History Main / ArtisticLicenseEngineering

** The chicken walkers (AT-ST's) are just walking targets. The Hoth walkers (AT-AT's) make a bit more sense, if we take into account that repulsor coils big enough to make something as big as an AT-AT float would be such an energy drain that the power plant wouldn't be feasible for mass production. The only reason two AT-AT's got taken out at all was more Luke's RuleOfCool then anything else. [[note]]Then again, ExpandedUniverse information implies that the only reason the AT-AT's were a threat in the first place was because weather conditions on Hoth prevented the Rebels from using anything other than modified civilian airspeeders, which lacked the firepower necessary to dispatch the walkers.[[/note]]

* Suffice to say, ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' is not an accurate representation of animatronics:
** The animatronics are far above real life animatronics, being more like full-fledged {{Killer Robot}}s as opposed to computer-controlled puppets. Most animatronics are completely unable to walk around due to their wires, power supply etc. typically being below a stage and attached through the legs (which, incidentally, are not often built with functioning joints), and even if they could, they would break apart as animatronics are often designed to break if enough pressure is applied so as to prevent injury. If the [[BrainFood Bite of '87]] really happened, an animatronic's jaw would be the only serious casualty. ''WebVideo/GameTheory'' ran the numbers on this at one point and concluded while you could build a Bite-capable animatronic with standard pneumatic drives on the market today, doing so would be an example of such hideous over-engineering anyone would assume you had deliberately built a killing machine. (In short, the drives required are 1000 times more powerful than those typically used by a Chuck E. Cheese animatronic.)

* Apparently the Combine in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' do not know about ''hand brakes'', which is why they have to secure their [=APCs=] with stop blocks that can be easily knocked out from under the wheels to send the vehicle plummeting down a slope into a river.
* This trope came back to bite the creators of ''VideoGame/RedFaction: Guerilla''. Apparently [[GoneHorriblyRight the combination of their famed Geomod engine with a realistic physics engine caused the outrageous "futuristic" buildings they planned on using in the game to collapse under their own weight]], forcing them to go back to the drawing board with more sensible architecture. Explained by Volition themselves [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ6XM7NfGr8 here.]]
* ''VideoGame/TheSims'', falling under acceptable breaks of reality, since house building can take a long time without you thinking how many pillars to put to support the entire structure. Of course, there are also bugs that allow things like a ''floating house''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' doesn't so much have an artistic license as it has ''[[ToonPhysics entirely separate laws of physics from reality]]''. On one hand, sand, gravel, and most living things will respect the laws of gravity while most other blocks ignore it entirely, enabling [[FloatingContinent floating continents]] and [[OminousFloatingCastle fortresses]] to be built and naturally generate with a little effort. Yet on the other, most anything electronic barring mods follows the laws of electronics mostly swimmingly (well, minus the fact that [[PerpetualMotionMachine redstone torches]] produce seemingly infinite power).

* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'':
** The Viking transforming assault fighter can flip from starfighter to ground-walking mecha. The background description in the game strongly implies that ''transforming can kill an insufficiently agile pilot'' somehow, which is just plain idiotic. There's no call for the interior of the cockpit to be somehow involved in the transformation, nor would you ever want to field something that could kill the pilot as part of its normal performance going right.
** An InUniverse version with Terran buildings, which continue to burn down when their HP is in the red without enemy assistance, due to electrical shorts, ruptured vespene tanks, and "hasty and often improvised construction." You'd think after decades in the Terran sector, they'd have learned to fix these, especially when the UED (remember, the guys from Earth) show up using the exact same buildings. One of the available upgrades in the campaign are firefighter drones that deploy when a building is in the red and fix it up to half its HP.
** A subversion with the Odin, which is noted to be laughably AwesomeButImpractical. So Swann comes up with the Thor, a smaller-scale, mass-producible version... but by no Means a MiniMecha, the thing needs to be airlifted by a DropShip that can hold two tanks.
* The ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series makes heavy use of HumongousMecha in general. Notable in that [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3 one of the games]] actually lampshades [[SelfDeprecation how impractical the design is]].
* The M808 Scorpion tank of ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has several highly questionable design elements. The Scorpion is apparently a "light tank" that is larger than the '''''[[MilitaryMashupMachine Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus]]'''''. Here's a scale comparison between the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160413025744/http://oi58.tinypic.com/1r6jyx.jpg Scorpion, aforementioned Maus, and the sanely designed M1 Abrams,]] which is itself criticized by some as excessively large. Its M820 successor, introduced in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', has a slightly more sound design (and a much higher-caliber cannon). To put this all in comparison, here are the actual numbers:
** The M1 Abrams is 8ft tall, the Maus is 11ft tall, and the Scorpion is 14ft tall. M1 Abrams is 12ft wide, the Maus is 12ft wide, and the Scorpion is ''26ft'' wide.
** The Scorpion's max speed is 54km/h, while the original M1 Abrams can do 72km/h on roads and 48km/h cross-country, beating most of it's contemporaries, excluding the french [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades Leclerc]] which can match the Abram's road speed and hit 55km/h cross country. In fairness, [[DamnedByFaintPraise it is faster than the Maus]] and its top speed of 20km/h.
* Most iterations of ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' have a tower that is not anchored to the ground, essentially floating in place with only a narrow bridge connecting it to the rest of the castle. This feature is so iconic that even a [[https://www.pngitem.com/pimgs/m/207-2070878_castle-castlevania-dracula-draculas-castle-png-download-castlevania.png a simple rendering of the castle]] has it.
* The spinigun assault rifle barrel in ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' is attached below the receiver, meaning the bullets have to curve from the chamber, down the bore, and into the rotating barrel assembly.

