Line #72 NightmareFuel/AnimalCrossing


1	%% Not every slightly unpleasant thing is Nightmare Fuel. Only add things that actually terrified you.
2	%% Fridge Horror goes on the Fridge tab, not here.
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5	%%Image removed via crowner in the Moments Images Cleanup Thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php?crowner_id=ebixeukz
6	%%https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1642193091068711500
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10	Welcome to the wonderful world of ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'', where everything is saccharine... [[NightmareFuel or not]]. Despite being one of Creator/{{Nintendo}}'s [[LighterAndSofter lightest and softest]] yet, [[AccidentalNightmareFuel players can still find reasons to be spooked by this seemingly harmless little series]].
11	----
12	!! Shared Examples
13	* Whilst many are upbeat or at the very least relaxing, there's quite a few unnerving songs from K.K. Slider.
14	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLLRM4n1f6U K.K. Dirge]] is about as pleasant as the name implies, being a foreboding track REEKING of dread. The song has creepy moaning noises throughout, weird, glitchy computer bleeping and synths, and finally, it ends on several abrupt bangs... [[NothingIsScarier before simply starting up again like normal]].
15	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lxsYti9b8Y K.K. Oasis]]. There's [[ParanoiaFuel something unsettling about the desert feel]]. Not helping is the fact that it was used in the horror town of Shachipanda (more on this later).
16	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F3PyZTpJb0 K.K. Lullaby]]. You wouldn't expect a track like this to send shivers down your spine... but what first appears to be a soft, comfortable sounding lullaby song throws a random barrage of high-pitched, [[SdrawkcabSpeech backmasked notes]] at you [[LastNoteNightmare right at the end of the song]]. Anyone who actually tries to use this as a lullaby will likely wake up feeling like some demonic entity is watching them.
17	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAqDsQj0N3w Hypno K.K.]], a distorted, melancholy song that almost sounds like it's playing in reverse. The trippy cover art doesn't help matters much.
18	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwD25Kv_49A K.K. Synth]], quite simply, just sounds rather messed up and glitchy, all the while giving off an unnervingly sad sounding vibe.
19	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puj89z-MOzM K.K. Swing]] sounds like ordinary, relaxing classical music at first, albeit with a few off-kilter or strangely loud sounding notes... then towards the end it suddenly starts to sound as if it's going backwards before going back to normal like nothing happened. It gives the feeling of something rather sinister or creepy being concealed behind a normal, benign facade.
20	* Due to his long-winded and abrasive rants, many younger players were scared of Mr. Resetti, to the point that there's a warning about him in the manual for ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossingCityFolk''.
21	* [[SpidersAreScary The tarantula]] in ''Wild World'' onwards. Thankfully rare, if it sees you approaching while carrying a bug net, it [[BerserkButton flips out]] and attacks you. The horrifying part of this is that your character PASSES OUT and the screen fades to black. Luckily, you end up in front of your house, no worse for the wear, but it's still a horrifying event in a game where the seemingly worst fate for your character is [[ScaryStingingSwarm being stung by bees]]. The [[ScaryScorpions scorpion]] does the same. And in ''New Horizons''? They appear not in the summer, but from November to April! In addition, in ''New Horizons'', if you run, the tarantula goes after your sorry behind. And if you wish to catch it in that game, it's an exercise in nerve-wracking patience as approaching it while its legs are up will provoke it to strike, turning it into “red light, green light”. And that’s not helping that May is now the month the scorpion starts to appear, lasting until October. These killer arachnids show up at nighttime, specifically from 7 PM until 4 AM, which can create a source of ParanoiaFuel for players who can only play during these times unless they either time-travel or [[SocializationBonus have someone visit your island/town]].
22	* A few Gyroid families are quite creepy... well, if you don't just think all Gyroids in general are creepy. All of these families fall under the "Quirky" interior theme, which says something.
