Building a Minecraft City (eBook)

Sarah Guthals, Ph.D, has dedicated her life to coding education. She loves to teach teachers how to use Minecraft in the classroom, and wishes she could teach her cats how to play Minecraft too!

Introduction 2

About Minecraft 2

About This Book 3

About You 3

About the Icons 4

Beyond the Book 4

Project 1: Entering Minecraft 5

Registering a Minecraft Account 6

Purchasing and Installing Minecraft 6

Playing the Game 8

Logging in and operating the main menu 8

Starting your first game in SinglePlayer mode 9

Understanding basic controls. 10

Watching the Heads-Up Display (HUD) 15

Project 2: Prebuilding Strategies 17

Building Different Minecraft Buildings 18

Gathering Materials for Construction: Creative Mode 19

Setting up the inventory in Creative mode 20

Using the Creative mode menu 20

Organizing your materials for Survival mode 24

Obtaining a good inventory in Survival mode 25

Organizing your materials in Survival mode 28

Getting Ready to Build in Portable Edition 29

Getting around the structure 30

Using scaffolding 30

Using ladders to scale your structure 32

Location is Everything 32

Building on fun landscapes. 34

Reshaping the landscape 35

Leveling mostly flat surfaces 35

Leveling large structures 36

Wire Framing the Build on Paper. 38

Wire Framing the Build in Minecraft 41

Project 3: Building Your Dream Home 43

Building Your First Building 43

Clearing your building site 43

Choosing your materials 44

Building walls 46

Building a ceiling 49

Building a door 50

Adding light 53

Building Your Dream Home 55

Protecting Your Dream Home 64

Thinking about New Designs 66

Project 4: Building Your Own City 69

Planning Your City 69

Choosing a theme for your city 70

Sketching your city 70

Making Space in Minecraft 71

Outlining your city 74

Connecting the paths 75

Starting Construction. 77

Building a tall building 77

Making a moat 84

Building a simple house 85

Using Commands to Build. 89

Fill command 89

Clone command 90

Playing around with commands 92

Making Your City Unique 92

Project 5: Building City Attractions 93

Fancy Fountains 93

Simple one-block fountain 94

Tall fountains 97

Tall fountains without walls. 100

Wide fountains without walls 103

Water Slides 107

Multiple Story Buildings 112

Roller Coasters 117

Rail types. 117

The structure 117

The track 119

Making Your City Unique 122