In both indev and infdev modes, press I to bring up your inventory. There's a little 2x2 box above your inventory for crafting. Depending on the materials and the patterns you use, you can make different objects. First thing you'll need is a crafting table. Get some wood, drop some logs onto the crafting grid, you'll see that you can make four wooden planks for each log.
Put one plank into each slot to make a crafting table. X's are planks.
XX
XX
You can also turn the planks into sticks by placing one plank above another.
X-
X-
Place the table somewhere, and right click it. You'll see another crafting area, but a bit bigger, 3x3. Now you can make various tools with this. You'll want something a bit stronger than just wooden tools, so start by making a wooden pick, and mining some rock. You can make a wooden shovel, too... but digging doesn't take too long with your bare hands. The recipes make a bit of visual sense when you make them.
You'll need two sticks, and three planks for a pick. /'s are sticks.
XXX
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Other materials can be used to replace the planks to make picks of that material instead, such as stone, metal, gold, or diamond. Gold is soft, and no better than wood. At this time, it doesn't have much use other than making blocks of it for building.
shovel
-X-
-/-
-/-
hoe
XX-
-/-
-/-
axe
XX-
X/-
-/-
sword
-X-
-X-
-/-
Eventually you'll want to make a box to store stuff, and a furnace to smelt the metal you find... Both are the same recipe, but the box is made out of planks, the furnace out of stone.
XXX
X-X
XXX
You'll need fuel for the furnace as well. You can use wood or coal. Coal burns for much longer, but is harder to find. Since trees can be planted from the shrubs you find, and grow after a couple days.. it might be a better idea to save your coal for torches.
torch, O is the coal
O-
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Better materials are faster at doing their job, and last longer. You'll find that the most abundant material, by far.. is stone. There's plenty more recipes too, and I'm sure more will be made later. The ones I've provided are enough to give you a good start. Also, keep in mind that "abusing" a tool will cause it to degrade faster. Axes are for chopping down trees, swords are for fighting. Shovels are for dirt, picks are for stone and metal. The hoe can be used to farm (right click on dirt or grass, you'll need to get some seeds, and grain needs to grow on soil that's moist.. seeds can be found occasionally in grass).
The "indev" mode is more complete than "inFdev".. and has the mobs that spawn and everything. inFdev, on the other hand, has the huge maps with the more complex terrain generation. Both are fun for their own reasons. As for indev, the mobs spawn in the dark.. torches are handy for your mines.. but you'll need to hole up somewhere during the night.
edit:
In fact, if more interest in the game surfaces, might not be a bad idea to start another thread.