23	** The Howloids are a vibrant red, magenta, and purple (Mega, Regular, Mini, respectively) and have domed heads. Their facial holes feature a turned down mouth outlined in blue, and bags under their eyes, making them look like they're screaming. Oh, ''and they do'', with a "bending down and covering face" and "spreading arms when rising" motion.
24	** The Freakoids (two sizes, Mega and Mini) are both purple and blue with flat-topped eye holes and look like they have stringy hair, with lines under their caps. They also have a hole to be a nose, and a half-circle for a mouth, flat side down. They have the same motions as the Howloids and ''sound like crying babies''.
25	** The Lamentoids invoke UncannyValley by Gyroid standards. They are brown Gyroids in the four standard sizes, but their faces aren't the usual holes, but painted like an African tribal mask. They make a sound like a deep tumbling bell, but their colorful face paint is really unnerving.
26	** The Poltergoids are more spooky than creepy, but they are pretty strange. All four are beige gyroids with two large circular eyeholes and several small mouth holes forming a creepy smile, making them resemble a skeleton. They have square designs on their base and rim of their caps. They make a rapid vibrating rattle, like a stereotypical ghost or ''bones snapping''.
27	** Adding to the creepiness of Gyroids, talking to Dr. Shrunk in the Cafe he states that, the gyroids on stage, they appeared out of nowhere one day and he has no idea where they came from. Though a villager may have put them there without him knowing, or possibly their love for music drew them to Club LOL except they aren't mobile... or are they? And if a Jock villager visits your house, and comments on your Gyroid, he may bring up that he has no idea how Gyroids work. So, adding to their mysteriousness they're some sort of creature that can be both sentient and non-sentient, are based on burial urns, and no-one seems to know what they exactly are... shudder
28	** The 2.0 update for ''New Horizons''' brings them back, for better or for worse. On one hand, they feel more alive and animated, but the key word is ''alive'', because the method for obtaining them is far creepier than before. You obtain them by locating gyroid fragments, burying them in the ground, and then watering them, to which the crack in the ground housing them will start to emit vapor, almost like a breath... These aren't just animate pottery, but they're animated pottery that can be ''regrown in the earth''.
29	*** The new Gyroids introduced in ''New Horizons'' are weird, which is par for the course for a gyroid, but one that gains special notoriety is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kMRGkBxi2o Crumploid]] which, as the name implies, looks and sounds like crumpled paper. While it's considered to be the most UglyCute of the new gyroids, some people might find its battered appearance a bit unsettling.
30	** The creepiest part about the Gyroids is their ''inspiration.'' The Gyroids are based off of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haniwa Haniwa]], cylindrical humanoid ceramic figures that were buried in tombs during Japan's Kofun Period (400-600BCE) to act as funerary offerings, retaining structures and protection against evil spirits. While their exact origins are a mystery, legend has it that Emperor Suinin ordered them to be created as a replacement for ''voluntary live burial.''
31	* You can build Snowmen. They are sentient and they slowly melt away over the course of days, and it's possible for them to remain for a single day after the snow completely melts in late February.
32	* [[GuiltBasedGaming Stop playing the game long enough and cockroaches will invade your house.]] And you ''have'' to squash them in order to get rid of them. In ''New Horizons'', you can use the room edit mode to squash them with furniture or other items rather than stepping on them, but it's still an unpleasasnt experience.
33	* Kangaroos' joeys always mimic their expression. This can be a bit [[CreepyChild eerie]] in the same way as [[CreepyTwins Creepy Twin]] [[TwinTelepathy Telepathy]], suggestive of a HiveMind between the mother and child. From a technical perspective, it also means the character model for kangaroos must have [[ExtraEyes four eyes]].
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35	!! 2001 (Gamecube)
36	* If you were unlucky enough to not save when you're away travelling on the train, the villager at the startup screen will realize that something is wrong, and warns you that if you play right now, it will be only "the data you left behind". Should you not heed their warning and continue, you'll find that you've lost your money, your items, and [[NightmareFace your face]]. Yep, imagine the horror of stepping out of your house, turning around to the camera and having an empty, gaping face. Empty eye sockets, open, expressionless mouth, warty skin, and a disturbing resemblance to a [[Franchise/TheLegendofZelda ReDead]].
