The Residents' Bad Day on the Midway

Anyone ever play this? It's quite the strange game. In fact, as one reviewer put it, it's more a "multimedia experience" then a game. The game is inspired by the avant garde band "The Residents" who all wear masks and no one actually knows who the members are.

The setting is a rundown amusement park in which you start off as a little boy named Timmy. Through the course of the game you can posses various characters and try and figure out exactly what is going on.

One of the nice features of the game is that at the lower end of the screen, you can read the current character's thoughts. So for Timmy, he mostly thinks about school and his siblings and how annoying they are, but when you encounter other characters or strange sights, then you have thoughts about it. It's important that you take note of your character's thoughts, as they tend to give you clues about what you are suppose to do.

The game features various artists and the music is varied. Both are excellent and my personal favorites are Kill a Commie and the Tree Woman Dance. I wish I could find the video. Very catchy tune and very tragic tale!

Anyways, it was a strange game to say the least. So, uh anyone remember this game by chance?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/win3x/…-on-the-midway

I remember. I was amazed when I played it, and it still remains in my mind as an unfulfilled promise of the artistic potential of computer games. The technology was primitive, but the imagination soared.

I have this bee in my bonnet about an art-house games industry. BDotMW is a proof of concept of what that approach could do. I really is an incredible game.

The Residents' Gingerbread Man wasn't up to the same level; I bought and played (if that's the word) that too, but felt it was a big let-down.

I didn't even realize they had any other games. I suppose Bad Day on the Midway wasn't very successful sales wise and since adventure games seem to be a fairly dead genre (except for a few) I suppose we won't be seeing the likes of it anytime soon.

I managed to get a hold of the Russian game Pathologic. This is another artsy type game. VERY weird and creepy. Unfortunately, the translation is pretty poor so it's sometimes difficult to understand what is going on, but I have a feeling it was difficult to understand what was going on in the Russian version.

The same studio made "Tension" which currently has no English translation yet, but apparently they're working on it. I can't even find this game anywhere online to buy. It looks REALLY weird and dark. Here's a little right up for anyone interested: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/ice-pick/

These games should be the model for the whole Dark, Gritty, and Mature craze that seems to be running about.