Going All In Underground in Minecraft

One of the coolest things about Minecraft is that if you plan correctly, you can spend almost the entire game underground. You’ll miss out on a lot of the “above ground” activities, but the added challenge of surviving without access to the resources you’ll find on the surface gives the game an interesting twist.

I decided to give it a try with a brand new survival mode game. Of course, you always spawn above ground, so I decided to give myself the following challenge: spend only the first day above ground, and then head deep underground when night fell, never to let a ray of sunshine touch me again. I’m going to give myself an easy “out” which is that I can return to the surface at night, but only if I really need to. So I guess I’m playing as a vampire…or zombie!

Here’s where I spawned, out in a field with some flowers by the ocean.

Over in the distance, the sun is rising over a village. That will help with getting some easy starting resources, especially if I can find some chests in those houses.

The main thing I’ll need to survive underground is wood. You can grow trees from saplings underground if you have a light source and plenty of space (more on that a little later), but I’ll need plenty of wood to start. So the first thing I’m going to do is chop down as many trees as I can.

Here’s an overhead view of the village. If I have time, I’ll ransack those houses for supplies. Something interesting caught my eye. If you look in the distance, there’s a desert pyramid! I won’t have time to go explore it before nightfall, but later on I can dig a long tunnel to it and try to access the treasure room from underground. Ambitious, but possible!

The other thing you need to survive underground for a long time is animals. The easiest starting animal to bring with you is a chicken. You can tame chickens with seeds, which you get just by harvesting grass. Chickens also lay eggs, and when you throw those eggs, there’s a small chance of hatching a baby chicken. So they’re very easy to breed with limited resources and you have a nice steady food supply underground.

So before the sun sets, I wander off to find some chickens and will lure them back to the village.

Now I’m back at the village and the day is coming to an end. The sun is starting to set in the Western sky, so I decide where I want to start digging my underground cave. This looks like a really nice spot! A curious villager is watching me. He probably wonders why I’m digging a cave underneath his house. It all looks suspicious!

Night has fallen and I’ve got the basic beginning to my cave. My chicken friends are here with me and we’re off to a great start on our underground adventure.

 The next project is to build an underground wheat farm. You don’t need sunlight to grow crops in Minecraft. Any light source will do. You don’t even need water, but a simple water source will help the crops grow faster.

I found an underground waterfall and then used an iron bucket to transfer the water up to my farm. I made a class 9x9 farm plot with a single block of water in the center. I carved out the stone floor and replaced it with a layer of dirt to plant the crops.

While I’m waiting for the crops to grow, I decided to dig further down below ground to see what I could find. I got very lucky and found an abandoned mineshaft very close by. These are great for a number of reasons. First, it’s a nearly endless supply of wood! And although they can be dangerous and filled with mobs (especially creepers!), there are usually a few wooden chests in mine carts lying around. There’s always a chance for some good loot!

I decided to suit up in iron armor to do some exploring and of course I ran into all kinds of trouble. This very unfriendly skeleton was trying to make a point with his bow and arrow.

He managed to stick it to me a few times, but I introduced him to the wonderful world of lava. Burn, skeleton, burn!

Finally, remember back when I started this world, I spotted a desert temple? Well, after digging a very long tunnel, I arrived there from beneath. It took a few tries to find the exact spot, but I was able to enter the treasure room from underneath! I scored some really nice loot, including diamonds, emeralds, a saddle, and even diamond and gold horse armor. Too bad there aren’t any horses underground!