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The Residents Bad Day on the Midway Cd-rom for PC & Mac

Ebay Item # 2526835717

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The Resident's Bad Day on the Midway Cd-rom Game

PC / Mac (out of print!)

The Residents' Bad Day on the Midway CD-ROM from Inscape is a sort-of sequel
to their earlier Freak Show CD-ROM. As with its predecessor, Bad Day's
animation was created by Jim Ludtke (who also worked on Gingerbread Man).
Fans of the Residents won't want to miss out on this item for your
collection!

Bad Day on the Midway has another thing in common with its predecessor,
Freak Show: it has been a fast critical success in the multimedia industry,
winning two Macromedia International User Conference People's Choice Awards:
"Best Entertainment Title" (which went to the Star Trek: The Next Generation
Interactive Technical Manual in 1994) and "Most Innovative Use of
Multimedia". It is the first title to win more than one People's Choice
Awards.

Unlike the band's previous multimedia works, Bad Day on the Midway is a
genuine goal-oriented game. Freak Show allowed the user to explore the tent
and trailers of the album's characters, but there was no overall plot --
just the various stories about the freaks. In Bad Day, as with Freak Show,
each of the characters has his or her own story, 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.

 The characters voices are provided by several actors, including Diana Alden
and Molly Harvey, who sang on Gingerbread Man and works for Ralph America,
and John Sanborn, who produced The Eyes Scream for The Residents. In order
to enhance the realism of the characters on screen, the actors who portray
them were filmed and the images of their real eyes and mouths were
superimposed on the computer-generated three-dimensional models of the
characters on-screen.

Jim Ludtke's artwork and animation is even richer and more engaging than his
Freak Show work. The midway is a riot of colour, from the bright neon signs
of the attractions to the dull earth tones of the buildings behind the
lights.

The various midway attractions themselves are strange and twisted, with
things like 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. The
artists are all outstanding and include several people who have contributed
to other Residential projects.

When playing Bad Day on the Midway, you take on the roles of the various
characters, looking at the midway world from inside their heads. You can
jump from one to another when they meet while you explore the midway world.
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 randomiser 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
play after play. This complex programming was handled very ably by Iain
Lamb.

Even if you manage to get to the end without being killed by the psychotic
killer or the other dangers on the Midway, you aren't done with the game.
For one thing, there are all of the animated stories about the characters to
search out (there are eight of them), not to mention the other attractions
(Torture's Top Ten, Marvels of Mayhem, and the Kill a Commie Shooting
Gallery (each have their own animated artwork).

There are also multiple endings (in addition to "You Have Been Killed By The
Psychotic Killer" and other generic "Game Over" endings, which you'll see
soon enough): some of them happy endings (sort of), and some decidedly not.
There are at five of these, some of which can only happen under very
exacting circumstances, and you'll probably want to see them all.

There's also a brief comment about the CD-ROM on HotWired's Electric Word
page, and there was a very favourable review of Bad Day in the November 14th
Entertainment Weekly.   Back in 1995, The Residents: Bad Day on the Midway
collected several awards, despite the weird descriptions used to promote it.

It won the People's Choice Award for Best Entertainment Title and Most
Innovative Use of Multimedia at the Macromedia International User
Conference. Also, it got a 4 star rating from PC Entertainment , 4 and 1/2
stars from CD-ROM Today, and 80% from PC Gamer and a Gold award for
Adventure/Role-Playing Game Title from New Media's 1996 Invision Awards.
Gamespot.com gives the game an 8.1 out of 10 and Mobygames gives it a 4.1
out of 5 Stars review too!

Published:  1995 (*out of print)

System Requirements:

Windows - Win 3.1 or higher, 486 dx/33 mHz, 2x cd-rom drive or faster, 16
bit sound card, 256 colours, 8 mb ram

Macintosh - System 7.1 or higher, 68030 33mHz or faster CPU, 2X cd-rom drive
or better, 256 colours, 8 mb ram

Product Condition:  This product is in very good condition, brand new
factory sealed.  The UPC barcode has a small tear on the bottom of the box,
but the product is definitely intact, in it's original seal.  See below for
shipping options!

Shipping:  Product will ship to your door in a protective padded envelope!
Please add $2.99 US for shipping and handling within Canada or the USA if
you just want to receive the jewel case and documention.  If you want to
have the full-size original box, I can ship to you for $4.99 US  -please
specify your wishes with your successful bid! (collectors will want the box
I imagine)