Krusty's Fun House is a videogame based on The Simpsons released in 1992 for the Super NES, Game Boy, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, and others, by Acclaim.
The idea behind the game is that the titular fun house is infested with rats. Players control Krusty as he navigates the areas of the fun house, utilizing contraptions and blocks (lots of blocks) to create a path through the level to lead the rats to the "goal", where one of his helpers — Bart, Homer, Sideshow Mel, or Corporal Punishment, depending on the area — will kill the furry vermin one-by-one. In this the game can be thought of as a reverse Lemmings, a puzzle game where the player has to manipulate the environment to lead a group of little critters to a goal, except in this game you're killing them, not saving them.
Aside from herding the rats around, Krusty can explore the levels of the funhouse searching for power-ups, items to help him control the rats, and fighting enemies, including snakes, flying pigs, and aliens with ray-guns. This adds a new level of strategy to the game beyond being a Lemmings clone, because the player will have to navigate the levels as Krusty to find the items necessary to get the rats to the goal, and sometimes to find the rats themselves, and they still have to escape the level back to the entrance once all the rats are taken care of.
This game provides examples of:
- Amusement Park of Doom: Zig-zagged back and forth. On the one hand the point of the game is to avert the trope, by clearing Krusty's funhouse of rats. On the other hand, the rats are actually the least-dangerous thing in the whole game. Did you catch the part about the aliens with rayguns milling about?
- Black Comedy Animal Cruelty: The whole idea of the game is killing the rats in various nasty ways.
- Block Puzzle: While there is a lot more to the game than just utilizing blocks, very often getting the rats to the trap involves utilizing several blocks to make a staircase for the rats to climb, or using blocks to cover up hazards so they can walk to the trap without obstruction. In fact, the very first puzzle of the game is simply picking up a block and using it to create a step to get the rats to the trap.
- Bonus Stage: The final level in each area of the funhouse contains no rats to get rid of, and may contain enemies, but typically is short and simple with few puzzle elements. You just get to collect some power-ups, unlock the next area, and leave.
- The Cameo: Aside from Krusty and his helpers, other Simpsons characters can be found in the background. For instance, Sideshow Bob appears on posters advertizing poetry readings at Springfield Jail, Kent Brockman appears on posters for Channel 6, and there's advertisements for Ned Flanders' Leftorium. And of course there's a whole lot of background elements advertising various Krusty-brand items.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: In each of the game's five areas, the methods of killing the rats are quite disturbing: Bart crushes them with a giant boxing glove, Homer zaps them with a laser, Sideshow Mel inflates them with an air tube until they explode, Corporal Punishment swallows them, and in the final area Bart returns to slice them up with a giant slotted cheese grater.
- Deadly Droplets: Droplets the size of Krusty's head fall down in certain sections of the level. Contact with them will hurt Krusty.
- Dolled-Up Installment: The game started life as Rat Trap, a wholly original game released by AudioGenic for home computers in 1991. They worked with Acclaim to turn it into a Simpsons game for the home console releases the following year, adding in Simpsons characters and redrawing the rats to match Matt Groening's art style.
- Don't Try This at Home: The game manual invokes the trope by name, adding "we don't advocate cruelty to real animals, only their cartoon counterparts".
- Fake Difficulty:
- Some levels, especially in the late-game, require you to make use of invisible platforms and staircases that you can't possibly know are there, and to walk through walls with no indication you're able to do so at a particular spot.
- Krusty has a health meter and can take damage and die, but his health is not displayed on-screen anywhere.
- Falling Damage: Krusty will die if he falls from too high, with the size of the screen being a fair indicator of how big a drop he can take without keeling over.
- Hub World: The main hall of the funhouse is divided into five areas with doors to each level. Clearing all the levels in an area unlocks a final level where the player can unlock the gate that leads to the next area of the funhouse.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Healing items are various kinds of Krusty-brand foodstuffs.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: Has shades. Krusty can only carry one item, so if you need to move several blocks between two areas, you're doing it one-at-a-time. Some puzzles will challenge you to figure out ways to get around the level with an item in your pocket that's needed for later, and you may have to juggle it with other items in order to get to that area.
- Mundane Utility: There are surely more practical means of killing rats than shooting lasers at them or squashing them under a giant boxing glove, but they wouldn't be as much fun.
- Pie in the Face: Krusty's default means of defending himself is throwing pies at his foes.
- Spring Coil: Springs let the rats and Krusty jump high.
- Too Dumb to Live: The rats will walk in a straight line heedless of anything in their way, even if the trap is right ahead of them. Downplayed in that despite all the hazards to Krusty the funhouse contains, nothing will kill the rats except for the trap.
- Tube Travel: Pipes cause the rats to pop into them and zip along their length to wherever the other end is. Some puzzles let you pick up and move parts of the pipe to change where they come out, or you have to find a pipe part to complete a path.
- Unintentionally Unwinnable:
- Some puzzles require you to use the superball weapon to tear down destructible blocks to create a path. The level will always provide you some superballs for this, but if you waste them and can't get more, you have to leave and start the level over.
- As mentioned under Utility Weapon, jars can be used like blocks to form staircases or walls to move Krusty or the rats around. However, if you release a trapped rat from a jar, the jar is lost, so if you needed that jar for another purpose, you're out of luck.
- Utility Weapon: Of a sort: the jar acts like a normal block that can be picked up, moved around, and stepped on. However, the first rat who steps on an empty jar will fall into it and be stuck, and at that point it is a normal block and rats can move over it safely. The player can pick up the jar and release the rat from it to get them to the trap, but the jar vanishes. Some levels require you to use the jars as blocks to help herd the rats along, and only once the loose ones are taken care of can you safely free the one(s) trapped in the jars.
- Vent Physics: One of the objects that can be used to move rats are fans that blow them in the direction they're facing until they hit something.
- Video Game Settings: Each area of the funhouse has a unique aesthetic to it that becomes more prominent as you progress deeper into its levels. The first area has an urban feel, the second is factory-themed, the third is a traditional funhouse, and the fourth is a bit of a haunted house. The fifth area then throws up its hands and has its levels take place in numerous different environments — including oddly, iced-over levels.
- A Winner Is You: For completing the game, you get a screen where Krusty drives off to do his show and thanks you for helping him rid his funhouse of the rats, and then the credits roll and he drives off.
