Naming Minecraft Goats and Bunnies

When Jack started playing Minecraft a few years ago, I gave it some attention, because parents are supposed to show interest in their child's hobbies. Sometimes I'd watch him create stuff. Often I'd look at his finished creations. One time I went through a maze he created, and that taught me some of the basic keyboard skills for the game. I saw Minecraft as a valuable and fun creative tool, but I didn't see it as something I'd personally want to play. Then I started learning more about the other mode of playing.—Survival. You enter the game with nothing. You find materials. You use the materials to build stuff that's needed as protection from zombies, giant spiders, skeletons, and creepers (mobs that sneak up on you and explode). The zombies caught my attention. I was really into The Walking Dead at the time, and I loved the idea of being alone in my virtual world trying  to survive.

I've been playing the game for the past couple of years. Then in the past month or so, my game ...crashed? I don't know what you call it. But it's reset itself and sent me back to my original spawning point. The first time was annoying. The second time was very annoying. The third time was intolerable. I didn't have the heart to start again, so I decided to give up for awhile.

I then wondered if I should maybe try using creative mode. I mean I've tried it before in very small doses...with Jack. But I never did a project on my own.

This week I decided to try it. What I was excited about was using the mods Jack had installed for me a few months ago. One of them is called Mo'Creatures. It comes with a huge variety of animals...not many traditional Australian ones, unfortunately.

I'm not good at building buildings in Minecraft. I make rudimentary shelters in my survival games. The houses are far from impressive.

I decided I would skip that in creative mode and instead spawn a bunch of animals and make a park. I planted trees and flowers. I spawned birds, bunnies, goats, fish, butterflies, bees, dragonflies, etc.  The fun thing about Mo'Creatures is you can name the animals if you manage to make them your pet. It's easy to make bunnies your pet. You just click on them. So I decided in memory of my beloved days in Summer Bay, I'd name a bunch of rabbits after Home and Away characters. Then the next day I spawned a bunch of goats and named them after Prime Ministers.

I never imagined I would like playing Minecraft Creative Mode, but yesterday I spent....I think over three hours playing. In a way I felt like I wasted time. But then, in a way, I really didn't.  If you're having fun and you're using your imagination, maybe that's a really good use of time.

And I didn't just sit there spawning animals and naming them after real and fictional Australians. I started getting into the whole building thing—making various structures. Not buildings, really. It was more along the lines of statues and fountains.

What I'm not proud of, is the fact that I participated in some major animal cruelty. I decided it would be nice to have some large animals. I made a structure of wood and glass for some big cats. Then I spawned the cats and they were bigger than I remembered. There's two tigers in a house that's too small for them. But it's not like I can move them. I would have to kill them.

The same thing happened when I made the crocodile house, the underground bear structure, and the shark tank.

The worse is, I decided to train a baby elephant—make it my pet. But I forgot that you can't specify the age of the elephant you want. You get what you get. I didn't get babies. And you can't train the adults. I felt it wasn't appropriate or safe for a park to have wild elephants roaming freely about. And I definitely didn't have room left for a structure. I slaughtered them.

That's all very bad.

But I will say this. I was making an Arthur Fadden goat. I accidentally misspelled the name. And you can't go back and change it. I had my eyes on perfection, so I started killing the goat. But then I stopped myself and healed the goat's injuries with wheat seeds. So now I have a Fadden goat and goat that's not quite Fadden.

Anyway...here are some photos of my park.

That's John Howard the goat and Edmund Barton the goat fighting. Note: I couldn't fit full names, so used last names only.

Here's John Gorton standing around.

And here, John Curtin jumped into the shark tank. When I was building it, Ailsa from Home and Away kept jumping in.  I thought I was going to lose her. Not from the shark. I hadn't put him in yet. But from drowning. Fortunately, she survived. 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online