Bad Day On The Midway

***Bad Day On The Midway*** is a CD-ROM video game designed by The Residents with Jim Ludtke. It was published by iNSCAPE and released November 21st, 1995.

It is a point-and-click adventure/puzzle game set entirely within a roadside carnival. It won the 1995 Macrovision International User Conference Award in two categories; Best Entertainment Title and Most Innovative Use of Multimedia.

The Residents released an album featuring music from the game, *Have A Bad Day*, in 1996. The group also wrote a novel based on the game, which was released in a limited edition of 750 copies in 2012, alongside a CD featuring remixed selections from the game's soundtrack.

## Plot outline

*Bad Day On The Midway* follows the lives of a number of workers and visitors of a roadside carnival throughout a singular bad day.

Each character has a distinct narrative within the game, but there is also an overall plot involving them all, in which they have to deal with the fate of the midway, a man in a coma, the future of the midway, a psychotic killer, plague, and the IRS.

## Gameplay

The gameplay includes elements from point-and-click adventure games and features alternative narratives with definite fixed story elements. It requires you to switch between nine different playable characters in order to complete puzzle-based challenges.

The game is centered around discovery through the different characters. To understand the story as a whole, it is necessary to complete the game multiple times, it is time-limited and decisions made by the player influence the game's timer. As events unfold, the CD-ROM program changes the character's goals and actions, making the interactions more complex and unpredictable than those in a regular adventure game.

To add another level of chaos, The Residents had a randomizer built into the program so that the exact way the goals change varies from play to play -- it is practically impossible to get the game to follow the same course in successive playthroughs. This complex programming was handled very ably by Iain Lamb.

The various midway attractions themselves are strange and twisted, such as the "Kill a Commie Shooting Gallery", the "Torture's Top Ten", and the "Marvels of Mayhem". Each features original graphic art and most include an on-screen "graphic story", as do each of the characters. There are also at least five multiple endings: some of them happy endings (sort of), and some decidedly not. Some of these endings can only occur under very exacting circumstances.

## Release

*Bad Day on The Midway* was originally announced for a Halloween 1995 release date, but by October 18th, it was announced as having been delayed. The guidebook was announced for a December 15th release date. By mid-November the release date was announced as November 21st.

After having been out of print and playable only on obsolete computer systems for many years, in late March 2022 links to fan Max Wegner's *Bad Day on the Midway* infosite were posted to The Residents' social media channels and official website, announcing that "amazingly, BAD DAY ON THE MIDWAY is back and you can check it out!" The infosite prominently features a free, downloadable version of the game which (with the supplied instructions) is playable on modern systems.

