Build with Shapes

Up to now everything's been a full cube — solid, square, one block. Lovely for walls, but a house needs more than walls. Let's meet the shaped blocks: slabs for steps, stairs you can walk up, and a door that actually opens. They're what turn a box into somewhere you'd want to live.

The one thing to hold onto: with these, where you click matters. A full cube goes down the same way every time. A shaped block remembers which way it faces — so you aim it by where and how you place it. You'll get the feel in a minute.

Grab a few to play with

Open the chat with T (or /) and type these in:

/give slab
/give stairs
/give door

(You can craft them too — three stone in a row makes slabs, stone in a staircase shape makes stairs, and a 2-wide, 3-tall block of oak planks makes a door. The recipe book shows you the shapes. But /give is quicker while you're finding your feet.)

Lay a slab — half a block

Look at the top of a block and place a slab. See? It only fills the bottom half. Now look at the underside of a block above you and place one — it clings to the ceiling instead. Aim at the middle of a side and it stands up on its edge.

That's the whole trick: a slab fills the half nearest where you pointed. Steps, ledges, half-height walls — all just slabs, placed where you looked.

Run some stairs

Face the way you want to walk up, and place a stair. The step appears facing you. Stack a few — up and along, up and along — and you've got a staircase you can stroll straight up. No jumping needed.

Hang a door

Stand in your doorway and place a door — mind your head, it's two blocks tall. Now right-click it. Open. Right-click again — shut. Walk through while it's open; try while it's shut and you'll bump your nose. That's a real door, doing a real door's job.

Pop a second door right beside the first and they swing open together — a proper double doorway.

You did it. That's the backbone of building sorted. When you fancy more, there are fence gates for your garden, trapdoors for hatches, glass panes that join into windows, and signs you can write on — they all work by the same two ideas you just learned: place it where you want it, and right-click the ones that move.