What do you recommend for a beginner to do?
stay on the surface. get STONE, COPPER (shiny brownish red stuff), IRON (browny grey stuff) and WOOD (use axe on base of tree)
Find the NPC known as the guide and build a house by him. Press esc and build a workbench. Place it in your house.
Hopefully while you were gathering supplies you got GEL. Make torches. Stand next to workbench to make furnace.
Smelt bars, but not the copper ones (useless mang) Mix your STONE and COPPER together to make super strong copper brick. Rebuild house out of this.
congrats on your first day.
oh wait, at night stay indoors and try to stick to the surface near safety.