Category: Leisure

Posts about hire to kill your time and related topics.

MINECRAFT 101: Everything a Beginner needs to know

Welcome fellow Minecrafters and beginners.

Before you continue reading, i’ll tell you why should you read this post.
1. Cuz I am fairly experienced and can actually tell you everything you need to know about the game.
2. I have hosted servers and played on multiplayer a lot and even used Dropbox for syncing data across players, so this means I know what i’ll be talking about.
3. Cuz this is a ‘no-bullshit’ blog.

Again before you continue, I must say, I wont talk about any issues related to Cracked Minecraft applications you might have downloaded via torrent sites. I’ll jump to what happens after you start the game.

You can download the game from Minecrafts official website if you want to buy it.

And If you want to learn everything in bulk, that requires too much to go through all the articles, visit MinecraftWiki.

Minecraft
Minecraft Title Screen

I suggest you to play the Creative Mode game to understand how most Blocks work, how the NPC Villages and its people work , how the Minecraft Weather System works. Later you may try a Survival mode game to learn about crafting things. Since you won’t know what you can actually craft, you can see a Crafting Guide.

The GameModes
1. Survival
2. Creative
3. Hardcore
4. Adventure (Multiplayer Only as far as I know).

1. SURVIVAL MODE

Basically, in this mode, you gather resources – kill animals for food and wool, dig for coal, iron, and other rare resources, chop trees for wood, craft stuff to build better things, and more complex mechanisms and try not to die. You can use tools for acquiring resources, or simply bare hands, but that’ll take a longer time.

Survival Mode in Minecraft.
Survival Mode in Minecraft.

2. CREATIVE MODE

Infinite Resources, Infinite Health! Only way to die here is to fall in the VOID or use the ‘/kill’ command. (Did I tell you that there are ‘THREE Dimensions” in Minecraft?) You can use this mode to create pixel art masterpieces! You can find a humongous amount of these on the internet.

Flying in Creative Mode
Flying in Creative Mode

3. HARDCORE MODE

For players who know what they are dealing with, and for players who have killed an EnderDragon in single player without cheats. This is hardcore in the literal sense. You will notice that the hearts in the Life Bar look different. If you die, the game data, that is, the world will be deleted. You have only one shot and surviving this mode.

Hardcore Mode in Minecraft
Hardcore Mode in Minecraft

4. ADVENTURE MODE

This is Ultimate shit. Only for multiplayer. You need specific tools for specific tasks! You can’t collect all resources with your hands unlike the other modes. Recommended only for the elite of elites! You need a village to spend the night to survive and… there’s a lot of deal here, I recommend you to read the NPC Villages Wiki and Adventure Mode for this. Its looks the same as Survival, except for the difference already mentioned.

DIMENSIONS IN MINECRAFT

There are 3 dimensions in Minecraft.

1. Overworld
2. Nether
3. End

1. Overworld

This is the usual Earth, the place where you spawn, where you collect resources and live in biomes.

Extreme hills biome in the overworld.
Extreme hills biome in the overworld.

2. Nether

This is hell, literally, hell in minecraft! Here you find Zombie Pigmen, Oozing Lava and The Void on two sides of the dimension! You enter the Nether by making a Nether Portal. You can make a nether portal by creating an Obsidian Block Frame with a 3×2 blank on the inside and lighting up the inside on fire. Here is a YouTube Tutorial on making a Nether Portal. My recommendation, get decent Iron or Diamond Armor and Weapons and if needed, Tools of Iron or Diamond. P.S: Lava flows like water here. And Nether creatures aren’t harmed by lava.

The Burning Nether
The Burning Nether

3. End

This is… well… another dimension. It has endermen and one enderdragon ‎that looks amazingly cool and is incredibly hard to beat on survival! You can reach the end by finding an end portal in a stronghold, which are increadibly hard to find, but could be found in the overworld. Even then you’ll need 12 Eyes of Ender to activate the portal which you can craft in this way.

The End Dimension with the Sexy Enderdragon.
The End Dimension with the Sexy Enderdragon.
A Stronghold with a Sexy Fountain.
A Stronghold with a Sexy Fountain.
An End Portal in a Stronghold
An End Portal in a Stronghold

BIOMES IN MINECRAFT

Minecraft features a large range of biomes. Now on the MinecraftWiki website, there is nothing much that should be very complicated to you. So i’ll share a direct link to the Biomes Page.

