Operation Manual

Chapter 1: Entering Minecraft
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Walk around and explore the world. After you get the hang of
using the controls and you’re prepared to immerse yourself in
the fun and challenge of the real game, it’s time to figure out
how to survive. Chapter 2 gives you the lowdown on surviving
your first night.
Watching the Heads-Up
Display (HUD)
The little arrangement at the bottom of the screen, including
the hearts and squares monitoring your health and the acces-
sible inventory, is known as the Heads-Up Display, or HUD.
To show the important details of your character, the HUD fea-
tures these four sections, as shown in Figure 1-5:
Figure 1-5: Heads-Up Display
✓ Health bar: These ten hearts monitor the health of
your avatar. As your avatar incurs damage, the hearts
disappear. After all ten are depleted, your avatar dies
and reappears at its spawn point, a position that can be
changed by sleeping in a bed.
Your avatar can take damage by falling from ledges four
blocks tall, colliding with harmful blocks or entities, or
succumbing to other dangers such as drowning. When
you equip yourself with armor (see Chapter 4), the
Armor bar appears over the Health bar, indicating the
protective value of your armor.
✓ Inventory: These nine squares contain items you’ve col-
lected, and they’re the only squares in the inventory that
you can access without pressing E. You can use the 1–9
keys or the scroll wheel to select items, and right-click to
use them. If you’re using a sword or a tool for breaking
blocks faster (such as an axe), the item will automatically
function when you left-click. (I discuss the inventory in
more detail in Chapter 2.)
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