* ''VideoGame/FarmingSimulator 17'', being a [[SimulationGame simulator]], goes out of its way to detail the ''graphics'' of the vehicles and attachments with such things as power take-offs, three-point hitches, ball hitches, and fifth wheels. But when it comes to actually hooking the equipment up, you can get away with all kinds of shenanigans. For example, you could run a beet-harvesting wagon behind a pick-up truck with the harvester's power take-off driveshaft obviously hanging in midair. [[note]]A power take-off is basically an exposed auxiliary driveshaft that allows a vehicle to provide rotational power to some other accessory. It's an essential feature of farm tractors, and fifth-wheel trucks sometimes offer them too. Consumer pickups don't generally offer it standard.[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/WolfensteinTheNewOrder:'' The design of the Gibraltar bridge in the game is completely unfeasible for linking Europe and Africa. The Strait of Gibraltar may only about 9 miles or 14 kilometers wide at its narrowest point, but it also varies from 300 to 900 meters (almost 1,000 to 3,000 feet) deep. Building just the pillars of the game's design would be an even greater engineering challenge than the bridge itself. Actual designs for the bridge range from an underwater suspended tunnel system to a hybrid of suspension and cable-stayed.

* ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'': Vector's "plane" doesn't even have wings, and pulls in the shrink ray through its engine and the support strut that's too thin for it. Gru's plane doesn't look particularly well-engineered either.

** Another: The SquareCubeLaw notwithstanding, the buildings are so slender in comparison to height, that the slightest breeze would probably cause them to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling buckle]].

* The M808 Scorpion tank of ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has several highly questionable design elements. The Scorpion is apparently a "light tank" that is larger than the '''''[[MilitaryMashupMachine Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus]]'''''. Here's a scale comparison between the [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160413025744/http://oi58.tinypic.com/1r6jyx.jpg Scorpion, aforementioned Maus, and the sanely designed M1 Abrams]], which is itself criticized by some as excessively large. Its M820 successor, introduced in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', has a slightly more sound design (and a much higher-caliber cannon). To put this all in comparison, here are the actual numbers:

* Omnipresent in MechaShow. A bipedal machine with anything resembling modern technology would be horribly complex and inefficient, and that's before the [[SquareCubeLaw challenges]] of making a HumongousMecha, THEN the exponentially increased complexity of {{Transforming|Mecha}} or CombiningMecha while still having them work well. It's quicker to list the series that avert this.

** ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' actually used this in an interesting way: One HumongousMecha fell apart once the AppliedPhlebotinum allowing it to ignore its own weight failed.

** While the endoskeletons shown in [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation]] are now separate for each animatronic and look to be quite a bit thicker allowing for complex inner machining, that's about it for realism. They retain the same issues as the other endoskeletons shown throughout the series, bar one tiny addition: Ennard. Ennard is the result of the animatronics combining their endoskeletons together to become a singular unit. Not only would it be impossible to merge their endoskeletons, it wouldn't result in anything that could move as well as Ennard. Even worse, it apparently has the power to turn into a pile of electrical wires and plastic eyes, judging by its appearance in the Custom Night cutscene and its Molten Freddy form shown in the following game. This has the ridiculous implication that Ennard was entirely made from the animatronics' wires as opposed to combining their actual endoskeletons. While they can't merge endoskeletons, they obviously could never function if they convert themselves into a pile of conjoined wires.

