Line #17 VideoGame/BadDayOnTheMidway


1	You take control of Timmy, a naive and excitable young boy that misses a violin lesson to check out the Midway, an amusement park he heard about in his town.
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3	But the deeper you go into the Midway, and the more [[DysfunctionJunction quirky characters]] among the lot that you meet and are told the past of, you just may realize that there's something deeply wrong going on...
4	Something like {{Blackmail}}, the mystery of the Midway's owner in a coma, a crazy SerialKiller, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and tax problems]].
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6	''Bad Day On The Midway'' is a 1995 CD-ROM game from Music/TheResidents, with 3D graphics by the late Jim Ludtke.
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8	Here is the [[Characters/BadDayOnTheMidway character page]]. The game can be downloaded for free [[https://www.wegneronline.com/badday/package.html here]].
9	----
10	!!This game contains examples of:
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12	* AbusiveParents: Most of the characters, if not all, have had a bad childhood. Some of which fit into this trope.
13	* AmusementPark: The Midway itself, run-down and broke. It shows shades of AmusementParkOfDoom and CrappyCarnival.
14	** It does seem to have rollercoaster roads around it, but you never get the chance to ride it.
15	** It has a shooting gallery called Kill-a-Commie, in which the targets are DirtyCommunists.
16	** It has two exposition museums: the "Three-headed Abominable Snowman", and the "Sperm Whale Giving Birth to an Electric Eel".
17	** It has two dark rides, "The Marvels of Mayhem" and "Torture's Top Ten"
18	** It has a betting booth that stars Oscar the Racing Rat as he runs in a roulette and has people guess which of the six holes inside he will go in. The game is rigged against you by Otto, but still...
19	* AnimalMotif: Animals hold an important part in most of the characters' lives: dogs for Dagmar and the IRS Man, rodents for Otto, butterflies for Ted, and goldfish for Timmy. Even Dixie comments "guess the best family I ev'r had wuz poor little Moochy."
20	* ArtShift: The backstories of the various characters are accompanied by wacky 2D-drawn sequences by various guest artists.
21	* BlondeBrunetteRedhead: The women working in the Midway; respectively, Dixie, Dagmar and Lottie. [[AdaptationDyeJob At least,]] [[ArtShift in the 3D models...]]
22	* FreudianExcuse: The characters are all flawed in various ways, and a number of them have this to one degree or another.
23	** Ted is a serial killer as an adult, and he places much significance on his father hitting him as a child.
24	** Otto was mocked and bullied in his childhood, and he later became desperate and manipulative.
25	** Dagmar had troubled relationship with her father; when she was a child, a man tried to kill her just to get revenge on her dad. Her upbringing influenced her later rocky relationships.
26	** Jocko spent an unhappy period in an orphanage in his childhood, and he became a very tough customer later in life.
27	** Ike's memories suggest that his father didn't give him the understanding and approval he wanted as a child, and that he became obsessed with Hitler due to a vague similarity between Hitler and Ike's father.
28	** The IRS man saw his dog run over by a man speeding to file a late tax return, so he became fixated on supporting the legal system and punishing cheaters.
29	** Even Oscar wants, on some level, to get revenge on people after being used and abused in the past.
30	* {{Leitmotif}}: When you assume control of another character, a short segment from the soundtrack plays for a few seconds.
31	** For Timmy, the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin aptly named]] "Timmy."
32	** Dixie has "God's Teardrops."
33	** Otto gets "I Ain't Seen No Rats."
34	** The IRS Man's "Tears of A Taxman."
35	** Jocko has "The Seven Tattoos."
36	** Ted's "Ugly Liberation."
37	** Dagmar's has the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin fitting]] name of "Dagmar, The Dog Woman."
38	* OnlyFatalToAdults: ThePlague will inevitably kill off every adult in the park, including the character the player is controlling. Timmy, however, is immune to it.
39	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Some characters are surprisingly nonchalant about other characters [[spoiler:dying of the Red Rat Plague right in front of them.]]
40	-->[[spoiler:'''IRS Man:'' My heart goes out to that desperate woman, but I'm afraid this new situation does not alleviate her tax problem.]]

Context VideoGame / BadDayOnTheMidway