37	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar8sNQNvi90 11:00 p.m.]] as well as the music that plays at [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j9YEuFeDAw midnight]] can sound really spooky for such a lighthearted game like Animal Crossing. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMMRXzXs-_k 1 AM]] is fairly minimalist, but still similarly unsettling.
38	* After coming off of 1 AM, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GS2Uf2koDI 2:00 a.m.]] made many players jump because of how out-of-place it sounds compared to not only the rest of the late night music, but also the rest of the hourly music in the game. In contrast, the next two installments' equivalent only has this sort of tone in its ''Super Smash Bros.'' remix.
39	* The original Animal Crossing started up with a voice saying "Nintendo" that differs depending on how many times you've loaded the title screen without powering down, with the cycle repeating. Eventually, it will start up with a deep voice saying "Nintendo" not unlike the one in Luigi's Mansion, and then while it usually shows a random character walking around, this time it shows a villager carrying an axe randomly chopping down trees. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3a00_TP9wk Here's an example of this.]]
40	* King Tut's mask. Where to start? You can buy it from the Able Sisters, and then you can put it on. Normally, headgear does nothing but change your looks. But you don't hear the normal sound used for equipping an accessory. Instead, you hear a deeper, distorted version of the same sound, which is your first clue to the item’s true nature. Then you start running around town, and discover you begin to trip over. As long as you have the mask on, you're cursed. Now you start to wonder where the Able Sisters got this artifact of doom? In New Horizons, this item can instead be crafted. How does something you craft wind up with a pharaoh’s curse?!
41	%% !! Wild World
42	!! City Folk
43	* Many players have found Rover's reaction when you delete your town disturbing. Rover is [[BigWhat shocked]] and freaks out when he first learns you want to delete your town, and panickedly explains all of the consequences of deleting your town, such as losing your bells, house, and villagers. But he smiles while erasing your town, and after he's finished wiping your town out of existence, [[DissonantSerenity he cheerfully says,]]"It's gone. Bye-bye!" Many have described his behaviour as "psychopathic". The black void behind him makes it even creepier.
44	!! New Leaf
45	* Though intended to be more serene, the fact they play during mostly inactive hours can feel a bit uncanny.
46	** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmtKHo7GB64 7 PM]] music somewhat falls under this category. It sticks out from the rest of the music played during the general time like a sore thumb. It has almost a creepy sense of urgency to it, almost as if sorrow is plaguing your character.
47	** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlmE-SAv7bY 12 AM]]. Unlike the 4 AM theme, which is creepy because it's essentially NothingIsScarier in musical form, the instrumentation has some unsettling knocking in it ''and'' made many players jump at the beginning. It sounds very out of place between the songs that play at 11 PM and 1 AM, which are more sad-sounding like ''Wild World'' and ''City Folk''[='=]s 11 PM-2 AM music.
48	** While [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGr_3ebDx-Q 4 AM]] is unsettling enough on its own, an industrious Japanese player created an entire village meant to be visited in dream mode that is {{Creepypasta}} incarnate, and it is always 4 AM when visited. (Since Nintendo is a Japanese company, this one [[FourIsDeath was probably intentional]], in contrast to a lot of other music-related examples.)
49	** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmLQ33tzUMI 5 AM]]. After the unsettling 4 AM music, you're treated to what sounds like a deranged arrangement of the beautiful 8 PM music. Unless you have either the Early-Bird or Night-Owl ordinance, no one else is up. The music sounds distorted and has occasional pauses, with a tribal-sounding drum beat, comparable to the 12 AM theme's woodblock sounds, giving the feel of oncoming insanity.
50	* ''New Leaf'' also gives us the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBehEwDHt74 3:33 AM alien message]], only available on Sunday and Monday. There's no explanation as to why it happens. It's just... ''there''.
