History

Founding

Better Animals Plus was an idea conceived by cybercat5555 in the summer of 2018. She had created models for Better Animal Models, but had also had ideas for new animals and monsters. Over time, art for the initial 1.0.0 release animals was created, accompanied with an Imgur album to show them off.

Hirschgeist concept art (at this time, it was called the Deer beast)

On July 30th, 2018, cyber created two Minecraft Forums threads for Better Animal Models and Better Animals Plus. At this point, Better Animal Models had already been out since February 2018 (pre-2.0, before the mod was fully client-sided), and the BA+ thread was a request for a coder. This thread, however, was unsuccessful in locating a programmer. On July 1st, Cyber posted a request in the MMD discord for coders for both BAM and BA+, as the original coders for BAM had left, and BA+ was still coder-less. This, however, was still unsuccessful (for BA+, BAM was updated to 2.0 shortly after on the 19th of July by Ocelot). On August 3rd, 2018, Cyber posted again in the MMD discord, this time asking only for coders for BA+. This still however, was unsuccessful. Cyber posted one final time in the MMD discord on August 24th, 2018.

---

cybercat5555 (8/24/2018): Hello, was wondering if anyone would be interested in an animal mod with a bit of a hidden, untold lore, along with a few new modeled plants, on top of some much-needed fleshing out the wildlife gamut in the game. The mod in question is Better Animals+ (top tier creatively with name, I know). So far I have quite a few assets done for it, though I plan on plenty more. You can see the album with most of the finished assets in the next post, along with how many of the animals should act and behave (trust me, its better than a whole novel-long post). Willing to split CursePoints even-steven with any potential coders/animators.cybercat5555 (8/24/2018): can also give a few points (up to 100, I don't have much) as a "down payment" if needed

---

its_meow joined the MMD discord on August 25th, 2018 at 12:47pm. After some chatting, its_meow came upon the request post for a coder for Better Animals Plus. Due to his prior experience creating entities on 1.12, he decided to pick up the request.

---

its_meow (8/25/2018): @cybercat5555 You need to enable DMs for non-friends

cybercat5555 (8/25/2018): Alright done

---

its_meow (8/25/2018): Hi. I saw your request. I have some experience with creating mobs and I am willing to help program for better animals. I can do some more basic stuff such as adding deer and bears as well as some small parts of foxes and wolves. However for more advanced parts (such as wolf taming, Hirschgeist, lammergeiers, and tarantula ranged attacks/lairs) I would be of little help

cybercat5555 (8/25/2018): Yeah, just the basics would be fine for now

---

Pre-Release Development

Better Animals Plus began coding on August 26th, 2018.

The first entities to be added were the Brown Bear and the Black Bear, with this development blooper made the same day

Animation Mistakes

The next things added, in order, were: Deer, Lammergeier, Feral Wolf, Coyote, Trillium, Fox, Tarantula, Hirschgeist, Hirschgeist Skull (both the Mob Head and wearable item), and finally the Hand of Fate.

Release

On September 23rd, 2018, Better Animals Plus 1.0.0 released, featuring everything above. Its initial popularity was quite surprising (although cyber posted and talked about it everywhere, so that is most likely why). Upon initial release, many bug reports came in causing the need for a patch with some feature additions, version 1.1.0, which released on October 1st, 2018. Several patches followed afterwards, with 1.1.1 on October 3rd, 2018, 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 on October 7th 2018, and 1.1.4 on October 24th 2018.