Ночная ловушка: Интерактивный фильм ужасов Sega CD

1992 interactive movie

Night Trap is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full motion video (FMV), Night Trap has the player observe teenage girls having a sleepover visiting a house which, unbeknownst to them, is infested with vampires. The player watches live surveillance footage and triggers traps to capture anyone endangering the girls. The player can switch between different cameras to keep watch over the girls and eavesdrop on conversations to follow the story and listen for clues. The Night Trap concept originated in a 1986 prototype game developed by Axlon to demonstrate their Control Vision game console to Hasbro. The system used VHS tape technology to present film like gaming experiences. With the system picked up by Hasbro, the production of Night Trap commenced. The video footage was recorded in 1987, followed by six months of editing and game programming. Hasbro suddenly canceled the Control Vision in 1989, which prompted the game's executive producer, Tom Zito, to purchase the film footage and found Digital Pictures to complete Night Trap. Night Trap was eventually released in October 1992 as the first interactive movie on the Sega CD. Night Trap received mixed reviews; critics praised the B movie esque quality, humor, and video animation, but criticized the gameplay as shallow. The game was one of the principal subjects of a 1993 United States Senate committee hearing on violent video games, along with Mortal Kombat. Night Trap was cited during the hearing as promoting gratuitous violence and sexual aggression against women, prompting toy retailers Toys "R" Us and Kay Bee Toys to pull the game from shelves that December, and Sega to cease producing copies in January 1994. The Senate hearing led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the North American video game ratings board still used today. After the controversy subsided, Night Trap was ported to other consoles, including the 32X, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, MS DOS, and Mac OS. It was re released in 2017 and 2018 for eighth generation consoles to mark its 25th anniversary. Retrospective reviews of Night Trap were negative, owing to FMV's aging appeal as a game medium, and it has been cited as one of the worst video games of all time.

Night Trap is an interactive movie video game that uses full motion video (FMV) to present the story and gameplay. The player is instructed by the in game police squad to watch live surveillance footage of the Martin household and trigger traps to capture anyone that is seen endangering the house guests. Cameras are situated in eight locations in and around the house: the entryway, living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, driveway, and two hallways. A map is available as well so the player can see how the rooms are connected. The player can freely switch between viewing the different cameras to keep up with house activities and pick up clues from conversations. Kelli, an undercover agent, will also provide clues to the player. The player must avoid trapping her, any other agent, or the house guests. When someone is within range of a trap, a sensor bar will move into a red zone. Activating the trap at this moment will capture them. The missing girls were reportedly invited to stay for the night. Police questioned the Martin family, but they claimed the girls had left safely, and they refused to let the police search the property. The police then handed over the case to S. C. A. T., which investigated the house and discovered a series of traps, security cameras, and an operational unit in the basement to control the apparatus. The S. C. A. T. agents spliced an override cable onto the control system and connected it to a control panel in the back hallway of the house. The player is given the role of an internal S. C. A. T. operative charged with controlling the traps and cameras from this back hallway. the instruction manual spells it with an "i". within the group as an undercover agent. The girls are not aware of her true identity.

Rob Fulop, developer of Demon Attack (1982) and other Atari games, began working with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell at his company Axlon shortly after the video game crash of 1983. James Riley was also working with Bushnell at the time on a series of interactive retail advertising campaigns. Riley received a call from Fulop, his neighbor, who explained that an engineer presented an interesting device to another one of Bushnell's employees, Tom Zito. A prototype game titled Scene of the Crime was produced to demonstrate the new technology to Hasbro and test the surveillance camera gameplay. Ready to begin work on a full game, the NEMO team returned to the idea of surveillance cameras but wanted to make a more interactive and engaging experience. The company cited high hardware costs as the reason. The system was originally intended to sell for $199, but the high manufacturing costs of the system's DRAM drove it to In contrast, the market leading Nintendo Entertainment System sold for around $100 in 1989. Sega also released the Sega CD version in Japan on November 19, 1993.

[[File:Night Trap bathroom scene. ogv|thumb|upright=1.3|In the "nightgown scene", Lisa is captured by the enemies and taken off camera. This scene was cited as promoting violence against women at a United States Senate hearing. At the hearing, the committee scrutinized Night Trap along with Midway's Mortal Kombat (1992). Lieberman claimed Night Trap featured gratuitous violence and promoted sexual aggression against women. Two weeks before Christmas, the game was removed from store shelves in the United States' two largest toy store chains, Toys "R" Us and Kay Bee Toys, after receiving numerous complaints that were suspected to be part of an organized telephone campaign. Both stores continued to stock Mortal Kombat. The Night Trap box art was also criticized by interest groups for what many believed to be a sexist depiction. In January 1994, Sega withdrew Night Trap from the market. Bill White, Sega Vice President of Marketing, stated that Night Trap was pulled because the continuing controversy surrounding it prevented constructive dialogue about an industry wide rating system. He also stated that the game was misunderstood and was developed as a parody of vampire melodramas. Sega also announced in January the upcoming release of a censored version. The hearings led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) in 1994, the video game ratings board in North America still used today.

In May 2014, Night Trap designer James Riley announced that he was in talks to re release the game with improved resolution and gameplay. The developers said that if the campaign was successful, they would be looking into re releasing other Digital Pictures titles. Furthermore, the company was also considering making a sequel to the original game. Two years later, in May 2016, game developer Tyler Hogle created a tech demo of Night Trap being played on a smartphone. Hogle had previously worked on official ports for two other Digital Pictures games, Double Switch (1993) and Quarterback Attack (1995). He posted a short video of his Night Trap demo online anonymously, and some gaming websites published stories on the video and contacted Tom Zito to ask if he was involved. Hogle got into contact with Zito, and the two began working towards a full release. The original source code and 1987 master footage are lost. Riley, however, possessed a copy of the timed master footage and provided it to Hogle. Because the footage was already timed, it was easier for Hogle to develop; however, he had to replay the original game multiple times to learn what actions triggered which scenes. The ESRB gave the re release a "Teen" rating, a grade lower than the original's "Mature" rating. The anniversary edition of Night Trap uses the full uncompressed video footage with various new additions: deleted scenes including an introduction and a death scene featuring Danny, a behind the scenes developer commentary, a "theater mode" to watch all the story related videos, a "survivor mode" which places Augers randomly in the house, and a playable version of Scene of the Crime. The anniversary edition was released on the Nintendo Switch on August 24, 2018. Some journalists found the Switch release ironic, given Lincoln's statement that "Night Trap will never appear on a Nintendo system" during the 1993 congressional hearings. A version for the PlayStation Vita was also released.