However, here is a list of the biomes and the things found in them…
1. Forest: Oak and Birch TreesFlowers,Wolves,Mushrooms
2. Desert: SandCactiDead Bushes,SandstoneSugar CaneDesert wells,Desert Temple,NPC Villages 
3. Plains: Tall GrassGrass,FlowersNPC VillagesHorses
4. Swampland: Witch HutsOak TreesGrass,VinesLily Pads,ClayMushrooms,Slimes
5. Jungle: Jungle Trees,Jungle Temples,FernsFlowers,VinesOcelots,Cocoa Pods,Chickens
6. Ice Plains (Tundra): SnowSnowfall,Oak TreesIce
7. Taiga: SnowSnowfall,IceSpruce Trees,FlowersWolves
8. Extreme Hills: Oak Trees,FlowersEmerald OreMonster Egg
9. Ocean: WaterSandClay,DirtSquid
10. Mushroom Island: MushroomsHuge Mushrooms,Mycelium,Mooshrooms
11. Hell (The Nether): Magma Cubes,Netherrack,GlowstoneSoul SandNether Brick,GravelQuartz,GhastsBlazes,Zombie Pigmen,Nether Fortress,Wither Skeletons
12. Sky (The End): End Stone,Endermen,ObsidianEnder CrystalsEnder Dragon

KEYBOARD CONTROLS

Survival/Hardcore/Adventure/Creative Mode Controls
W – Front
A – Left
S – Back
D – Right
E – Use Inventory
Q – Throw Equipped Item
T – Chat/Talk
TAB – See online players on multiplayer games.
SPACE – Jump/Float
SHIFT – Crouch
Left Click – Attack/Dig(when pressed and held)
Right Click – Use Held/Pointed Item/Attack with bow(hold to use with more power)
1-9 – Equip Item in hand on boxes 1-9
Mouse Scroll Wheel – Scroll Through Items 1-9
W(double tap and hold) – Sprint (Doesn’t work if food bar is at 3 units of lower)
W(double tap and hold) + Space – Long Jump
F1 – Toggle UI
F2 – Take a Screenshot (saved at C:/Users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/.minecraft/Screenshots/)
F3 – Toggle Location and Memory details.
F4 – I don’t know. Nothing much happened when I pressed it!
F5 – Toggle Camera between First Person, Third Person and Face Viewing angle.
F6 – I don’t know what this does as well!
F7 – Nada! Not here too.
F8 – Same here Johnny! No clue.
F9 – Get Sherlock here! We still don’t know what this does!
F10 – Houston, we don’t have a clue.
F11 – FULLSCREEN! Minecraft is destined to be played fullscreen!
F12 – No clues again…

Creative Mode Only Controls

Space(Double Tap and Hold) – Fly Up/Stop Flying
Shift – Fly Down

MINECRAFT TIPS AND TRICKS!

Fighting Tips:
1.  You know how to sprint, when you want to attack something at a distance, don’t simply walk to it. You can inflict much more damage, in some cases, achieve a 1-hit kill if you sprint-attack at it. How to do it? Simple, Sprint directly towards it and attack with perfect timing, improper timing will result in you overshooting through the target or you being hit, right timing will inflict more damage and knockback, which means if you have enough of the food bar left, you can again sprint and attack if it’s not dead already.
2. When you go to a fight, always take 2 swords, since I am assuming you’re a beginner, you dont have enough Iron by now. Even if you do, always have a backup sword. You never know how many enemies you come across.
3. See an Enderman? You can do these things, If you’re alone, and it’s attacking you, either run to somewhere with plently of light, place torches as fast as you can all around you on the ground and keep sword ready, and if you really have to fight it, aim for the legs. You can piss off an enderman by looking at it with your crosshair on it. But for some reason, they scare me even in creative mode.
4. Try to use enchanted swords whenever you can. And when fighting in a team, fight back to back when surrounded. If you try to fight together, you might end up hitting each other.
5. Armor Up before a battle, if you are dead sure you’re gonna die, you should’nt be going. If you think you have a chance, armor up the best you can! Look at my damn armor!

Complete Diamond and Enchanted Equipment
Complete Diamond and Enchanted Equipment

6. This one seems important for the many of you. I see that most beginners take damage while trying to kill a creeper. There is a technique to kill it without taking damage due to explosion. Also, killing it without an explosion would drop a piece of gunpowder which with other ingredients can be used to make TNT. Here’s how to kill it.
>When you spot one/multiple creeper, focus on one while trying to stay away from others, DO NOT APPROACH them if your food bar is less than 6 cuz you’ll need to sprint in the process.
>Sprint towards the one you focused on and attack it, and immediately run backwards while facing it, carefully paying attention that there is no creeper behind you or near you and you are sufficiently away from it. Reason? When you are close to a creeper, it’ll try to explode as close to you as it can to inflict maximum damage, before exploding it’ll give you about 1-1.5 seconds and it makes a hiss-ing noise in that time, multiple failures in this will help you time your “sprint-attack” perfectly, after that, you’ll be almost always succesful, and always wear an armor before facing them, else if they explode, you’ll die in one attempt.
>When you see it stopped “hissing”, sprint forward again, notice the presence of any other present creepers and sprint at it tactically so that you can attack it, yet maintain distance from the other ones. After a couple of attempts, you’ll do it just fine.

Building tips:
1.
Never build a building too big. And even if you do, place too many torches across it. Torches help to avoid monsters. Also, if you don’t place torches well enough, monsters will spawn INSIDE your massive building, and if creepers spawn, be ready for trouble. See our building!

