How to Make a Minecraft Board Game

My two boys are Minecraft mad. For our oldest’s 9th birthday, he wanted to have a Minecraft party at home. So we got creative & started planning some Minecraft themed games for the kids to play.

Our son has an amazing imagination & came up with the idea of a Minecraft board game. We played the game at the party & loads of times since as it was a big success! Before the party, I had the board laminated to keep it safe from spills & other mishaps.

Rules of the Game

1. Each player chooses a Minecraft toy to use for the game. Place your toy on the Start box.

2. Player 1 rolls a single dice & moves the appropriate amount of spaces.

3.  If the space you land on is blank, the dice pass to the next player to take their turn. If there is a drawing on the space, follow the steps for that action.

4.  Action Spaces

a. Creeper – a green fellow who is troublesome in Minecraft. Take a creeper card & do what it says, return the card to the bottom of the pile. If you have a diamond, you put your diamond back in the diamond container rather than taking a creeper card as the diamond protects you from creepers.

b. Chest – take a chest card, some have good results & others are negative so keep your fingers crossed! Return the card to the bottom of the pile after reading.

c. Diamond – take a diamond. A diamond protects you from creepers. If you land on a creeper space & have a diamond, you put your diamond back in the chest rather than taking a creeper card.

d.  Minecart – if you land directly on a minecart space, you take a ride on the cart to the end of the rails. Note if you land on the rails, you don’t move forward, you stay on that space. You must land directly on the minecart itself to ride the rails.

e.  The first player to reach the finish space wins the game. There are two variations on how to finish depending on whether you want the game to carry on or finish quickly.

a. Short version – any roll of the dice that is equal to or greater than the spaces into the finish lets you land on the finish to win the game.

b. Long version – you must roll the exact amount of spaces to finish the game. If you roll-over the exact amount you move into finish then bounce backwards the remaining spaces. (This can carry on for a while, you’ve been warned).

Materials

1 Sheet of A2 White Card (you can use a smaller card if you prefer a smaller board)

A leftover cereal box or any kind of cardboard

1 sheet of plain white paper

A sharpie marker, pencil & child-friendly colours

Scissors

Glue stick

To play the game you need some Minecraft toys, dice & something to act as your diamonds. We happened to have a treasure chest of gemstones which worked perfectly for our diamonds.

Steps

1. Draw the boxes on your board with a pencil first. When you are happy with it, go over the lines with a sharpie marker. I recommend a parent do this part. Our boxes are 2″ x 3″ with the start & finish slightly bigger. We also drew two boxes for the creeper & chest cards to sit.

2. Draw your action spaces – Creeper, Chest, Diamond & Minecart. Space the action spots around the board & colour them in. Our son drew everything on the board except the spaces themselves. I traced his work with the sharpie.

3. Our son drew some Minecraft action scenes around the board which really brought it to life!

4. Make the action cards using cardboard & paper. Glue the sheet of paper onto the spare cardboard leaving the brown / blank side of the cardboard on the outside. Cut out 16 squares. Ours are roughly 2″ x 1 3/4 “. We wrote “chest” or “creeper” on the paper side & the instructions on the cardboard side. We made 8 chest cards & 8 creeper cards.

5. Write out the instructions for the creeper & chest cards on the cardboard side & draw a creeper or chest on the paper side.

a.  The chest cards are a mix of good & bad things. Ours say the following: go to the nearest creeper & take a creeper card, go back 3 spaces, go to the nearest diamond space & take a diamond & go forward 5 spaces. We have two of some of the cards & we have variations on how many spaces you move forward or backwards.

b.  The creeper cards are all bad. They all tell you to go back so many spaces, ours range between 1 – 5 spaces.

We had just as much fun making the game & creating the rules as we do playing the game. Keep in mind this is how we made our board game but feel free to modify the rules & materials to suit yourself. Be creative & have fun making your game! If you make one, I’d love to see it! Tweet me your photos to @CuddleFairy or message me on Facebook & I’ll share them! x

Check out our Minecraft birthday party ideas for more Minecraft fun! x