150 Minecraft Secrets You've Never Seen Before: The Secrets Handbook (4 page)

Thinking of going fishing?

Fishing can be a bit of a nightmare when you're fishing on a bright, sunny day. Since Minecraft is almost always bright and sunny, you're fishing efforts will be severely dampened. You'll only catch about one or two a minute, if you're lucky.

Instead, you should fish when it starts raining. In real life, this is true so it makes sense. When the rain comes, the fish come too.

Just in case you're a little skeptical, Notch said this himself on Twitter. So, if any of your friends tell you it's not true, just show them Notch's response.

Wanna find a dungeon quickly? Dungeons are awesome because you get loads of nifty and rare materials that are difficult to find elsewhere such as melon seeds, saddles, string, and diamonds.

Head over to a
desert biome
and start looking for exposed dungeons. Sand (unlike dirt or stone for example) falls into the gaps beneath it in order to fill them. You place a sand block in the air and it'll fall. If there is a dungeon beneath sand, the sand will fall into the gaps. This means that you'll see a large hole in the middle of the desert sand. An exposed dungeon looks like this…

You need to dig into the hole and be prepared for any mobs you'll meet in the dungeon. Place a torch on the mob spawner and all future mobs won't be spawned. You can then get the cool stuff from the chests and also the moss stone if you like it.

Buckets are dead handy whenever you're in trouble whether you're falling off an extreme hill or drowning in water. But, luckily, you can use buckets to save you from dying in lava as well.

Let's say you fall into a lava pool or are mining for redstone when you suddenly fall into a hidden lava pit. Whether you're a pro or a complete newbie, it can happen so don't deny it. Suddenly, your hearts are falling and you're burning up into a thousand pieces. You begin to see the bright light of the afterlife and are fading away from the world…

And then you pull out a water bucket and pour water. Hey, presto! The lava in your current square will disappear and obsidian surrounds you. The water turned the lava to obsidian, and you're safe again!

All you have to do is carry around a water bucket which is in easy reach. Then, when you fall into lava, pour the water from the bucket and you should be saved!

If you accidentally fall from a height such as the top of a mountain or extreme hill (and there's no water in sight), don't panic!

Just get a water bucket and when you're about to impact on the ground, release the water from the bucket to the ground and…you have a very good chance of surviving.

Of course, there's always the chance that you won't survive. I'd recommend that you try this out in a new world where you don't have your precious belongings in your inventory. If you die, you lose them so it's a good idea to try it in another world. Once you get the knack of it, you should be ready for any height-related mishaps, traps or problems you get into.

See an animal up on a hill that you just don't want to climb? If you see an animal beside a hole, or an animal that is on a height – you can pull them into a hole using a fishig rod. Because of the impact from the falling off the hill/height, they’ll die.

Rather than going over to the animal (after a lot of work), you can use a fishing rod to yank over the animal. This method is a whole lot more efficient than walking or climbing to the animal which scare them away. You might want dinner quickly so if you see any pigs walking around, just yank 'em over with a fishing rod!

Got stuff you'd like to throw away like left over wheat seeds, rotten flesh or a bunch of sheared grass you don't really want? The best way to dispose of it is to dig a hole in the ground (about five blocks deep), chuck the stuff in and cover the hole. Since items will disappear after a few minutes if you don't collect them. However, this method is much quicker.

Just go over to a cactus and throw the stuff you don't want into it!

See a daunting wall you've got to climb? Want to climb it without a lot of unnecessary hassle?

All you've got to do is get a water bucket and place down water about three blocks above you on the wall. A flowing waterfall will be created. Then, swim up this waterfall. Take away the water once you've reached the top of the waterfall and place it three blocks above you again. Keep doing this until you reach the top.

It will take a little practice to get into the swing of things, but once you do, you'll turn into a Minecraft Spiderman!

Not really, but close enough.

The speed you can run at in Minecraft is largely influenced by the materials or blocks that you run on. For example, sprinting on ice is a lot faster than sprinting on grass blocks. By combining a series of blocks together, you can run at extremely fast speeds.

The fastest you can sprint in Minecraft is trap doors placed on ice, with dirt placed one block overhead.

There's not much you can do with this unless you want to create a "fast" road that goes through the world and you want to get from one end of the world to the other in record time. Here's an image.