Bart's reality goes virtual when he is strapped into Martin Prince's Virtual Reality experiment at the elementary school science fair. Each virtual reality program represents a stage in the game that Bart must play through in order to escape the machine before the programs crash.

The game consists of three side-scrolling platform stages and three stages that take place from a rear view. Bart assumes the roles of a pig, dinosaur, and baby for the platform stages. He tosses tomatoes and eggs, slides down a water slide, and drives a motorcycle in a post-apocalyptic Springfield for the three remaining stages. They are all accessed by chance via a wheel-of-misfortune.