Night Trap

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Night Trap

System(s): Sega Mega CD. Sega Mega CD 32X, 3DO, DOS, Macintosh
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Digital Pictures
Genre: Adventure
ESRB BBFC

Night Trap is a controversial video game developed by Digital Pictures for DOS and Macintosh computers, the 3DO and the Sega Mega CD. It is also one of five Mega CD 32X games.

Night Trap consists entirely of full motion videos, the first video game ever to do so. In the game the player has to save five girls who are staying within a house from being killed by triggering various events. The player can move between various rooms of the house, and each room changes in real time depending on the player's action.

The game reportedly cost over $1.5 million (USD) to produce, and the footage was filmed within a three week period in 1987 for an unreleased game called Scene of the Crime. It was initially produced for an unreleased console by Hasbro called the NEMO, which relied on VHS tapes instead of ROM cartridges, but development moved to the Mega CD when the console was scrapped. The Sega versions include many references to Sega products, something that was removed in later non-Sega releases for obvious reasons.

Despite having no on-screen nudity or violent content, Night Trap was one of the first video games to be criticised for having "mature content", and prompted, along with Mortal Kombat and Doom, the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board in North America to regulate video games for the general public. It would go on to inspire numerous FMV games for the next few years.