The Residents: Bad Day on the Midway

by Inscape

Product Features

• The Residents' Bad Day on the Midway plunges you into a sinister soap opera set in a carnival of the damned where the characters are the rides.
• Dodge death and taxes while solving a mystery of murder and intrigue in a world populated by a cast of ten unforgettable characters.
• Pick a character and explore an incredible array of attractions, oddities and subplots as you attempt to unravel the midway's dark secrets.
• Jump into another character and observe how differently things appear.
• Seek the hidden escapes encrypted in this twisted game, but beware, for surprises abound everywhere and nothing is quite as it seems.

Product Details

• ASIN: B000FJ57ZY
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 1.9 x 10.1 inches ; 10.1 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #27,433 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

twisted 3-D graphical adventure from the minds of the the Residents, the infamous and anonymous rock and roll band/performance art troupe. The player explores the world of a demented carnival midway by inhabiting (possessing) it's freakish denizens. Events appear differently when viewed through the eyes of different characters and each time the player leaps into a new character, his or her story is told via a graphic novel drawn by a well known comic artist. Visit the "Kill a Commie" shooting gallery as Oscar the Racing Rat or watch a sperm whale give birth to an electric eel as Dagmar the Tattooed Dog woman. Strangeness abounds when you have a bad day on the midway.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A perfect introduction to the Residents' present period, August 28, 2007

By 

Marked Wayne (Ireland) - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Residents: Bad Day on the Midway (CD-ROM)

Remember when the Residents balanced their absurdist lunacy with a heavy coating of dark humour and veiled menace? Well, somewhere down the line (perhaps around the time 'God in Three Persons' was released) their absurdism took a backseat to the dark humour and the once-implied menace grew into something wholly disturbing.
Residents have always been as much a multimedia group as a musical one, so it's only fitting that an interactive musical 'novel' of captures them at one of the most grotesque moments in their long history.
Taking place at a barely occupied theme park, you switch from character to character in order to solve a number of mysteries and explore just as many subplots in the constrictive time limit that lasts around thirty minutes. No, this is not a game you beat (or really a 'game' at all), but one that you play over and over again to find out just what the hell is going on. I won't ruin it for you by revealing the truly disturbing goings-on beneath it all, but I will say that, should you find a copy under 20 dollars, it's well worth the purchase.

HINT: The scene with the singing, dancing tree woman alone is worth the 20 bucks.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not too "Bad", December 3, 2009

By 

M. Smyers - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Residents: Bad Day on the Midway (CD-ROM)

It's a very weird, dark humor game, which I like! You can explore the Midway carnival in the perspective of many different odd ball carnival characters/little boy and jump into those characters by simply clicking on them when they run up to talk to you. I'm a die hard adventure gamer, but this game took a little getting use to in the sense that you are thrown into the game and not really sure what to do but walk around but not accomplish much or have a hint of a goal. My advice is to jump into every character and explore every building as different characters because certain characters have access to special places and those places help give you hints on what is going on around the carnival, but it still leaves me scratching my head on what exactly to do sometimes. But I suppose it makes it more interesting and pay even closer attention to hints rather than relying on the blatant hints today's adventure games give you! I would give it a try if you are patient and don't mind wandering around a game and really taking time to explore and enjoy the atmosphere rather than a clear start to finish story. This is very much a "choose your own adventure book" type game, very creative and enjoyable. And oh so many ways to die, so little time...

Since it's such an old game, I can't run it in full screen and there are a few bugs with the caption, but I got use to it and it's not really a problem now that I lower the screen resolution.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not exactly a game, more like an interactive art peice, August 17, 2010

By 

Mosquito - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: The Residents: Bad Day on the Midway (CD-ROM)

... But a very fun piece of art to play with! All of the characters are bizarre and interesting, and the miraculous ugliness of this game is stunningly beautiful in its own, freakish way. Some of these characters have stayed with me for years. If you're a sicko like me who sees beauty in a popped pimple and can win just by experiencing the game, you'll like this. You've got some big-name art in here. Make sure you like the Resident's stuff before you buy, though - if you don't, you might not be pleased to be sickened by their work.

Unlike a lot of other 'art games,' Bad Day tells a distinct story - in fact, a lot of distinct stories - and you can figure out what they are. It's still juicy enough for some analysis, though - the lessons in Top Ten Tortures, in particular, follows me around as I live my life, recognizing the quiet torture that the every day person goes through. ("Brain buried by libido" can be particularly bad in high schools.)

In addition, I should add that I had some difficulty getting this to run on newer machines. ... In fact, I didn't get it to run, I just had an older one lying around.