## Characters

### Playable

* Timmy
* Dixie
* Dagmar
* IRS Man
* Lottie
* Ted
* Otto
* Ike
* Jocko

## Credits

* **Written By** The Residents
* **Directed By** The Residents & Jim Ludtke
* **Animation & Design**: Jim Ludtke
* **Programming By**: Lain Lamb
* **Produced By**: Sharon Bystrek Ludtke
* **Programming Technical Adviser**, J.A. Nelson
* **Music Written & Performed By**: The Residents
* **Executive Producer**: Michael Nash
* **Timmy**: Diana Alden
* **Oscar Comic Art By**: Richard Sala
* **Narration By**: Diana Alden
* **Dixie**: Molly Harvey
* **Dixie Comic Art By**: Ronald M. Davis
* **Additional Modelling by**: Phill Simon & Thalia Georgeopolis
* **Graphic Assistant**: Steven Kloman, Bill Domonkos & James Nelson
* **Video Tech**: Jenny Doll
* **Additonal Graphics**: Pore No Grafix
* **Additional Programming By**: Patric Kelly & Quinn C. Hoyer
* **Dagmar**: Sharon Bystrek Ludtke
* **Dagmar Comic Art By**: Paul Mavrides
* **IRS Man**: Seymore Hodges
* **IRS Man Comic Art By**: Doug Fraser
* **Tortures Top 10 Original Artwork By**: Jonathan Rosen
* **Animation By**: James Nelson
* **Kill A Commie Shooting Gallery Original Artwork**: Steve Cerio
* **Stars & Stripes Forever By**: John Philip Sousa
* **Directed By**: Jim Ludtke
* **Animation By**: Joel Hornsby
* **Lottie**: Molly Harvey
* **Lottie Comic Art By**: Georgeanne Deen
* **Animation By**: Bill Domonkos
* **Ted**: Mark Morgan
* **Ted Comic Art By**: Dave McKean
* **The Warehouse Original Artwork By**: Poe Dismuke
* **Marvels Of Mayhem Original Artwork By**: Leigh Barbier
* **Credits Designed By**: Michael Wurthington At Reverb
* **Otto**: John Sanborn
* **Otto Comic Art By**: Peter Kuper
* **Ike**: Ollie Gordon
* **Coma Dream By**: Bill Domonkos
* **Product Development Consultant / Testing Supervisor**: Dave Nichols
* **Engineering Consultant**: Brock Laporte
* **Project Management Consonant**: Antoma Smithson
* **Art Production Consultant**: Rebekah Behrendt
* **Project Accounting**: Dave Boss
* **Package Design By**: Michael Wurthington At Reverb
* **Package Cover Art By**: Jim Ludtke
* **Package Design Coordinator**: Melissa Hertz
* **Additional Voices** By: The Residents
* **Jocko**: Elmore Madison

## Related releases

An official strategy guide was released alongside the game in 1995, written by Jeff Sengstack. It includes a walkthrough, tips and hints, but also includes extra background on the characters, as well as a history of The Residents and their philosophy (summarized in a section called "The Tao of The Residents"), and a discussion of the game featuring interviews with Jim Ludtke, Iain Lamb, as well as some of Ludtke's development sketches.

The following year an album of music from and inspired by the game was released, titled *Have a Bad Day.* Rather than release a basic soundtrack for the game, The Residents instead chose to take the music they had composed and reconstitute it into a stand-alone album; as such *Have a Bad Day* is often considered to be both a soundtrack and a mainline studio album.

In 2001 a short video was created by The Residents based on and using assets from the game, as well as a "concentrate" of excerpts from the game's soundtrack. This video was featured on the *Icky Flix* DVD, and the "concentrate" was performed live by the group on their subsequent tour.

Around 2003, an animated adaptation of *Freak Show* was in the works, featuring *Bad Day*'s Timmy as the lead character. This animated feature would have been released as a DVD, however it was abandoned partway through production due to the unexpected and untimely death of Jim Ludtke. Timmy later appeared in his own online series of short videos, released on the group's then-new YouTube channel in the second half of 2006.

The Residents later adapted *Bad Day* into a novel, which was released in 2012 in a limited edition of 750 copies. The book also included a bonus CD featuring radically rearranged selections from the game's original soundtrack, entitled *Bad Day On The Midway: Music From The Game Reconsidered*.

## See also

* Jim Ludtke
* iNSCAPE
* *Freak Show*
* *Gingerbread Man*
* *Have A Bad Day*
* Timmy (video series)
* *Bad Day On The Midway: The Official Strategy Guide*
* *Bad Day On The Midway* (novel)
* *Bad Day On The Midway: Music From The Game Reconsidered*

## External links and references

* *Bad Day On The Midway* at The Residents Historical
* Max Wegner's *Bad Day On The Midway* Infosite (with free download of the game)
* *Bad Day On The Midway* at RZWeb
* *Bad Day On The Midway* at Discogs
* *Bad Day On The Midway* at Wikipedia

1. ↑ James H.G. Redekop, "Re: Smelly Tongues #3", Smelly Tongues Issue #4, October 18th 1995 (via archive.org)
2. ↑ Dr. Fritz Rotwang, "Bad Day Release Date", Smelly Tongues Issue #7, November 6th 1995 (via archive.org)
3. ↑ Post on The Residents' official Facebook page, March 31st 2022
4. ↑ Post on The Residents' official Instagram page, March 31st 2022
5. ↑ "YOU CAN STILL HAVE A BAD DAY!!!!", The Residents' News Machine, March 29th 2022