dark corner near the fountain. Took me a while to figure out why I was randomly exploding whenever I checked my food pantry.

http://notch.tumblr.com/post/4988431144/the-maps
About 1.6 and maps.

Update....NAO

Wow, that looks fantastic. What texture pack I that? I love the window design.

I had to look it up because I forgot what it was called. It is... DokuCraft. http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=1021&t=224969 And it looks like it was last updated today so now's a good time to get it.

At this rate 1.6 is going to be out before we can even have 1.5. :dry:

Played through the demo again. I'm getting better! I made a http://oi55.tinypic.com/30ieutw.jpg and dug all the way down to bedrock. I also intentionally flooded one of my corridors to try and see how to control water.

If some things turn out the way I'm hoping they do, then I can possibly pick this game up within the next month. I know it's only $15, but I've dropped a bit of money on games recently (two Indie games and Portal 2).

I have trouble running that texture pack. Frame rate goes out of control but if I press F3; it runs properly. How do i get it to run properly without that graph in the way?

You bought two other indie games before minecraft! What is this blasphemy?