Every activity and event has a duration. The full-day has 24 hours of 12 hours each for night and day. Within this 24 hours, we designate certain times for specific activities. Minecraft day is modeled after this same pattern of life. Unlike in real life, The day and night cycle in Minecraft is 20 minutes. In Minecraft, mini times are assigned to different activities which are calculated quite differently and may pose challenges to understand.
As such, they need to be properly explained and broken down for ease of use and understanding.
In this piece, we are going to explore how the idea of time and day, the rise of the sun, and its setting are calculated and imitated in Minecraft.
As the name implies, Minecraft is a game for mining survival and creatively painting one's dream life with sand blocks.
The survival and creative game is however time conscious and requires the player to master its idea of time, especially day and night.
Before we go into a full exploration of the logic of the timing in Minecraft, let us point out some basics which inform the logic of the principles of Minecraft timing.
What you need to know about time in Minecraft
- Minecraft is 72 times faster than normal or real-world time.
- Nighttime can be very dangerous in Minecraft, especially for new players, and thus needs to be mastered.
- As a player, you can build your oight source using your blocks.
- Unlike the real day and night with variations in timings of day and night, the Minecraft timing is divided into two with each taking 10 minutes out of the 20 minutes.
- Minecraft timing is based upon a system of ticks, taking 24,000 ticks to make the Minecraft night and day cycle.
- Unlike in the real world, the sun and the moon revolve around the player in Minecraft and not the earth.
- Day and night can be paused in singleplayer Minecraft.
- The time of the day in Minecraft determines the background music. The player is therefore advised to be attentive to the background music.
- There are 72 whole Minecraft days stuffed into a single real-life day.
- 1 hour of Minecraft time translates to 50 seconds of real-time.
- One day of Minecraft time is 20 minutes of real-time.
- One week (7 days) of Minecraft's time equals 2.3 (2 hrs 2 mins) of real time.
- 1 second of Minecraft time equals 0.0138 seconds real time.
Daytime in Minecraft
The entire cycle of day and night in Minecraft takes 20 minutes of real world time. This is however divided into two: day and night, with both taking 10 minutes each.
The days begin at in-game 6 AM. Below is a breakdown of how the daytime runs on Minecraft.
- At 0:00 real time, which is 06:00:00.0 Minecraft time, the Minecraft day begins and villagers awaken and rise from their beds.
- At 0:50 real time, which is 07:00:00.1 Minecraft time, the time when the time set day command is used.
- At 1:40 real time, which is 08:00:00.0, villagers begin their work day.
- At 4:46.15 real time, which is 11:43:22.8 Minecraft time, the clock begins showing midday exactly.
- At 5:00 real time, which is 12:00:00.0 Minecraft time, noon begins and the sun is at its peak.
- At 7:30 real time, which is 15:00:00.0 Minecraft time, villagers end their work day and begin socializing.
- At 10:00 real time, which is 18:00:00.0 Minecraft time, villagers go to their beds and sleep.
Nighttime in Minecraft
Night reins for a total of 10 minutes real-life time also in Minecraft. Below are the possible activities within this 10 minutes of the night time.
- Night begins at 10:00.5 real time, which is 18:00:36.0. In rainy weather, beds can actually be used at this time.
- At 10:02 real time, which is 18:02.24 Minecraft time, the internal skylight level begins to decrease.
- At 10:27.1 real time, which is 18:32:31.2 Minecraft time, three things can happen. First, in clear weather, beds can be used at this time. Secondly, bees also enter the hives for the night in clear weather, and thirdly, undead mobs no longer burn in clear weather.
- At 10:30.5 of real time, which is 18:36.36 of Minecraft time, the clock shows exactly the dusk.
- At 14:52.7 of real time, which is 23:50:34.8 of Minecraft time, the clock begins to show midnight exactly.
- At 19:12.1 of real time, which is 05:02:27.6 of Minecraft time, the clock begins to show dawn exactly.
- At 19:33 of real time, which is 05:27:36.0 of Minecraft time, beds can no longer be used, bees leave their hives and undead mobs begin to burn.
- At 19:59.6 of total real time, beds can no longer be used.
Simplifying time and day in Minecraft
Because the time cycle and the effects they bring can be very confusing, especially to a new player, there is a way to simplify the whole issue of time and make it easier to be understood by the players. All that is required is for the player to make a clock using one redstone dust and four gold ingots which are are labeled dusk, midnight, Dawn and noon.
This clock is then read by watching the colours of the sky circle over to night sky and back.
This is is always very helpful, especially when a player is stucked underground, without knowing how safe it is to come out of their mines into the overworks.
However, this clock does not help at Minecraft nether or end. This is because, day and night do not exist at the Minecraft nether.
