Bart's Nightmare
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| Bart's Nightmare | |
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| Developer(s) | Sculptured Software |
| Publisher(s) | Acclaim |
| Release date(s) | 1992 |
| Genre(s) | Platform |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | VRC: GA |
| Platform(s) | Mega Drive/Genesis, Super NES |
Bart's Nightmare is a 1992 video game based on the television show The Simpsons.
[edit] Plot
Bart Simpson falls asleep while studying and wakes up in a strange universe where TVs and fairies roam the streets. The player must find Bart's lost homework and progress through the various levels to keep the homework pages and eventually return to reality.
[edit] Gameplay
The game is split in two parts. The first is set on a street (probably Evergreen Terrace, but referred to as Windy World). Bart walks around and has to find pages of his homework while avoiding enemies such as post boxes, Lisa and various characters from the show. Bart can collect his skateboard, which acts as a power-up and temporarily increases the player's speed.
Principal Skinner occasionally appears and tries to dress Bart in his Sunday suit. If the player walks into Skinner, Bart will change appearance and become very slow and not be able to fire at enemies. However, he will not be harmed by anything.
When a page is found in Windy World, the player must 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 mini-games. The player must point Bart to one of the two color-coded doors to play a mini-game and retrieve a lost page of Bart's homework (if the player doesn't choose, Bart will automatically select the left-hand side door). The doors and games are:
- The blue door: Bartman, where Bart flies over Springfield as a superhero. Along the way he fights many bosses, including Sherri and Terri, Barney Gumble, Waylon Smithers, and eventually Mr. Burns. Bart also receives power-ups from Apu in this level.
- The orange door: Indiana Bart, where Bart must navigate the maze-like "Temple of Maggie"
- The green door: Bartzilla, where Bart must stomp through the streets of Springfield, eventually climbing the Springfield State Building and fighting "Homer Kong" and "Momthra."
- The yellow door: Itchy and Scratchy, where Bart must avoid the manic duo, as well as various other household objects that become enemies (the oven shoots fire, the telephone explodes, Pyro-Vacuums etc.)
- The violet door: A journey into Bart's blood stream, where Bart must use an air pump to inflate and destroy germs. This mini-game has a cameo appearance from Smiling Joe Fission (from a Nuclear Power Plant educational video in the first season of the series).
The mini-games can be played in any order; the pages awarded will be 1 through 8 depending on the order they were retrieved.
Failing to complete a mini-game will result in the player losing one "Z" on the health bar.
Upon either losing all the lives in the respective mini-game (and not getting the page back) or completing the mini-game (and receiving the page as a reward), the screen will flash back to Bart's room at night, which showcases the amount of points the player has and the number of pages collected, while Bart snores. The completed mini-game will not resurface later in the game. If there is only one mini-game left, both doors will be the same color.
The game ends when Bart dies (thus ending his dream) by losing all of his Zs (Windy World will be covered in a white fog, suggesting Bart is about to wake up) and taking damage one more time, or if he accomplishes all the mini-games. The first shot is a pic of Bart asleep at his desk in his room; if not all pages are recovered, Bart's homework will end in a scrawl, but recovering all pages will have the words "THE END" written on Bart's paper. Depending on how many mini-games Bart finishes and how many points he gets, he is awarded a letter grade. Bart will hold it up for the player to see, and then we see the family's reactions to Bart's grade. They are as follows:
An "F" grade: Bart says: "Uh-oh..." and this grade will impress no one.
Bart: sad, hangs head Homer: angry Marge: angry Lisa: angry
A "D" grade: Bart says: "Uh-oh..." and the whole family is still not impressed.
Bart: smiles Homer: blank Marge: angry Lisa: blank
A "C" grade: Bart says, "Oh, yeah!" and Homer is impressed.
Bart: smiles Homer: grins Marge: blank Lisa: blank
A "B" grade: Bart says, "Oh, yeah!" and Marge is impressed.
Bart: smiles Homer: blank Marge: smiles Lisa: blank
An "A" grade: Bart shouts, "Cowabunga!" and this grade impresses everyone.
Bart: smiles Homer: grins Marge: smiles Lisa: stares at Bart in astonishment
If one manages to beat all the mini-games and thus collect all the lost pages, the aforementioned room will turn from night to day, Bart will wake up on his own and the proper "ending" is shown.
This mini-game orientated gameplay gave the game an arcade style. Although much game could be categorized as platformer, some of the mini-games could fit in the shoot-em-up genre.
