Line #5 Trivia/NightTrap


1	* AllStarCast: Sega's Japanese dub of the game sported a quite notable cast even for its time, considering the game was one of the first non-Japanese multimedia games dubbed to that language, featuring Creator/KikukoInoue (Kelly), Creator/AtsukoTanaka (Lisa), Creator/MitsuakiMadono (Jeff), Creator/AkiraIshida (Danny), Creator/AkemiOkamura (Megan), Creator/AkioOtsuka (Lt. Simms), Creator/RokuroNaya (Victor Martin) and many others.
2	* BannedInChina: The game was not allowed to be sold in German stores, in the wake of the controversy the game got in America and in Britain.
3	* ColbertBump: The game's notoriety rests almost entirely on it having been Exhibit A in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_congressional_hearings_on_video_games 1993-4 US Senate hearings]] on video game violence, which led to the creation of the ESRB.
4	* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: One of the more infamous examples. During the Senate hearings, they claimed the game's objective was to "trap and kill young women", while in reality, it was the opposite. Digital Pictures execs actually called them out on this, saying that if they at least saw the ''opening cutscene'' explaining the player's mission, they'd realize their mistake. However, since those who brought this case to the Senate were MoralGuardians who resorted to [[UsefulNotes/LogicalFallacies fear mongering]] to draw in support, they refused to do so.
5	* CreatorBacklash:
6	** Tom Zito, the CEO at Digital Pictures, disapproved of the grainy graphics on the Sega CD version of the game. ''Night Trap'' was intended for the Control-Vision and the cancelled SNES add-on, both of which had 256 colors compared to the Mega Drive's 32.
7	** Dana Plato reportedly made little effort to hide the fact that doing this project was a huge step down in her career.
8	* DawsonCasting: Creator/DanaPlato in particular was 22/23. Justified in that she's not supposed to be a teenager even in-game; she's a police officer posing as a teenage girl for a sting operation. Less justified with the other party-goers, who ARE supposed to be teenagers, despite mostly being about the same age as Plato.
9	* DeletedScene: The 2017 version reinserts four of them back into the game. One is the introduction, one is the need to rescue Danny from being drained by the augers, and the last two are both optional game overs.
10	* DuelingDubs: The game has two Japanese dubs, one done by Glovision for Sega and one done by Intersound for Virgin Games.
11	* DummiedOut: One of the Game Over scenes ([[spoiler:in which you accidentally trap Lt. Simms while he's fighting off Sheila]]), which could only be viewed using a Sega CD Movie viewer on a Windows computer. The 2017 edition adds that scene back into the game along with two other Game Over scenes [[DeletedScene that never made the final cut]].
12	* ExecutiveMeddling: The reason that the game features primarily "augers" instead of normal vampires is that Hasbro, the game's original producers, were concerned about "imitable violence", and thought that showing vampires biting people would [[ViewersAreMorons inspire players to do the same]]. Thus, the writers had the augers extract blood with a mechnical device rather than do it themselves, which many would argue actually made the game even more disturbing. Of course, this ended being AllForNothing considering the controversy the game managed to kick up anyways when it was eventually released.
13	* InMemoriam: In the 2017 edition, the end credits close with this dedication: "In Memory Of: Dana Plato[[note]]Kelly's actress, who died of an overdose in 1999[[/note]], [[http://egy-plus.com/rashad/page1.php Jon Rashad Kamal]][[note]]the actor who played Victor Martin, and who passed away in January 2014 at 79[[/note]], Ken Melville, Ken Soohoo, David Popovich, and Tom Bazzano[[note]]the stuntmen who performed as the Augers[[/note]]." Before that, the Sega CD version and the other four 1990s console versions close out with an "In memory of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_D._Hassenfeld Stephen David Hassenfeld]]", who died of pneumonia and cardiac arrest about a few months after Hasbro's cancellation of the Control-Vision.
14	* NoDubForYou: A curious aversion happened in Japan, as this game had two Japanese dubs (one produced by Sega and one produced by Virgin), and also the only Creator/DigitalPictures game dubbed into a foreign language, other than ''Supreme Warrior'', who was dubbed to Chinese. Also, this game was one of the first, if not the very first, Western-developed games dubbed to that language, and with a AllStarCast to boot, even for its time. The trope is still played straight in the newer editions.
15	* SavedFromDevelopmentHell: ''Night Trap'' (along with its sister game ''VideoGame/SewerShark'') was created for the Nemo, a cancelled 1989 Hasbro console. In 1990, it was then moved to the also cancelled Sony add-on for the Super Nintendo. The game was finally released on the Sega CD in 1992.
16	* StreisandEffect: The game sold far more copies than it would have, thanks to the controversy it received.
17	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
18	** The game started out as a prototype called ''Scene of the Crime'', a game about a player who follows suspicious characters around a house to find out who stole a stash of money. The player switches between cameras to observe the characters and eavesdrop on their conversations (all the characters have a plot to steal the money). At the end of the game, the player must guess who stole the money. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFDPToA4rto Footage of the prototype was released on the game's 25th-anniversary re-release in 2017.]]
19	** In an early draft with elements from the prototype, a billionaire has left an extremely large sum of money alone in a large house, guarded by a state-of-the-art security system. In this concept, the billionaire's daughter is staying at the house with her teenage friends when the house is attacked by ninja burglars who are attempting to steal the money. Through much deliberation, the game evolved into the vampire concept seen in the final version of the game.
20	** At one point the game was a film license for ''Franchise/ANightmareOnElmStreet'', but the deal fell through.
21	** The game was originally planned for the Control-Vision in 1989 but due to the console cancelation, the game and its footage was shelved for 3 years until the Sega CD was released.
22	** At one point the game was planned to be released on the ill-fated SNES CD-ROM. As production was stalled on that hardware however, the publishers decided to switch it over to Sega. Considering how Nintendo lambasted the game at the Congress hearings [[HilariousInHindsight this can come off as amusing.]]

Context Trivia / NightTrap