* AccidentalAstronaut: In Real Life, spacecraft are designed with so many safety and security checks that the chances of someone accidentally launching themselves into space are zero.

* The M808 Scorpion tank of ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' has several highly questionable design elements. The Scorpion is apparently a "light tank" that is larger than the '''''[[MilitaryMashupMachine Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus]]'''''. Here's a scale comparison between the [[http://oi58.tinypic.com/1r6jyx.jpg Scorpion, aforementioned Maus, and the sanely designed M1 Abrams]], which is itself criticized by some as excessively large. Its M820 successor, introduced in ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', has a slightly more sound design (and a much higher-caliber cannon). To put this all in comparison, here are the actual numbers:

** Maybe this is excessive --SuspensionOfDisbelief exists for some reason-- but if as according to EU sources the reactor of Imperial Star Destroyers generate the same energy as a small star, unless they had ''very'' good heat dissipation technologies (not just the exhaust vents the Death Star had) there'd be enough waste heat[[note]]Something impossible to avoid because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.[[/note]] to vaporize them. The Death Star's hypermatter reactor, far more powerful, has those same problems UpToEleven.

* This trope came back to bite the creators of ''VideoGame/RedFaction: Guerilla''. Apparently [[GoneHorriblyRight the combination of their famed Geomod engine with a realistic physics engine caused the outrageous "futuristic" buildings they planned on using in the game to collapse under their own weight]], forcing them to go back to the drawing board with more sensible architecture. Explained by Volition themselves [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ6XM7NfGr8 here]].

* Many writers [[CoolButInefficient will not even think about functionality]] when designing a machine. They're more concerned with the "look" and "feel" their machines convey rather than whether they actually make sense given the function they're supposed to perform. This is often the case with spaceships in softer ScienceFiction.

* ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'': Kenshin uses a ''sakabatou'', a katana with the sharp and blunt sides reversed so that it cannot cut when gripped normally (instead it just breaks bones). It still has a backwards curve like a normal katana. In real life, katanas acquire that curve because of a quirk of forging: due to chronic shortages of high-quality steel, Japanese smiths forged swords from multiple pieces of steel of varying compositions that were forge-welded together. They were forged straight, but naturally bent backwards when cooled due to differing thermal expansion coefficients between the spine and edge sides of the blade. A back-bent reversed-blade sword like Kenshin uses would therefore be difficult to achieve, but one supposes this is why Arai Shakkuu was an UltimateBlacksmith.

* Many writers [[CoolButInefficient will not even think about functionality]] when designing a machine. They're more concerned with the "look" and "feel" their machines convey rather than whether they actually make sense given the function they're supposed to perform. This is often the case with spaceships in [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness softer]] ScienceFiction.

* ''Videogame/SeriousSam'': Flavor text from NETRICSA says that the [[SlowLaser Laser Gun]] is made of titanium so as to not overheat. Titanium actually has very low thermal conductivity – a titanium laser gun would in fact overheat ''faster'' than one made of, say, steel or aluminium alloy. Not that it matters for a game firmly on the "Classic" end of the FacklerScaleOfFPSRealism, mind you.

* Hogwarts Castle as depicted as the ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie series contains multiple architecturally impossible features, like the headmaster's office being three turrets stacked on top of each other and a pointy tower on top of the middle of the Great Hall's roof with nothing to support it. Possibly intentional; it is a ''magic'' school, after all.

* Hogwarts Castle as depicted as the ''Film/HarryPotter'' movie series contains multiple architecturally impossible features, like the headmaster's office being three turrets stacked on top of each other and the Great Hall having a pointy tower on top of the middle of the ceiling with nothing to support it. Possibly intentional; it is a ''magic'' school, after all.

** The prequels and ''Clone Wars'' series make this worse, since the earlier designs were much more effective. The Clone equivalent to an AT-AT could walk straight up cliffs, had a lower center of gravity distributed further apart on more limbs, and had weapons that didn't [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon all face forward]] just for one example... and [[HandWave vulnerable to the above-mentioned mines that the AT-AT have long legs against]]. For the record, the disadvantages of low height actually came up in the first ''[[WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars Clone Wars]]'' cartoon, where Durge and his lancer droids were able to trash the AT-TE walkers with their lances.

* Many writers [[CoolButInefficient will not even think about functionality]] when designing a machine. They're more concerned with the "look" and "feel" their machines convey rather than whether they actually make sense given the function they're supposed to perform. This is often the case with spaceships in [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness softer]] ScienceFiction.