Guide for new players

See also: Progression, Advancements

This guide for new players explains how to begin a world in Matcha Flavoured. It follows the Tutorial advancements, which the pack itself recommends checking when lost: "If you get lost or confused, check the advancements". The README adds that stuck players should also look at the recipes they cannot craft yet, since recipes unlock as items are picked up.

Before starting

• Install the pack as both a datapack and a resource pack. On loading, chat shows "Matcha Flavoured is now loaded". See Installation.
• Choose the difficulty with care. On Easy, maximum health never falls below 10 hearts and the Wither effect takes no hearts. On Normal, deaths cost more as the player progresses, and the world switches to Hard once any player's minimum hearts reaches 5. Hard is, in the developer's words, "meant to be unfair". The pack only reads the difficulty when the world loads, so a change takes effect after a reload.
• Differences that matter immediately: there is no hunger and no natural regeneration, so the player heals mainly by eating; the inventory is kept on death, but maximum health drops by a heart (two on Hard); zombies are fast; days and nights last three times as long; unlit places are pitch black (true darkness); and there are no stone tools.

Step by step

1. Fire

Punch a tree. Picking up logs unlocks the recipes for sticks, chests made from logs and kindling (2 sticks above 2 logs of any kind). Kindling is crafted and placed unlit. Craft tinder from 2 sticks and a piece of short grass, fern or bush, and use it on the kindling. This grants Prometheus be Damned. Tinder breaks after one use; a fire starter (2 flint, which comes from gravel) lasts longer.

2. A wooden hoe and dry grass

Craft a wooden hoe. Grass broken by hand drops nothing. Broken with a hoe, it drops itself, or wheat grain instead 12.5% of the time; shears also collect it. Cook short grass or ferns on the lit kindling (10 seconds each) to get short dry grass (Harvester). The kindling is also the first cooking station: many ingredients gain their intrinsic effects when cooked on it (Powerful Flavors). Food is the only way to heal, so cook early and often.

3. The mud kiln

Craft short dry grass with dirt into packed mud (one of each makes one), turn 4 packed mud into 4 mud bricks, and build a mud kiln from 4 mud bricks, 2 packed mud and a kindling (Ancient Technology).

4. Copper

A wooden pickaxe mines limestone, coal and native copper, but gets nothing from deepslate or from iron, gold, silver, diamond or sulfur ores. Smelt raw copper in the kiln (Brazier) and make copper tools and armor. Copper is the first real metal, and the developer wants players to spend time with it. A copper mattock or dolabra saves hotbar space (Two in One). Obtaining a copper ingot also lowers the player's minimum hearts for the first time (see Death#Minimum hearts).

5. Stone and the blast furnace

The kiln turns cobblestone into limestone and limestone into smooth stone (Mason). With a copper pickaxe, mine deepslate and craft 4 cobbled deepslate into 4 polished deepslate. A blast furnace takes 4 polished deepslate, 2 smooth stone and a kindling (Burgeoning Metallurge).

6. Iron, gold, silver and diamonds

Copper tools mine hematite (iron) and native silver, but not native gold or diamond ore; iron tools mine everything except obsidian. Raw iron, raw gold, raw silver and raw diamond (what diamond ore drops) can only be smelted in the blast furnace. The first iron ingot and the first diamond each lower minimum hearts again, as do entering Hell, finding a stronghold and obtaining electrum or adamant alloy. Progressing slowly keeps deaths cheaper, so there is no need to rush.

7. The oven and meals

Clay balls cooked on the kindling or in the kiln become bricks, and 4 bricks craft 2 blocks of bricks. An oven takes 4 blocks of bricks, 3 iron ingots and a kindling (Now You're Cooking). Five bricks also make 4 bowls (Manners First), which the curries and ramen, the pack's strongest meals, are served in. See Food and Cooking.

8. Steel and smithing

Craft 4 iron ingots with a block of coal into 4 carbon-rich iron and blast each into a steel alloy. Two steel and 4 planks make the smithing table, and 3 steel and 4 iron ingots make the anvil, which repairs equipment without limit. From here the player can apply alloys to equipment. See Smithing.

9. Magic materials and Hell

Most magic is built on stabilized Estus, crafted from 7 Estus ash, a benzene and a stable void (the pack's ender pearl). Estus ash comes from undead: skeletons and witches drop it, and raw Estus from zombies turns into it when picked up, healing the player. Endermen always drop a stable void when killed by a player. Benzene needs a glass bottle, 3 hellspore and a sulfur chunk, so the first one requires a trip to Hell. Entering Hell lowers minimum hearts (Orpheus).

10. Blessings and warding

Stabilized Estus and another benzene make a hell-bound book, which is surrounded with themed ingredients to craft a blessing with fixed enchantments. There is no enchanting table; see Enchanting. Stabilized Estus is also the core of the warding stone, which burns undead and heals villagers and pets around a base. See Warding.

11. The End

One stabilized Estus and one divine fragment craft 16 eyes of ender, more than a portal needs. Divine fragments come from spawners and strong mobs, so break spawners found along the way. Finding a stronghold lowers minimum hearts for the last time (The End of Dreams).

12. After the dragon

The first time each player kills the Ender Dragon, a divine favor appears above the exit portal, and hostile mobs stop spawning on the Overworld surface for good. A divine favor breaks into 9 divine fragments. The Wither also drops one and is the renewable source, but it can only be summoned on the Overworld surface. Fragments go into crystal hearts, more eyes of ender and adamant alloy (4 adamant scrap, 4 gold ingots and a fragment), which upgrades diamond gear. Adamant scrap comes from ancient debris, bastion chests and piglin brutes.

Tips

• Sacks (shulker boxes) are available early: 8 sturdy leather around a chest.
• Divine fragments come from breaking spawners and defeating strong mobs. They are needed for eyes of ender (1 fragment and 1 stabilized Estus make 16) and crystal hearts (1 fragment and 8 diamonds), so break spawners rather than farming them. The README says simply: "Break Spawners!"
• In the Overworld, only undead mobs can spawn under the open sky; creepers and spiders spawn underground. See Spawning. Warding items such as a held nazar hurt the undead.
• Raw Estus, dropped by undead, heals the player the moment it is picked up.
• Obols are rare. Most villagers do not buy anything, but the fisherman buys caught fish. Villagers are not found in villages, which are abandoned; they come from asylum seeker applications sold by the wandering trader.
• Carry food suited to the trip: the developer suggests melons for Hell, glow berries or carrots for caves, and chorus fruit for the End.
• Cold water in snowy biomes is freezing: keep the head above it.
• There is no rush to reach the End. After the dragon is killed, the surface becomes safe from hostile mobs.