Bad Day on the Midway

Bad Day on the Midway

Developer(s) Inscape
Publisher(s) Inscape
Designer(s) Jim Ludtke
Platform(s) Windows, Mac
Release date(s) October 31, 1995
Genre(s) First-person Adventure
Mode(s) Single player
Distribution CD
Bad Day on the Midway
Soundtrack album (computer game) by The Residents
The Residents chronology

Gingerbread Man
(1994)		 Bad Day on the Midway (1995) Have a Bad Day
(1996)

Bad Day on the Midway is a CD-ROM game designed and scored by The Residents and a number of other graphic artists, including Jim Ludtke. The game won the 1995 'Macrovision International User Conference Award' in two categories – Best Entertainment Title and Most Innovative Use of Multimedia.

The game was optioned by Ron Howard at Imagine Television for a proposed series to be directed by David Lynch. After two years of meetings with Lynch, the project was dropped because a script was never agreed upon. Had the project moved forward, The Residents would have not been creatively involved as their contract only gave them consulting roles in the pilot.

The character Timmy was later brought back in a series of short videos by the Residents.

Gameplay

The player can switch between the various game characters in order to solve a number of puzzles. The game has alternative narrative lines, with definite fixed story elements. The gameplay is centered around discovery via the different characters. The game has no save system and is time-limited. The player is faced with different puzzles and questions, such as how to stop a murderer without fighting, and the reaction to the backstory of the murderer.

Playable Characters

Timmy is a 10 year old boy who skips his violin lesson to have a day of fun at the Midway. His only objective is to wander around and talk to people. According to the official strategy guide, because of Timmy's innocence, he is safe from things in the game such as Red Rat Plague, and being murdered by the psychotic killer, Ted.

Dixie is the de facto head of the Midway, due to her husband and original owner of the Midway, Ike, being in a coma for the entire game until the very end. Dixie has no objective in the beginning of the game until she meets the IRS Man, and her objective goes from nothing to searching for missing taxes.

The operator of the Racing Rat Booth, Otto is the least liked out of all the characters and speaks with a very noticeable stutter. In an effort to have improvements made to the Racing Rat Booth, he has been blackmailing Dixie. He is the only playable character to not get his own ending or be included in anyone else's as he always dies in every game,

A tattooed stripper who walks around with a pair of dobermans, Huck and Chuck, Dagmar's goal is basically walking up and down the Midway promoting her show. Due to programming, when playing as Dagmar, the in-game clock goes slower than normal. She is the only other playable character to not have her own ending, as she is included in one of the IRS Man's ending.

Late in the game, this mysterious new character appears. He dawns a brown stetson hat and asks Dixie for a job, and introduces himself as Jackie. It is later revealed that he is Jocko, Ike's former partner who tried to kill Ike over a lie Ike had told him about hiding gold on the Midway. His later objective is to retrieve a surveillance tape with evidence of his attempted murder.

Like Jackie/Jocko, he appears late in the game and requests from Dixie to see all of her 1040s and receipts for the previous five years. His objective simply to obtain Dixie's taxes, and then later changes to getting better acquainted with Dagmar.

He is the psychotic killer on the Midway, believing that everyone is ugly and that ugly people should die. The game is set so that in specific locations, (if you are playing as an adult character) he will appear and murder your character. In passing, he doesn't say anything to any other characters besides Timmy.

Non-playable Characters

An automatic fortune-teller who weaves together pieces of different phrases so they all become completely nonsensical, i.e. "The weakest link is stranger than fiction".

Lottie the Human Log is a half-human, half-tree character who, like Dagmar, performs her own show at her own attraction. She is also Ted's mother.

Otto's pet rat with a red head, Oscar is the only non playable character that can be accessed the same as playable characters, but unlike the other characters, he cannot be controlled. When assumed, a short clip is played of him running through the Midway, a thing that the official strategy guide refers to as the "rat-cam"

A character wrapped in gauze and facially disfigured, Ike lays in the private room of the Kill-A-Commie Shooting Gallery. A large majority of the other characters assume that in this state, the "Coma Man" is actually Jocko.

Attractions and Rides

A shooting gallery where the game consists of communist leaders as targets. This is also where Ike rests in a room through a door marked "private".

In the center of the midway, there is a large warehouse with cardboard cutouts and other random objects lying around.

A darkened exhibit with a broken fake whale made of plaster, the Sperm Whale exhibit is off limits to most characters in the game.

The theater in which Dagmar performs her one-woman show. There is a peephole on the side of the building that can be used advantageously late in the game.

Where Oscar races, this is where characters encounter Otto and watch Oscar race. The game is rigged so that nobody playing will ever win.

A war-themed merry-go-round stationed across the way from the Racing Rat Booth.

The location where Lottie performs. Ted's room is located in the back of the theater.

A sort of roller coaster/haunted house kind of ride, Torture's Top Ten is a ride where characters enter and are transported around the ride (presumably on some kind of ride vehicle that is invisible to the player), and watch clips of relatively disturbing imagery that are all connected to forms of torture. As the name implies, there are ten clips in total.

A fun-house mirror surrounded by eyeballs, the mirror serves no other purpose than seeing a garbled reflection of the character the player has presently selected.

A museum type attraction, the Snowman exhibit is the largest exhibit in the game. In the far back of the exhibit is Ike's workshop, where the scene of what is referred to in the game as "the accident" took place.

Endings

Multiple endings are featured in the game. A large majority of the characters have their own ending, often shared with another character. In every character besides Dixie's, Ike can be seen walking behind Madame Mandrake screaming Dixie's name.

Death

There is a myriad of ways to die as every character in the game.

Late in the game, Oscar bites Otto and causes an airborne virus with unclear symptoms other than high temperature and sudden extreme redness of the face. If playing as an adult character, the game will display thoughts of the character with such things as "I think I have a fever", indicating they have caught an early stage of the plague. If the character is assumed for too long, the screen will gradually turn red. If enough time passes, the game ends.

In certain locations in the game, if playing as an adult character, Ted will appear, startling the character, and then will shoot a poisonous dart into their forehead. He then recites a speech about how ugliness must die and how he will liberate the character from their ugliness. If the player clicks between his eyes when the camera zooms in, the game will continue with a picture of the previous character being strangled, then the game will continue, however, the character becomes Timmy in a random location.

In the back of the Snowman Exhibit, there is a sign that says "DANGER". If the character walks past it, there is an animation of the character losing balance and falling over the rail, landing on the floor, and being crushed to death by the Snowman Skeleton, which falls from the ceiling and crushes the character.

Cast

Soundtrack

There was also a soundtrack album (The Residents Have A Bad Day, East Side Digital EDS 81202) and some of the game's visuals were brought together in full resolution on The Residents' Icky Flix DVD.

External links