HELP! For Moms (and Dads) who want to play Minecraft with their kids...

This post is for you -- you brave spirits who, for the love of your children have into the wild and woolly world of Zombies, Creepers, Skeletons, and Endermen. In this world of Minecraft, your children are far more experienced in surviving and prospering. This post will point you toward sources on the web which should assist you in getting through your first and moving forward.

The first thing to understand is that Minecraft comes in two main formats -- Vanilla Minecraft and Minecraft which has been 'modded' by Bukkit pluggins.  

Next -- Minecraft has four gamemodes -- Adventure, Creative, Hardcore, and Survival.   The two most commonly played are Creative and survival. Clear and simple explanations of these four modes can be found HERE.  The Minecraft Wiki provides a little more detail about this. This particular Gameplay wiki provides a table of the various qualities the pertain to each of the various gamemodes.

The mode of the particular world you are playing on will be listed in the title when you first enter in. That mode is selected by the creator of that world whether that creator is you or someone else. The good news is that you can CHANGE that gamemode if necessary -- you can see how to do so on THIS Youtube Video.

If you choose to play to play your initial game of Minecraft on a survival world (and you will find, oh innocent ones, that most Children will start their parents on survival worlds -- which, I admit, can be a lot of fun, once you figure out how to survive them!) the most important thing to know is how to survive your first night. There are many, many stories told of people who built themselves tiny dirt rooms and hid the night therein -- only to discover a hard Minecraft truth... Monsters love to spawn in the dark! So... to help you out, I have dug up a few guides to surviving your first night... and here they are:

How-to-survive-your-first-night-in-Minecraft-in-only 11 steps 

minecraft-worlds-ultimate-survival-guide-part-1

minecraft-starter-guide-extra-survival-tips/

These guides progress from simples -- only 11 steps -- to more complex (The last one, for example, presumes that you have created your own world.) I will leave you now to explore your first night for in Minecraft, as in so much of life, the best learning occurs through doing. I will return for another episode with new ideas and suggestions on what you might want to try in this wonderful and amazing world/game of Minecraft. Welcome and have fun, my fellow crafters!