51	* Why is the early morning music so eerie? It may have something to do with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushi_no_toki_mairi Ushi no toki mairi]]: Japan's answer to the so-called "witching hour." For clarification, this refers to a ritual that takes place between 1 and 3AM, in which a cuckolded woman would nail a straw doll to a sacred tree in the hopes that it would fatally curse her unfaithful lover. There are many ancient trees in Japan that have nail holes from this ritual. Even worse? Some of them would look ''freshly made.''
52	* Some of the "Creepy Set" of furniture obtained on Halloween:
53	** The Creepy Statue. It's a male bust made of dark stone, but when you interact with it, [[RedEyesTakeWarning glowing red eyes appear.]] It's just a decoration, but it can still be startling when interacting with it for the first time.
54	** The Creepy Crystal is a small table with a crystal ball on it. When activated, a moaning face appears. The face itself follows you when you rotate the camera.
55	* When turning the basement light on, it flickers a bit before dimming and then fully turning on. It’s just a bit creepy considering what flickering lights can mean to some.
56	!! New Horizons
57	* ''New Horizons'' has an extreme case of MoodDissonance when it comes to the both disturbingly and depressingly realistic-looking [[https://twitter.com/ACPocketNews/status/1230673676795691009 gravestone]], which is a piece of furniture that can randomly be given out by villagers or found in Nook's Cranny. It's not surprising that its sighting in the February 2020 Direct has sparked more than a few theories.
58	** Harvey's Island can be a [[EldritchLocation surprisingly creepy place to visit]]. While it's just a photo studio in context, from a gameplay perspective, you're essentially kidnapping/duplicating your villagers and force them to take pictures with you. It goes further, as the villagers are utterly lifeless, only repeating the interaction you gave them and when you go into another room, ''they follow you'', '''without even moving'''! It feels like something straight out of ''Film/TheStepfordWives'' or ''Film/{{Us}}''.
59	** The darkness in the fossil rooms is a little unsettling, and there's glowing meteor replica in the second room which you can't see unless you stand in a certain spot and has a ScareChord play when the camera finishes moving. The International Museum Day Stamp Rally even refers to that part of the room as the "Extinction Spot".
60	* ''New Horizons'' added something new to fake artwork: some of the fake pieces are ''haunted''. For example, the fake version of The Girl With The Pearl Earrings (the Wistful Painting) will sometimes open and close her eyes. Others will change expression, direction, or even levitate at will. Perhaps the most quietly unsettling is the fake "Beauty Looking Back", which has a creepy human-shaped stain on the back of the piece. The real terror though is that there's no pattern to this behavior, and the art will remain still and lifeless for a very long time making you wonder if it always looked like that, or is your mind playing tricks on you? Now imagine a gallery full of this possessed artwork!
61	* Upon catching a sea butterfly, it wiggles around like all other fish. But hold it for long enough and its head will twitch and burst open, revealing multiple tentacles. This is typical hunting behavior of the creature, but it’s unnerving and alarming when you see it for the first time - it's almost reminiscent of something out of the Franchise/{{Alien}} franchise.
62	* Crazy Redd's ship in ''New Horizons.'' From the start, Redd is an incredibly shifty character who clearly isn't doing business by legal or ethical means - but the first time you encounter him, he's wandering around your island like everybody else. Explore a little before you talk to him, though, and you'll find a shabby, run-down old fishing vessel docked in the upper left corner of your island. The appearance is already reminiscent of haunted ships and the typical zombie apocalypse aesthetic but try to interact with the ship and you'll get a message from your character stating that [[NothingIsScarier they have an uneasy feeling about the ship and think that it's best if they don't board without permission.]] Being able to board after Redd invites you into the boat isn't much better, as the eerie music and dark lighting combine with the cluttered, damp room below deck to create a sense that this is not a safe place for you to be. You have to use a flashlight to see the details of any art you're interested in buying; Redd stands in the center of the floor commenting on everything you interact with, and when you decide to buy something, his dialogue might make you wonder if he didn't just take more of your Bells than you agreed to pay. For a final creep factor, ''neither'' of Redd's lines when you leave the boat are very comforting. If you bought something, he'll say, "You won't regret it!" If you did ''not'' buy anything, he'll only look at you and mutter, "...Thanks." In both cases, the camera stops and swings around at an angle, with Redd and his unfriendly-seeming face dead center of the shot...
