Learn how to do anything: How to Play Sky Block in Minecraft

Have you gotten bored with playing MineCraft in Survival or on a Server? Or do you want to play a challenging custom map? Well Sky Block can provide a truly challenging and unique game mode to MineCraft.

Steps

Visit the official Skyblock forum page and download the most recent version. http://ift.tt/K8yLaR

Unzip the save file in the save file folder of the .minecraft folder.

Load the Sky Block World.

Use the "sneak" mode to avoid walking off the edge of the world unintentionally. Hold down the shift key as you move around to engage the "sneak" mode.

Gather wood and saplings from the first tree. No saplings = no more trees, so if you do not collect at least one sapling from your first tree, you will need to start over.

You can improve your chances of catching saplings by using a few dirt blocks from your top layer to expand the platform out and around the bottom of the tree.

Plant a sapling on a block of dirt furthest from your spawn corner. This will keep the tree away from your lava and prevent loss of a tree (and apples and saplings) to a fire later.

Harvest wood and saplings each time the tree matures... replant the sapling and use the wood for more tools, charcoal, etc.

Use the wood from your tree to craft a work bench. Craft a wooden pickaxe. Be careful to reserve two wood blocks (don't turn them into planks) to create your first charcoal later.

Create a 2X2 water pool from the two ice blocks in your supply chest. You should have enough dirt to create a 2x2 pool, but you can use plank blocks on the side which will be furthest from your lava if necessary. This will create a never ending water supply since any bucket pulled from this pool is replenished automatically.

Create a cobblestone generator. One of the simplest methods is to dig a hole 4 blocks long and the second block 2 blocks deep.Now put a bucket of water on the end with the 2 deep hole and lava on the other end.
- To make a basic cobble generator do it in this form:
- D-W-S-S-L-D
- D-S-D-D-S-D
- D=Dirt, W=Water, S=air space, L=Lava
- An alternate, more compact generator can be made as follows: (D=Dirt block, A= Air block, W= Water and L=Lava)
- A-A-W-C-L-D
- D-W-W-D-A-D
- D-D-D-D-D-D

"Mine" the cobblestone from your generator, using the stone to create a furnace/kiln and better pickaxes to replace the original wooden one when it breaks.
- You can combine your water source and your cobblestone generator if you wish.

Craft a furnace/kiln from eight cobblestone and burn one block of wood using the second reserved block of wood as fuel to get your first charcoal. Craft torches.

Use sticks and some of the string from the supply chest to craft a fishing rod. With the fishing rod and your furnace, you can keep yourself fed while waiting for your garden to produce.

Continue to generate and harvest cobblestone. Once you have a supply of cobblestone, extend your platform to the bottom of the island and collect the dirt, taking care not to mess up the cobble generator.
- NOTE: If you craft cobblestone slabs, you can double the surface area you can create with the same amount of raw material. This slab method also has the advantages of preventing mobs from spawning in dimly lit areas.
- NOTE: You have only a limited number of dirt blocks. One way to avoid losing dirt blocks is to create a platform or "tray" underneath your sky block to catch anything that falls off the top.
- You can do this by opening a one block hole in your cobblestone and placing a bucket of water into it, creating a waterfall that you can swim down through.
- Drop down and place 4 blocks of cobblestone in a column/tower going down. Swim back up for air, then drop back down through the water to place a single block perpendicular to your column at the bottom of your column directly under your original hole... and swim back up.
- Hop out of the water, pick up the water with the bucket.
- Place a ladder and drop back down to the bottom perpendicular block you placed and build/expand a lower level or "tray" 4 blocks below your original skyblock.
- "Tray" expanding below the main level. This can be left dark as a mob spawner or lit to prevent mobs at the players discretion.

Consider creating a mob spawner by building a platform with no lighting. This will give you access to mob drops such as string, bones (bone meal for gardening), specialized tools, etc.

Consider creating a "pasture" 24 blocks away from your main work area in order to spawn animals for food and other resources.

The rest is up to you, expand your land, build a house ...

Skyblock ends when either you have completed all the challenges, or are unable to go any further without cheating.

Have fun.

Joining Skyblock servers

Open minecraft.exe (if on Windows).

Click Login.

When you get to the main menu, click Multiplayer.

Click Direct Connect.

Type in the server address box

Enjoy playing on skyblock servers.

Make sure to make some friends to help on your journey!

Tips

If you are unfamiliar with cobblestone generators, look up some designs so you don't accidentally turn your lava into obsidian.

Cover water to prevent it from freezing up or leave a torch next to it. Any "roof" over the water will accomplish this. You can also use a "roof" to keep your garden areas free from snow in cold biomes.

In 1.0 and later, animals spawn over 24 blocks from your location, so don't get your hopes up on using them for food/resources. Instead build a dark room mob grinder for string to make wool, and use your farm to make bread.

Leave a patch of grass until you are able to make a farm area as you need it to gather seeds and spawn farm animals. You can always grow grass along dirt to move it later. Note that you will need to build a platform covered in dirt at least 24 blocks away from your main platform for the animals to spawn. Light it well to prevent hostile mobs. Place a 5x5 (minimum) dirt/grass patch and wait. Kill off any unhelpful mobs (horses and donkeys are unusable, as they require saddles which are unavailable in Skyblock) to allow edible/useful mobs to spawn in their stead. Sheep are especially nice because they drop both wool (bed!) and mutton (food!).

Warnings

Mobs spawn 24 blocks away from the player, so light the platform as you expand it to prevent mobs from ruining your day.

Keep your bucket safe, you can not get another bucket.

Conditions for being unable to continue are:
- Having no saplings for trees
- Having no way of getting seeds(no grass)
- Losing too much dirt(no farm or trees)
- Losing the sand(no glass or cactus farm)
- Losing the lava source by turning it into obsidian