Minecraft Earth Beginner Tutorial
By Evenil
If you have experience with both Minecraft and Pokemon Go Mobile, you already know where this is going. Minecraft Earth is a Mobile adventure game that mixes the virtual environment of the game with your real-life experience. In other words, you’ll need to get out to play the game, literally out.
The game will turn your local map into a Minecraftian one, which means you’ll need to leave the comfort of your home to gather resources, build, and interact with your friends. This tutorial will teach you how to approach the game as a beginner and make the most of it.
To provide a more comprehensive and easy-to-understand analysis of the game, we will divide this tutorial into three key sections:
- Main features
- Core mechanism
- Achieving the goals
First, we have:
- Main features
In the upper corner of your HUD, on the left, you have your character information. Clicking on that will take you on the menu, where you will get details on character progression and profile. You also get the editor section, where you can change your character’s appearance, if you need to. Obviously, don’t expect anything too fancy or complex.
On the upper right corner of the HUD is the in-game compass. This links to your device’s gyroscope, allowing it to operate in real-time, and indicate the direction you’re facing. It’s a simple yet useful addition to your navigational toolbox.
On the lower bar of the HUD, you have several icons as follows:
Chest-like icon – This is your inventory, displaying all the items you’ve been gathering from your strolls. A nice feature is the categorization of the articles and materials you have for keeping track of your resources easier.
Buildplates icon – These are standardized terrain samples that you unlock as you level up, with level 20 being the highest.
Crafting icon – This is where you get two options – Crafting and Smelting. Crafting is pretty straightforward; just add the ingredient and produce the item you need. Smelting is a more advanced crafting method, which requires logs as fuel to craft things like glass or metal.
Interactive icon – This one will pop several interactive options, like Code Scan, Game Settings, Challenges, and Join a Friend.
Store – With the in-game Buildplates being limited in number and variation, here comes the Store to the rescue. Here, you can purchase both Rubies (in-game currency) and additional Buildplates to boost your collection and, consequently, the complexity of your world. Since you can only purchase these Buildplates with rubies, it’s a good thing that you can also farm them, rather than spending real-life money in the store.
- Core Mechanism
This is Minecraft Earth, which means that the concept behind it is pretty simple – You go outside, seek tappables (resource nodes), gather resources, craft, and bring your vision to life. It has the potential to provide limitless possibilities, where your imagination is the only true barrier.
As you move throughout the world, you’ll notice on your screen that you have a wide circle around you. That represents your reach; it’s the limitation of your interaction capabilities. If a tappable is within that circle, you can tap it for extracting its resources. Tappables come in five different types, each providing various resources, including dirt, gravel, different types of stone, flowers, etc.
Once you possess all the ingredients you need, and you build the necessary tools and materials, you can gradually start putting together your preferred ecosystem. This will be a combination of level-based pre-made blocks and the Store-bought ones. At the same time, you can expand on those blocks and personalize the world depending on your vision and preferences, one log at a time.
- Achieving the goals
The whole purpose of the game is to rebuild the world around you, either alone or with your friends. The awesome aspect about it is that you don’t need to leave the house specifically for Minecraft Earth. You only need to leave your device’s vibration ON, so it can alert you on any tappables nearby.
This way, you can do your daily tasks, while also getting valuable resources whenever you have some spare time. The game is pretty straightforward, and it will become a lot easier if you:
Pay attention to your daily and weekly challenges – These will reset regularly, providing you with new goals and rewards on each occasion. Depending on the challenge, you may get materials, as well as rubies, to fill your chest for future projects.
Career, Events, and Adventures – The Career and Events sections are not updated as of yet, but they will be soon. Make sure to keep your eye on those. Also, you may receive a pop-up regarding an Adventure taking place near you. If you have time, gather your friends and join in the fun. Be careful, however, since there may be monsters lurking around. During these tiny odysseys, both dangers and rewards abound.
Always be grinding – There’s no secret that Minecraft Earth is based on grinding. If it was, it’s not anymore. This means that you will need to gather tappables as often as you can, provided you’re not ruining your real life in the process.
Learn to share – Minecraft Earth is designed as a social game. The more people buckle in, the better. Take your friends, share your Buildplates, and work together on erecting the next Minecraft Earth Empire.
Cons
Before jumping into the game, you must know of the micro-transaction aspect. The store is both a beloved and hated feature, with the latter being more prominent. Fortunately, it doesn’t offer unfair advantages, in the sense that everything you can get in the store you can get on your own as well. The Store is nothing more than a shortcut for people who want instant gratification.
If you are fine with taking it slower and experience the satisfaction of your hard-earned achievements, Minecraft Earth is ideal for that. The game is easy to learn and, with a bit of micromanaging and cooperation, equally easy to master. It only requires time, dedication, and passion.
