The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare
The Simpsons: Bart's Nightmare is a 1992 platform video game based on the animated television series The Simpsons. Developed by Sculptured Software and published by Acclaim Entertainment, it was first released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992, followed by the Sega Genesis in 1993. The first half of the game follows Bart Simpson as he tries to find his missing homework pages in order to escape a bizarre dream world, while the second half consists of minigames.
Gameplay
The game is split into two parts. The first is set on a street. Bart walks around and has to find five pages of his homework while avoiding enemies such as living mailboxes and various characters from the show. Power-ups that Bart can collect include bubble gum, watermelon seeds, pillows, and his skateboard. Jimbo and his gang will coerce Bart into strolling with them, causing Bart to lose control of his movements and have to move with them, taking damage as he does. Hitting a flying saxophone will summon Lisa Simpson with fairy wings to sprinkle fairy dust on Jimbo and his gang and transform them into rats, freeing Bart. However, if Bart is by himself, the Lisa pixie will turn him into a frog who cannot attack. If Bart catches a kiss blown to him by an old lady, it will revert him to his human form.Principal Skinner occasionally appears and tries to dress Bart in his Sunday school suit. If the player walks into Skinner, Bart will change appearance and become very slow and not be able to fire at enemies; however, the suit will also protect Bart from taking damage from all enemies. The suit wears off after a certain amount of time, or when Bart jumps in a mud puddle.
When a page is found in Windy World, the player can jump onto it, where Bart will shrink down on the page, and the player has to choose one out of a selection of two randomly chosen minigames. The player must point Bart to one of the two color-coded doors to play a minigame and retrieve a lost page of Bart's homework. The doors and games include:
- The green door: Bartzilla, a two-part minigame where Bart must stomp through the streets of Springfield and destroy the army with fire breath and visual lasers. After being zapped by a shrink ray, Bart climbs the Springfield State Building and fights "Homer Kong" and "Momthra."
- The Violet door: A journey into Bart's bloodstream, where Bart must use an air pump to inflate and destroy bad germs and collect five Smilin' Joe Fissions.
- The yellow door: Itchy and Scratchy, where Bart is being attacked by the "team up" duo, as well as various other household objects that become enemies. All fire-based attacks are instantly fatal, with Bart crumbling to ashes. This is the only minigame divided into two separate parts; Bart must locate another page in Windy World before playing the second minigame.
- The blue door: Bartman, where Bart flies over Springfield as a superhero. Along the way he fights many bosses, including Sherri and Terri in a hot air balloon, Barney Gumble on a pink elephant, Waylon Smithers in a blimp, and eventually Mr. Burns in a biplane. Not only must he avoid the enemies, Bart must avoid clouds of radioactive gas. Bart also receives bottled Squishees from Apu on a magic carpet in this level, which serves to raise his energy bar.
- The orange door: Idaho Simpson, where Bart must make his way through the balancing columns in "Temple of Maggie". There are two stages, each with a page reward at the end.
Upon either failing the respective minigame or completing the minigame, the screen will flash back to Bart's room at night, which shows the number of points the player has and the number of pages collected, while Bart snores. Once a minigame is completed, it cannot be played again. Both doors will be the same color if there is only one minigame to complete.
The game ends when Bart loses all of his Zs and takes damage one more time, or if he successfully completes all the minigames. Depending on how many pages Bart retrieves and how many points he gets, he is awarded a letter grade. Bart will hold it up for the player to see, and then slightly different endings are shown where the player sees the Simpson family's reactions to Bart's grade by having the paper affixed to the refrigerator. If Bart is given an "F", is the worst grade, the entire family is mad at him except Maggie, with slightly higher grades having at least Homer is pleased with Bart's hard work. Lisa is always annoyed with Bart's work unless the player manages to get Bart an outstanding grade, in which case she will look at Bart's paper in disbelief and shock.
This minigame-oriented gameplay gives the game an arcade style. Although much of the game could be categorized as a platformer, some of the minigames could fit in the shoot 'em up genre, particularly the Bartman and Bartzilla stages.