63	* ''New Horizons's'' 2.0 update introduces a lot of new items and decorations. One of them is the graveyard wallpaper, purchased from Saharah. It already looks eerie enough on its own... and then you turn off the lights and hit the button the final time in the cycle before the lights go on again- it may take a bit to notice, but that last press of the light button makes a shrouded white ghost appear in the distant background. Cycling through the lights again to bring back the ghost brings them back ''closer'' a couple of times until they're standing in one of the tree gaps right in the foreground.
64	* ''Happy Home Paradise'' unlocks soundscapes for ambient audio to be played in rooms. One of them is "creaking", which is far-too-plausible unsettling creaky house noises that bring to mind intruders, ghosts, or monsters in the house. Not necessarily the light-hearted spooky option one would expect.
65	!! Other
66	* Not even Happy Home Designer is safe from people making creepy homes. One in particular is for Apollo the eagle (who is portrayed in the anime movie as [[SugarAndIcePersonality stoic yet inviting]]) which begins showcasing a miniature city off to the side in bright daylight. Go inside the house, however, and the room is dark, eerie noises play, and an LED billboard with some ominous red Japanese text hangs over the dimly lit city. Go into the room in the back, and there's a blocked off area with skeletons, a picture of Julian (a unicorn villager), and the infamous K.K. Dirge. The code is 0008-7765-454.
67	* There's one scene in [[Anime/AnimalCrossingTheMovie the movie]] where Ai and her friends go along with Yu and Alfonso into a deep cave. While going down a rapid waterfall is already seemingly a near-death experience, it gets worse: they find a skeleton of the seisomosaurus, a dinosaur Blathers dreamed of finding. Yu tries to fruitlessly climb up on it, only to fall and hurt himself as a piece of rock that he was grasping onto gives out. The whole cave starts to collapse soon after, and while everyone makes it out just in time, Yu is naive enough to try to go back in. Ai holds him back just as the tunnel becomes completely blocked with a boulder. If it weren't for everyone else, that little boy would have been outright killed.
68	* The original Nintendo 64 Animal Crossing includes a quest to deliver an axe to a villager early in the game. When it's a grumpy-personality [[BearsAreBadNews bear]] or something, and you're really young and used to playing games where dangerous things actually happen to the player character, especially if you're playing at night... it feels spookily like the villager might go all axe-happy on you with his new axe. Of course, what actually happens is even if it's a grouchy villager, they're grateful and nice and you probably get the nicest interaction you've had with them since you started.
69	* In the Japanese versions of the original game exists a shirt called the [[https://nookipedia.com/wiki/Item:Tomato_Juice_Shirt_(Doubutsu_no_Mori%2B) "Tomato Juice Shirt"]]. While the shirt's design is supposed to be [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin self-explanatory]], the supposed "tomato juice" ends up looking like [[WhiteShirtOfDeath something else]]. It doesn't help that this is the default shirt of the rather {{Gonk}}-ish looking Tabby, [[https://dodo.ac/np/images/7/74/Tabby_PG_Japan.png thus unintentionally making her come off as an]] UncannyValleyGirl.
70	* The live-action short film "[[https://youtu.be/S51jIrunYuY Don't Peek]]" is this in spades and {{jumpscare}}s, detailing a young woman playing "New Horizons" alone at night only to realize [[EldritchAbomination the game has brought something into the real world...]] [[MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily ...and it's hungry.]]

Context NightmareFuel / AnimalCrossing