Day one of The Great Race!, Michael Deering's December 2014 Minecraft Hardcore Challenge. The goal is simple to say: head east, and finish the month farther east than everyone else playing the same seed, back on the line the race is measured along. The rules make it harder. Animals are off limits, except one that may be killed for a holiday meal. No beds to skip the night, the Nether is allowed, and each episode is one Minecraft day and night. Structures are turned off, so there are no villages to raid. Basket plays alone, in hardcore on Minecraft 1.8.1.
A start in the snow
The world opens on a snowy plain under brown hills. Basket punches a spruce for wood, makes a crafting table and a wooden pickaxe, then digs straight into the stone underfoot for cobble and coal. Stone tools come next, and two pieces of gravel. "I don't anticipate needing more than one gravel, so I'll grab two." With an axe, a pickaxe and a sword made, Basket checks the heading and sets off. "Pretty sure east should be this way. Yep."
Walking, not sprinting
Food is the worry. Sprinting would cover more ground, but it burns hunger, so Basket walks. "I'm really tempted to sprint." A pumpkin goes into the inventory in case it's handy later. Basket also keeps an eye out for drop-offs hidden in the snow.
The snow gives way to a forest, and pigs wander through it. None of them can be touched, and even if one died by accident, its drops couldn't be eaten. Basket explains the one exception and already has a plan for it: a cow, for the steak and the leather.
Zombies under the trees
Two zombies turn up in the forest at once. One comes at Basket burning in the sun, and Basket finishes it off for the Monster Hunter achievement. Breaking leaves turns up apples. "More apples, good." Basket takes a careful peek at a skeleton in the trees and moves on without a fight. Later a chicken causes a scare: "This chicken is scaring me. He sounds like the baby zombie feet."
Down before dark
With the sun going down, Basket makes torches, finds a small cave on the plains, seals it with cobble and starts a staircase down. Underground there's no sky to watch, so the end of the day becomes a guess. Food is two zombie flesh and two apples. Basket smelts a little iron and makes an iron pickaxe right away, for the speed. The Nether is on Basket's mind, but a portal without diamonds needs a bucket of water.
Diamonds, and coordinates on camera
Deep down, tunneling east, iron shows up in the wall, then diamonds. "Oh yeah, diamonds." The rules say anyone who finds diamonds has to show where, so Basket puts the coordinates on screen. The count is six. Three go into a diamond pickaxe. The other three could become an enchanting table, but that needs a book, and the leather has to come from that one cow.
Guessing the sunset
Basket goes on mining: more iron, redstone, gold and lapis. "I haven't traveled too far east yet, but I'm just getting my stuff ready so I can survive longer." Basket goes looking for the skeleton heard earlier, hoping for bones, and comes up empty. "Where are you? It's pretty quiet." Then Basket calls the day by guesswork and says the next episode will make up any difference once the sun is visible again.
The episode ends with a third-person look at Basket in the tunnel, holding the new pickaxe, alive and at full health. The credits roll after that, with no gameplay after them.