The "It just works!" package for Bad Day on the Midway
It won't get any easier than this: A full package of "Bad Day on the Midway" that includes all files you need for Windows and Mac!
(And it also includes "Freak Show"!)
It is completely free and you don't need to be a computer expert in any sense of the word. It's free, easy and its goal is to make "Bad Day on the Midway" accessible to as many people as possible.
This package uses DOSBox to emulate a Windows 3.1 installation containing BDotM and Freak Show.
The package is ready to run BDotM and Freak Show out of the box!
Download
Windows version (RSDNT.zip, 862.1mb)
MacOS version (RSDNT.dmg, 865.2mb)
MacOS compatibility version for newer Mac chips (RSDNT-Compat.dmg, 882.8 MB)
Current version: v1.3 (May 2026)
Changes from last version:
Using the package on Windows
- Unzip the downloaded file somewhere on your hard drive
- Double-click "START-ON-WINDOWS.bat"
- Windows may tell you that it protected you from danger by preventing an unrecognized app from running. Don't worry, that's normal: Windows is very sceptical of downloaded files nowadays. But this is easy to bypass, and you can do so safely. Just click on "More info", then "Run anyways". See screenshot on the right for more info.
- Windows may tell you that it protected you from danger by preventing an unrecognized app from running. Don't worry, that's normal: Windows is very sceptical of downloaded files nowadays. But this is easy to bypass, and you can do so safely. Just click on "More info", then "Run anyways". See screenshot on the right for more info.
- Have fun :-)
Using the package on Mac OS
- Open the .dmg file and put the "RSDNT.app" file somewhere on your hard drive
- Double-click "RSDNT.app"
- You may need one additional step, since Mac OS does not trust apps from unknown developers. If you get an error message that apps from unknown developers cannot be opened, hold the CRTL key, right-click the "RSDNT.app" file and click "open". The dialog should now change and display an "open" button next to the "cancel" one. You'll only need to do this once.
- With MacOS Tahoe and up, this gets a bit more annoying:
- Click the Apple icon in the menu bar and select "Settings"
- Navigate to "Privacy & Security" in the left pane
- Scroll down until you see "Security", and there should be an entry in the list like "RSDNT.app was blocked to protect your Mac" (or something like this)
- Click "Open anyway" - you might need to confirm several times and enter your password, fingerprint, or whatever Mac wants from you :)
- You may need one additional step, since Mac OS does not trust apps from unknown developers. If you get an error message that apps from unknown developers cannot be opened, hold the CRTL key, right-click the "RSDNT.app" file and click "open". The dialog should now change and display an "open" button next to the "cancel" one. You'll only need to do this once.
- Have fun :-)
Do you own a new, fancy Mac? Then the normal package probably won't work, try to do the same with the compatibility version. If you are using a newer Mac, it might need this special version which is made especially for newer ARM64 chipsets.
FAQ
?: How do I quit?
!: Either shut down Windows 3.1 (click "File" in the program manager window and select "Exit Windows". Or just hit ALT+F4 (Windows) or COMMAND+Q (MacOS).
If DOSBox crashes for some reason (unlikely, but everything can happen), remember that you can always CRTL+ALT+DEL (Windows) or CRTL+CMD+ESC (MacOS) out of it, and open Task Manager to quit it!
?: On Mac, the App just closes after opening
!: Make sure that you put the RSDNT.app out of the file container (the DMG-file you downloaded) somewhere on your hard drive. It needs a place on the hard drive to modify its own files, and within the DMG package, it cannot write files (DMG files are read-only). Don't worry, it won't touch any of your other files, it just needs to update its own configuration with your Mac's details.
Since MacOS 12.4 it can also happen that there is a permission issue with launching in fullscreen. To fix this, please use the compatibility version. It will not launch in fullscreen, but hey, it works at least.
?: I am using a Mac device with a Silicone (e.g. M1) processor, and the game is stuttering
!: First: Make sure that you are using the compatibility package. It's a bit more optimized for ARM64 chipsets by using DOSBox-X. This performance issue is caused by incompatibility issues between Apple Silicon CPUs and DOSBox. You see, DOSBox basically translates the commands of old software to commands a modern CPU (the brain of your computer) can understand. This is what is actually called emulation, and it's a quite complicated process. Mostly this is due to the sheer number of different commands and some commands having no modern day equivalents, etc.
What happens now with the new fangled ARM64 processors is that the system itself needs to emulate any software that was made to run on old pre-modern-Mac Intel chips. That happens in the background with lots of software, without you even noticing.
So, a quick rundown on what happens in the background when you run the package:
- DOSBox translates Bad Day's old commands to Intel language,
- your Mac translates this Intel language to ARM64 language,
- your Mac handles these ARM64 language commands and does all the stuff like it would be an Intel machine.
All of that in realtime, or at least as fast as possible.
And that takes a lot of processing power - basically, it's emulating the game twice! No matter how high-end your Mac is, it will hit a bottleneck with the emulation Intel->ARM64.
At this point in time, I cannot really do anything about it, really. We'll see if the DOSBox authors plan on releasing a Silicone-native version of DOSBox. If so, I'll make sure to update the package as soon as possible. For now, I added a second package that uses DOSBox-X, which is a bit better with direct ARM64 support, but still not perfect.
System requirements
- Windows: Windows XP or newer, tested up to Windows 11
- Mac OS: 10.x or newer, tested up to 12.2.1
- About 1.2gb of hard drive space
If things don't work, you can get in touch with me at badday@forspamonly.com (yes, this email address exists, don't worry!).
Thank you!
Many thanks go out to Maarten Ijff, who created the basic package. He got in touch with me an suggested that he had found an easier solution than using VirtualBox: DOSBox is able to emulate Windows 3.x so why not use a DOSBox with Windows 3.1 to run the games? He then created the basic config file and the file structure for the C: drive. He was kind enough to supply these files to me so I could create this automated package.
Another big thanks goes to Cryptic Corporation, the current copyright holder of the game and artwork, and former iNSCAPE CEO, Mr Nash, for allowing me to offer this package.
License information
The whole package is "as is" and free of charge. I will not be responsible for any damages done to your computer in case something goes wrong and it catches fire, or something.
It is forbidden to charge money for this package or sell it in any other way. You can do with it what you want, but make sure to credit us and provide a link to this site.
Within this package, some copyrighted files are used. The license agreement for DOSBox can be found in the "Licenses" folder. "Windows" is a trademark of Microsoft Inc., all rights reserved. This setup of Windows, its files as well as all game files are used under the impression that they are abadonware and that the current rights holders have no interest in financial compensation, when the properties are used in a non-profit and free project. All trademarks and properties remain properties of their owners.
The game and its contents are © 1995 Cryptic Corporation, iNSCAPE and The Residents. All rights reserved.