Stop mining, stop crafting!

There’s a lot going on here that’s been crammed into a short video, so I got spikyhedgey to break it down for me. “I knew I had to find and loot villages to get most of my armour and tools, as I couldn't mine any ores to craft them,” he says. So far so good. “I found that shipwrecks are really good for getting iron without mining.” He also used TNT found in those poor washed-up ships to break into desert temples, a rich source of golden apples and more iron.

But there’s a better trick for blowing things up. When he needed to use wood, he’d lure a creeper over to a tree and, sure enough, BOOM! No need to waste TNT.

“I knew I needed a bucket,” spikyhedgey continued “so that I could pick up and place lava and water to make obsidian for the nether portal. I managed to find one in a village, but I needed flint and steel to light the portal.” 

But how to get the flint? Creepers to the rescue again! “I learned during this challenge that you can use a creeper explosion to drop flint from gravel.” Then it was time for a quick trip into the nether to get blaze rods.

“I managed to get lucky and have enough iron to make a full set of iron armour, and enough diamonds to make a diamond sword,” spikyhedgey says. That made killing blazes not too dangerous. But what about destroying the end crystals that keep the ender dragon alive? Hedgey says he got lucky there, too. “I managed to fish up an enchanted bow with infinity and unbreaking enchantments on it, so I didn’t have to worry about running out of arrows.”

Finally, after following the eyes of ender to the stronghold, he was ready to fight the dragon – with just one more trick up his sleeve. “I made sure I had a water bucket for the end fight because the dragon sometimes launches you really high and I managed to use the water to stop fall damage. It took some time but I was able to beat the ender dragon without mining.”

Okay, sure, that’s impressive. But what about the other way he beat Minecraft? How did he complete the game with...

NO CRAFTING

“I got even luckier in this playthrough compared to the no mining one,” spikyhedgey says. “I found tools right near the start and six obsidian blocks. My plan was to use villager trading to get the tools and armour I needed to beat the game.” 

It’s fair to say that plan worked. He soon came across a schmuck lovely, generous villager willing to trade ten clay for an emerald. So naturally, spikyhedgey got ‘as many emeralds as I could.” Then he swapped his gem abundance for a nice full set of iron armour and a stock of axes for whacking mobs.

Some of the tricks from his no-mining run came in handy, particularly thievery. “I managed to get a bucket from a village again and used it on a lava pool I found to make the base of the nether portal, and I used the six obsidian I found in villages to make the rest of the portal.”

But without the ability to craft flint and steel, spikyhedgey had to turn to a less controlled method of firestarting. “I put some wood logs around the base of the portal and allowed them to catch fire from the lava, eventually lighting up the portal.”

Since he couldn’t craft a rod to fish up another lucky bow, he wanted to use snowballs to knock out the end crystals. Sadly, this plan was foiled because he couldn’t craft a shovel either. “I ended up killing skeletons,” he says, “but I didn’t get many arrows, only about 40. So in the ender dragon fight I had to wait for it to land and attack it that way.”

Spikyhedgey says that the ender dragon fights were the biggest challenges, along with all the exploring to find villagers to steal from! It took about three and a half hours to complete the no-mining challenge, and four and a half to win without crafting. That’s a long time, but pretty quick if you think about all the steps he had to go through to gather items that would have been difficult even for normal players.

When I ask him why he took on these huge challenges, his response is very casual. “I hadn't played single-player survival for a bit and wanted to try something different to a normal playthrough,” he explains. “Also I thought it would make a cool video.”

It certainly did! Makes me wonder what he’ll do for his next challenge. Complete Minecraft without even moving? Actually, please don’t achieve that. My poor jaw can’t take it…

Spikyhedgey wasn’t the first to beat Minecraft without mining/crafting, and he won’t be the last! Why don’t you give it a try?