Nick Farwell

This is the 3rd book in the Schoolastic Minecraft handbook series and this one focuses on building, my personal favorite aspect of the game. Intriguingly written by Matthew Needler and Phil Southam, two members of the FyreUK team who are well-known in the Minecraft community for their amazing builds.

It gives you step-by-step instructions for various simple builds, like houses, ships, and castle walls, and then shows some extreme examples of some of the over-the-top things people have built show more online. I admit I was expecting something a bit different going into it, I thought it would give more practical advice about how to use different items to add depth and detail to buildings, but it was mostly step-by-step guides for replicating the builds in the book.

It was still interesting, and more importantly, it did inspire to jump back into Minecraft immediately after finishing the book and begin a new construction project, which is what a "construction handbook" should probably do. show less

I've played Minecraft for a awhile now, but one of the few things that still baffles me is redstone. It's a mechanic in the game that basically works like electrical wiring, and you can use it to do amazing things. I can only do the most basic things, like rigging a door to open with a lever or button, but people all over the world have made some crazy stuff with redstone, like clocks and stopwatches that accurately keep time, actual minigames within the game of Minecraft, a calculator, and show more even a full functional computer. Yes, a computer, within a game, on your computer.

This guide is divided into 3 sections. The first covers the basics of redstone, how it works, how to make the blocks, and some basic redstone mechanics. The second section offers some basic builds with step-by-step instructions so you can recreate yourself in game, such as lights that turn on automatically when the sun sets, and a cannon that shoots TNT. The final section shows some of the crazy community builds I mentioned above, a few little insights into how they work, with pictures showing how utterly complex they are.

I'll admit, I'm still befuddled by redstone. It's simple really, like I said, it's just like electrical wire, but the intricacies are still quite a bit beyond my understanding. Nevertheless, as a guide, this was useful and educational, and I'm definitely a little bit more knowledgeable about redstone now. Kind of. show less

The Minecraft combat handbook covers everything combat related. It offers a lot of statistics for armor, weapons, and enemies, as well as offering details on the games two of the games three bosses: the Wither and the Ender Dragon. The book was published before the Elder Guardian was released. It also covers PVP situations, and how to effectively fight against other human characters in multiplayer, and it also gives a couple step-by-step guides for building traps for you base, including an show more exploding tree trap that I wasn't actually familiar with.

As I've said about these books in the past, because they are books, they become outdated fast, especially since the game is constantly updating. Not only that, but I noticed it lacked some important details. For example, when describing how to build an enchantment table to enchant equipment, it failed to mention how to surround it with bookshelves to allow for more powerful enchantments. It also didn't mention how to add redstone and glowstone dust to potions to increase their potency. It also offers do's and don'ts for each mob, but the most major don't ever for a skeleton is to not fight it in water, which is not what the book says for the "don't" on that page.

It's still nice to have a compendium of all the enemies in the game, and for that reason this one is probably the most fun to just flip through on a whim. As for the information, I'd recommend finding a wiki page for something more up-to-date. show less

I actually got this book for my 9yo son who is so crazy about Minecraft. At first I don't actually understand this game but when I tried playing it, it was interesting,addicting and fun. This book contains tips and strategies that are easy to understand for a 9 yo kid, its illustration also provided more guide for every players. Knowing more tips from this book surely will make one player ahead of another, and with lots of strategies to know youll definite level up faster in your game. Great show more guide. show less