The Gigantic Castle we built, its only tall, not that big as we want to think.
The Gigantic Castle we built, its only tall, not that big as we want to think.

2. Build trap and killing mechanisms around your house. Like the one i’ve built. These will help you to save yourselves. The one i’ve built needs redstone to work. Read about redstone here. See, the castle is surrounded by double layer of fences!

When it is disabled.
When it is disabled.
When it is active!
When it is active!

3. Don’t stop your imagination, most real world logic doesn’t apply to minecraft, you are free you blow your minds out! P.S.- Sand and Gravel unlike every other block(except Lava and Water blocks) don’t stick in mid air.

Don't stop Imagining! Presenting out rail-roller-coaster!
Don’t stop Imagining! Presenting out rail-roller-coaster!

COMING UP NEXT!

1. More Tips and Tricks.
2. Additional Minecraft get-arounds!

Word Ruggle : Its like Wordament on Android!

Hi everyone! This time I’ve brought you an app review, for Word Ruggle!

This was suggested by my friend, Soumajeet Basu, and if you’re a fan of word games and if you’ve simply loved Wordament but don’t have a Windows device (or at least can’t regularly connected it to the internet), Word Ruggle is the game for you!

Word Ruggle has a bit different UI than Wordament, but still very similar. There’s still the swiping for words, still the 4×4 grid, still a real time online gameplay with many other players from across the globe! This app is supported across all devices! And you don’t need a high speed internet to play it, 2G works just fine.

About user experience:
Firstly, i’m using this game on the way too old Samsung Galaxy 3 GT-I5801. This device runs it, means any device can. Literally.
The game feels pretty smooth, no noticeable lags damn show processor like the one on my phone, and it doesn’t really get irritating. Now if you aren’t a fan of word games, that’s a different issue, isn’t it?

Summing it up:
Good game, nice UI, smooth functioning, engaging!

On google play:
Word Ruggle on Google Play

Here’s some screenshots:

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Tell us how you feel about this game.

How to pass your time, when you have nothing to do…

Believe me, i’m a king on this one.

The reason this post even exists is that most people would just become couch potatoes without any work. So why not do something comparatively productive that doesn’t require killing yourself?

Why you should read this?
As I said, i’m a king on this one, plus, I am lazy too, just like you!

Here we go:

1. I’ll assume you don’t want to get off your couch in the first step.
So why not do something with your TV? Discover new channels! Play the game that comes inbuilt in your TV! Watch some news! Or discovery channel! Or just explore new features of your TV and press buttons you’ve never pressed before! You might as well be very surprised!

2. Now get off your couch would you?
Get back to your bedroom. (Assuming you don’t have your TV in your bedroom, if yes, you bro, need to get a life.)
What do you see?
If you’re reading this, I assume it’s littered with clothes and gadgets and books everywhere! I don’t want to sound like your mom, but cleaning it up might actually be a good idea, turn up the music and get working, don’t think, just start cleaning, you might eventually begin you enjoy it. It works on me, though I have a feeling it won’t work on you, have a try.

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3. Be the mechanic.
Every house has something that doesn’t work and people are too busy or lazy to ever get it fixed. Now it’s your time to rise and shine! Open up that radio no one listens to, unscrew that toaster that wasn’t used in a while, a for with loose hinges, a loose tap, clogged pipes, look around! You’ll find more stuff to fix than you actually can!

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4. Time to get out and explore.
A hell lot of people worldwide have a smartphone. Smartphones have a GPS! Now use your GPS enabled application (say “Google Places” or “Google Maps”) to search footer new places of interest and actually take your cycle, bike, car or anything to check it out! Riding on a cycle is always good for your health. You can go to movies, restaurant, park, bazaar and the list goes on.

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5. Remember that friend?
Whose place you never visited? Or last visited long ago? Time to go to his place finally.
We all have people we never visited much, since you have nothing to do, you might as well pay him a visit. And perhaps do step 4 with him!

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6. Now that you’ve had a great day hanging out with friends and doing stuff, you returned home, nothing to do. Now what?
Assuming you tried all the aforementioned steps, you don’t have much household chores left. So why not try to cook? Dust off that recipe book and time to get your hands dirty!
Unless you’re ordering a pizza, try step 7.

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7. Read a book.
An old magazine, an academic book, a comic book, you do have books in your house, don’t you? Who doesn’t! If you’re a tablet, smartphone or a PC person, download a book! I’m not recommending Facebook!

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Look at all the books! I never read…

8. Follow me!
I mean, start a blog and make some posts! If you don’t want to do that, write down on a piece of paper about your day, which is equivalent to writing a diary, if you already write a diary, do that. Writing down something, your thinking, feelings, something that you just need to write is a good idea, always.

9. Do something creative.
Everyone is creative(at a range) and can suite their creative oats by doing many things like recreating a thing they saw by hand or a computer software. Well, this one is entirely up to you.

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An example from me.

10. You’ve done everything.
Now you can plug in your earphones and play your favourite music and go to sleep.

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