Certain CD-ROM titles
defy classification, and Bad Day on the Midway happens to be one
of them. Fortunately not even something as unique
as this game defies description, which is why I’m able to write this
review. Apropos “game” – it is a term that I’m using only
loosely when speaking of Bad Day on the Midway. The most appropriate
term is perhaps “multimedia experience”, but that is far
too long and unwieldy to be practical.

The publisher of The
Residents’ Bad Day on the Midway, a company
named Inscape, is probably best known for their 1996 release of The
Dark Eye,
a creepy yet poetic rendering of several of Edgar Allan Poe’s most
famous stories. Bad Day on the Midway was
published earlier (late 1995, and in fact contains a trailer for The
Dark Eye) and was created
by entirely different team of artists, but both titles share the
same technology as well as the same atmosphere of utter weirdness.
If you enjoyed The Dark Eye (which
was named scariest
adventure game of all time by JA),
don’t miss Bad Day on the Midway because both are one of a kind experiences.
Needless to say, if you didn’t like The Dark Eye, there is not much
chance that Bad Day on the Midway might be appealing to you.

The force behind Bad
Day on the Midway is the eccentric and enigmatic rock band The Residents,
and in particular Jim Ludtke [Mr. Ludkte
passed away in March of 2004 – Randy], illustrator and animator
who had previously worked with The Residents. Bad Day on
the Midway is a cooperative effort of a number of cartoonists and illustrators,
accompanied by The Residents’ music. As an interesting aside, David
Lynch was at one point supposed to create a series based on Bad
Day on the Midway, but the project never materialized.

Bad Day on the
Midway is primarily a game of exploration. It takes place at the Midway,
a decrepit, macabre and slightly scary amusement
park. The names of the park’s attractions such as “Kill a Commie”, “Torture’s
Top 10” or “Sperm Whale Giving Birth to an Electric Eel” should
tell you something about the place. You start out as Timmy, a boy
of about ten years, who is very excited about the Midway and fascinated
by all of its attractions. As Timmy meets the Midway’s residents
(some whom are attractions themselves), you can see and hear their
life stories in the form of graphic novels. Each of these novels
was created by a different artist and has unique style.

Where The Dark
Eye allowed
the player to experience Poe’s stories from the point of view of
both victim and perpetrator, Bad Day on
the Midway goes one step further, making things very interesting
and very confusing indeed. You can assume the identity of almost
any character you encounter at the Midway, and that includes a rat
(a real live rat, although one or two human rats can be found at
the Midway as well). The Midway experience is slightly different
from each character’s point of view. For instance, some locations
are only accessible when you’re playing as certain character. Additionally,
you can always see a “stream of consciousness” version
of what your current character is thinking, and certain places remind
characters of past events.

From what I said above, it should be clear that playing Bad
Day on the Midway is somewhat random and freeform. But not entirely,
because although the game doesn’t have a clear objective, it does
end. You can either die prematurely, for instance being strangled
by a psychotic killer, or you can survive for sufficient in-game
time and experience one of about ten different endings. Some of those
endings are happy, some aren’t. Most of the endings can only be triggered
by playing as particular character and visiting the right location
or performing certain action.

I will deliberately avoid describing the game’s story. There is
not very much of it and discovering what’s going on is most of the
fun in Bad Day on the Midway. If you want to know, play the game!

Technically, Bad
Day on the Midway is one of the many mid-1990s
games based on Macromedia Director and QuickTime. The game can run
on Windows 3.1 but works well with later versions of Windows. The
only throwback to the game’s age is the fact that it does not set
its own graphics mode, therefore you might find it helpful to set
your desktop resolution to 640×480 (unless you like squinting at
tiny images). Bad Day on the Midway uses 256 color graphics, and
especially the game world looks grainy, but I’m sure in 1995 the
graphics looked good. The in-game graphic novels have better graphics
than the rest of the game. As I mentioned eariler, each animated
sequence or graphic novel has a different look, and most are highly
stylized. Bad Day on the Midway is absolutely not a game for cartoon
haters.

As could be expected from a title created by a music band, the sound
of Bad Day on the Midway is quite good considering the game’s vintage.
The music comes in a variety of styles, all of them fitting the atmosphere.
The voice acting is of good quality and each character has a distinctive
(and in most cases rather unusual) voice.

The interface is entirely mouse driven and uses node based navigation
with smooth transitions between locations. The game world isn’t especially
huge and moving between locations is easy. There are very few objects
to interact with in the game; most events are triggered simply by
visiting certain location. There is also no inventory whatsoever
– everything is firmly nailed down.

There are no puzzles per se in Bad
Day on the Midway. Since there
is no inventory, there is obviously no room for inventory based puzzles,
but there’s no mysterious machinery present either. The biggest puzzle
is figuring out what’s happening at the Midway and exploring as much
of the amusement park as possible. To do that, you simply have to
switch between all the available characters and visit various places.

As a consequence of the above, it is almost impossible to judge
the difficulty level of this game. Simply surviving and viewing one
or two of the endings is not hard. Thoroughly exploring the Midway
and experiencing all possible endings is a good deal harder, not
least because it’s impossible to tell how many endings there are
(that is, unless one cheats and directly looks at the QuickTime movies
on the CD… not that I’m suggesting anything!).

There is no doubt that
The Residents’ Bad Day on the Midway is a one of a kind experience.
It may not be a title with a “mass
market appeal”, but that in no way diminishes its value. It
is a very well made game, especially considering its age. The variety
of graphical and musical styles make Bad Day on the Midway even more
interesting. On the downside, the game is rather short. Bad
Day on the Midway is such an oddball title that I’m not even sure it makes
sense to grade it. After lengthy consideration, I decided to give
it an A- but please keep in mind that this is by no means a typical
adventure game. Have a nice day on the Midway!

Final Grade: A-
(find out more about our
grading system)

System Requirements: