It’s a good thing this game doesn’t last Real quarters. Back in 1997, The Simpsons aired the season 8 episode “The Springfield Files.” The episode features a memorable joke with Bart’s friend Milhouse dropping 40 quarters into a Kevin Costner’s Waterworld arcade machine. The game, which doesn’t exist in real life, allows Milhouse to take just one step before getting a “GAME OVER” screen, after which he’s asked to deposit another 40 quarters. Angry at first, Milhouse obliges.
The water world arcade gag is short, though fondly remembered by fans as a hilarious moment that happened during the “golden age” of The Simpsons. One of those fans would be indie game developer Macaw45, who was inspired to create a free-to-play computer game inspired by the water world arcade. Of course, as was the case with Milhouse, it starts by dumping 40 virtual quarters to begin with.
But Macaw45 has gone much further than just coming up with the very first step of the game. The freeware customization expands on that, introducing several enemies to encounter and areas to explore. There are also fun, hidden surprises for players to find. The caveat is that each death takes another 40 quarters to continue, but the cool thing here is that the total dollar amount spent in quarters is displayed at the end of the game.
“The game is a full-on adventure based directly on what it looked like during its brief appearance in The Simpsons (as a short joke), but expanded here into a real game with fleshed out mechanics, multiple stages, boss fights and a huge amount of secrets for extra replayability,” the developer noted on Twitter.
The game has received good feedback
“I’ve always been fascinated by the fake video games occasionally seen in The Simpsonsand the water world one always stood out to me as a kid,” Macaw45 says of the game’s development. “Of course it’s just a joke to make fun of how expensive the film’s production was at the time, but this fake game itself with its giant Kevin Costner -character on the screen taking a single step before the machine asks for more quarters always made me so excited to know ‘what would be behind that one screen you see in the show…'”
They added: “This project grew out of that interest, and while it was originally intended as a short game, it quickly evolved and I put a tremendous amount of effort into it until it was a fully fleshed out game of much larger size. range than I ever expected. Hope you enjoy it!”
You can download the freeware Kevin Costner’s Waterworld game over Itch.io.