| Bad Milk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Dreaming Media |
| Designers | Ted Skolnick Mick Skolnick |
| Programmer | Ted Skolnick |
| Artist | Mick Skolnick |
| Engine | Macromedia Director 7 |
| Platforms | Microsoft Windows,Mac OS |
| Release | October 12, 2000[1] |
| Genre | Puzzle |
| Mode | Single-player |
Bad Milk is apuzzle video game developed byNew York City-based developer Dreaming Media, the working name of brothers Ted and Mick Skolnick. It was originally released in November 2000 forMicrosoft Windows andMac OS. Created entirely inMacromedia Director 7 and intended to be anart game, the game features a number of puzzles involvingfull motion video and audio clues. It won theSeumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2002Independent Games Festival, as well as the award for Innovation in Audio.
Mick Skolnick told GameDev.net in 2002 that he had worked in the cosmetics industry, retouching photographs for advertisements, after studying art in college; his brother Ted was a software developer and former engineering student.[2] According to the developers,Bad Milk was created to serve as "video installation art",[3] something the pair were keen to get involved with but which proved too expensive.[4] Mick said the concept of moving this into a video game was the "best way to combine our skills".[2] The pair worked out of their apartments inQueens, New York, since they couldn't afford to rent office space in the city.[3]
Bad Milk was developed inMacromedia Director 7.[5] Mick appears in puzzles throughout the game, recorded with aSony Handycam and edited inAdobe Premiere. The pair worked part-time on the project, taking a year to develop the final game alongside professional work; they estimated production costs at $12,000 (equivalent to $21,911 in 2024), including hardware. It was released on ahybrid disc in order to be playable on bothMicrosoft Windows andMac OS.[2]
Ademo version of the game was made available on the developer's website, along with a link to purchase the full game. As of 2016[update], it is not possible to purchase the full game from Dreaming Media.[4] To support the game's release, the pair entered a piece oftime-lapse footage used in the game intoSan Francisco-based artist James Buckhouse's online exhibition of screen savers,Refresh: The Art of the Screen Saver. The footage depicts Mick's hair growing and, when reversed, receding, and is used in the game's final puzzle.[6]
Bad Milk begins with a first personfull motion video, in which the player drinks spoiled milk and collapses onto the table. This launches apuzzle game in which the player must complete a series ofminigames to obtain clues to "escape" their situation. The player is spoken to in various phone calls by an unseen third party and given hints to complete the puzzles. Clues are hidden in FMV clips including a "dismembered bald head, a disembodied voice, a drowning man, and chronic smokers",[3] and often usereversed audio.
At some points, the player is dropped into a dark area and must usesound cues to navigate to the next puzzle. The end goal is to find the code for acombination lock in the form of a human head, then to find a two-wordpassphrase to unlock the final video clip, which depicts the player's rebirth in first person.[4] Mick toldGameDev.net that the overarching themes includereincarnation andmortality, with the "prize" being "birth, along with unconditional love".[2]
Ted Skolnick submitted the game to theIndependent Games Festival in 2002, after reading about it in passing in a gaming magazine.[2] It was ultimately awarded theSeumas McNally Grand Prize and the Innovation in Audio award at a ceremony at theGame Developers Conference inSan Diego;[7] Alex Dunne, then chairman of the IGF, said in a statement that "the 2002 IGF honorees exemplify the'outside the box' thinking that keeps innovation at the forefront of video game development".[8]
In 2007, Anthony Burch ofDestructoid wrote in a retrospective of the game that it was "immensely flawed, but hugely original", and "a difficult game to describe without playing it for yourself".[4] ResearcherJesper Juul, also a member of the jury for the Independent Games Festival, wrote in 2014 that he considered the game a "return to 1990sCD-ROM experiments".[9]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Independent Games Festival Awards | Seumas McNally Grand Prize | Won | [8] |
| Innovation in Audio | Won |
