Inaccuracies in ACNH

[-Apples-]

What are some scientific or historical inaccuracies you have discovered in Animal Crossing? It can be something that anybody would know, or something that only someone with specialized knowledge would understand. It may be just a game, and they don’t have to make sense, but I do like pointing out inaccuracies that real life would contradict.

Try not to say stuff like “animals can’t talk in real life” or “not all frogs or octopi are anthropomorphic”. Those are too obvious. I’m looking for more obscure errors, like the scientific inaccuracies in fossils.

 

[TheSillyPuppy]

• Physics is my greatest weakness, but why/how does a watering can break while the vaulting pole and ladder do not?
• I can only wish for any construction project that takes less than one day to complete in reality, lol
• Speaking of construction projects, it's a shame we can't get Tom Nook's engineering team to fill in sand on the beaches/remove some to re-shape our beaches (this would be a pain for developers to code, though)

 

[-Apples-]

Here are some I noticed, and this has to do with resource gathering:

• You can get all types of wood, regardless of what tree you hit. In reality, only the oak trees and select fruit trees would be the hardwood providers. You’re more likely to get soft wood from cedar trees and regular wood from fruit trees and coconut trees.
• Iron nuggets don’t start out as iron nuggets. They start out as iron ore, which is a type of dirt, then they are processed into actual iron.
• Clay doesn’t come from rocks. It actually comes from the ground.

 

[Skandranon]

you can catch a whale shark with a flimsey rod
also when you put a hammerhead into its tank it shrinks

 

[Millysaurusrexjr]

You can't (or well.. you really really REALLY shouldn't) keep a betta fish in the same aquarium as a goldfish looking at you, Blathers

In fact, all of the tanks that you can place are pretty abysmal. They're definitely better than they were in NL, but they're still not big enough, though I understand the game can't have realistic proportions, so...

 

[Bluebellie]

The skeleton model item does not match the human villager proportions.

also, the game allows us to dump fish out in whatever area of water there is. For example if I needed to get rid of a goldfish, I can throw it out in the ocean. Doing this in reality would actually kill the fish since goldfish are freehwater fish. Just like you shouldn’t be able to release a clownfish or seahorse into ponds.

 

[6iixx]

can we just take a second to talk about the frog villagers that.. keep frogs as pets? i know it isn't really a huge 'inaccuracy', it just.. it just feels weird haha

 

[Mick]

The aquarium looks absolutely amazing, and they actually did fairly well with including basic lighting and plumbing! But having worked in an aquarium myself the tank sizes and the fish that are put together bother me (but only slightly, you know, it's a game). I'll keep going for a little while:

- Some species on display would not do well even with larger tanks. The record for keeping a great white shark, for example, was about half a year. Second place is 16 days. They just do not do well in aquariums without extremely specialised equipment and care, so most of our museums' great whites would have been dead by now.

- The T junction in that tunnel tank would have been a nightmare to manufacture and maintain. On top of that, the tunnel glass extends all the way down the path, and since large aquarium glass is acrylic (a plastic), it would scratch and blemish like nothing else. Yikes.

- Giving people unsupervised access to the top of that tunnel tank (which has a hammerhead shark in it, remember) was a bad idea. Sharks aren't as bad as people make them out to be, but still. That little net is not enough to solve the liability issues!

- The reef is beautiful, but it looks like it hardly has any water current in it, and it isn't lit brightly enough. Coral is notoriously hard to take care of, it would die in a few weeks time with this setup, especially with fish that are harmful to reef tanks like the butterfly fish. Maybe it's all artificial? But it doesn't look like it is intended to be.

- Deep sea tanks are technically possible, but not like the museum has it. Creatures like the football fish live under immense pressures, and keeping them out of that environment isn't an option. The only way to simulate that kind of pressure would be to build a tank as tall as the ocean is deep (not possible), or to build a very bulky pressure vessel with lots of steel and tiny windows (has been done).

I could rant about this for hours but I think it's time to stop. I do like the efforts they put into it though, things like the floor drains etc are a very nice touch! They did about as well as they could have.

 

[tajikey]

- You can't fit a whale shark in your pocket, let alone 40.
- In real life, you store recipes in a box. In ACNH life, you store them on the floor.

 

[Matt0106]

- You can't fit a whale shark in your pocket, let alone 40.
- In real life, you store recipes in a box. In ACNH life, you store them on the floor.

Yeah, Nintendo has some explaining to do with that whole recipe situation.

 

[Mick]

- You can't fit a whale shark in your pocket, let alone 40.
- In real life, you store recipes in a box. In ACNH life, you store them on the floor.

A little off topic, but: I keep mine in a box, specifically the lost and found one. Put the recipes on tables and call the cleanup service. I think the limit for that box is 60 items, don't go over it.

 

[Sharksheep]

- You can't fit a whale shark in your pocket, let alone 40.
- In real life, you store recipes in a box. In ACNH life, you store them on the floor.

Funny story a friend told me, his son was fishing and caught a whale shark. His pockets were full so he released a mosquito to make room

 

[Aurita]

I think the biggest life inaccuracy is that none of the stores or museum is ADA compliant since there’s no ramps or elevators, etc.

Museums in real life are also less structured & more open space to allow for exploration at your own pace. Also the bug room allows for free flying & crawling bugs which wouldn’t work in real life

the evolutionary tree in the museum is simplified & you definitely need more than 3 pieces of fossil to build a full skeletal model

 

[tajikey]

A little off topic, but: I keep mine in a box, specifically the lost and found one. Put the recipes on tables and call the cleanup service. I think the limit for that box is 60 items, don't go over it.

I sell all my extras, or give them to my alt to store on the floor in their house.

 

[Mick]

I sell all my extras, or give them to my alt to store on the floor in their house.

I've also started selling most of them now, to be honest. The majority of players will have most of the recipes by now anyway, so they are so much harder to give away than they used to be! They're not even worth the effort of dropping them for me anymore

 

[-Apples-]

• In reality, rain would put out a fire and ruin any food left out, but in ACNH, it doesn’t really have any effect on food items (like Mom’s homemade cakes) and the Tiki Torch.
• You don’t store mail in mailboxes. That would be more like e-mail than postal mail.
• If Gullivarr’s communicator stays underwater, it would’ve not worked unless if it’s waterproof. Also, Gulliver/Gulivarr would be terrible sailors if you consider how often they crash and appear on your island.
• You can only catch tarantulas in the colder months of the year. In reality, tarantulas would die in cold weather.

 

[Le Ham]

Any one location on earth is probably very unlikely to have tropical fish/sharks and bugs in the summer, and then have cold enough winters to keep snow on the ground (yet not cold enough for ponds to freeze over). At least, I do not know of such a place. By extension, you probably can't grow hibiscuses, hydrangeas, camellias, etc together in the same climate.

What reason do roaches have to invade my home if I don't store food in there? Or postage stamps?

On the subject of food, trying to live off of a diet of exclusively fruit is probably not the best thing for your health. But we may see changes to this, and it's implied in villager dialogue that more foods exist, so...

And I'm pretty sure one has to pull their pants down to effectively use a toilet. I admire the supernatural ability my character has to cleanly execute a bowel movement with her pants on and not soil herself.

 

[Fye]

this is more of a game mechanic, but how is it that our characters can do construction work for hours on end (literally building up then breaking down cliffs, and digging water from the ground then burying it with enough soil that grass can grow again) without needing to eat or passing out from exhaustion? I think it would have been a nice touch if we had to eat a fruit to do a certain amount of landscaping, since these days my fruit trees are just for decoration. and on this not, harvest moon had a game mechanic where your character would pass out if you made them work too much or skip sleep but I'm glad that wasn't added to animal crossing cause between spiders and tarantulas my character already passes out enough as it is haha

 

[Tinkeringbell]

There are no tides. No matter what time of day I log in, the shoreline is always in the same spot. Yet there is a moon, that actually looks quite a bit bigger/closer than the one on real life earth...

Also, the weather doesn't seem to influence water levels either. I can have days of rain and winds, and nothing will flood (not even a puddle!), despite the land being so very close to sea level.

 

[Nunnafinga]

In Animal Crossing it takes three days for native fruit to ripen but real life apples take 100 to 200 days depending on the variety.

I'm not sure if this is an inaccuracy but how the heck does Wilbur even get inside his airplane?None of the doors are large enough to allow his big bird butt to get in.

The average weight of an adult whale shark is 41,0000 pounds(18,597 kg).It's amazing how our small islanders can hoist them out of the water with a fishing rod made from tree branches then lift them up for display.