Overview
This Guide will cover everything below on Night Trap – 25th Anniversary Edition:- Backstory of Night Trap and Digital Pictures- Achievements Guide- Tips and Tricks for a Perfect Game and Survivor Mode.. and more!(This guide was originally posted on 26th March 2018 but was completely rewritten and posted on 2nd November 2020 with new information and a lot better structure)
DISCLAIMER / READ THIS FIRST!
Before we start, I would like to mention that I am not associated with any creators or producers from the original game, nor am I associated with Tyler Hogle, the developer of the 25th Anniversary Edition. This guide is also around two years old but was updated very recently, so if any information is correct, then let me know! Lastly, I do not and will not give out any spoilers in any sections of this guide. This is because I do not want to spoil the game for those who may be new to Night Trap.
Backstory of Night Trap and Scene Of The Crime
Digital Pictures
Night Trap was first released on the Sega CD in 1992, however, the games history dates back to 1986, 6 years before it’s release. In 1986, a prototype of an FMV game called Scene of The Crime was pitched to Hasbro. Hasbro liked the idea of FMV games and gave the necessary funding’s for Tom Zito to create Digital Pictures. This interest in FMV games would be short lived, as the early 90s saw a decline in FMV games, which resulted in Digital Pictures eventually ceasing operations in 1996.
Scene Of The Crime
Scene Of The Crime was a basic FMV game where a rich man named Norman has a safe full of money and everyone seems to have a plan to steal the money. At the beginning of the game, Norman asks you to watch everyone in the house and determine who is actually trying to steal the money. The game lasts around five minutes and ends with Normal holding everyone at gunpoint in the Study Room. Norman will then ask you who the culprit is.
There are two possible endings to Scene Of The Crime, those are:
The Good Ending
The good ending is where the player chooses the person who was actually trying to steal the money. Norman informs the culprit that he had installed a security system without telling anyone and the culprit will attempt to deny the allegations. Norman ignores the allegations and calls the police.
The Bad Ending
The bad ending is where the player chooses any person other than the culprit. A woman then informs Norman that the person you choose was with her in the hallway. The woman then berates you about how you weren’t paying enough attention to the cameras and tells Norman to meet her downstairs. Norman then looks at you disappointingly and leaves the room.
Night Trap
A year after Scene Of The Crime was pitched, Digital Pictures began work on filming and programming Night Trap. The development of Night Trap was described as “part movie shooting and part programming” and had a budget of around $1.5 million, which was the largest budget allocated out of all FMV games alongside Sewer Shark, which was also produced by Digital Pictures. The game was initially developed for a new Hasbro system being developed at the time, named NEMO (short for “Never Ever Mention Outside”), however, NEMO unfortunately got cancelled in 1989. In light of this announcement, Digital Pictures scrapped the idea of distributing the game on VHS Tapes and switched to CD-ROM, which was still considered new technology at the time. In 1992, Digital Pictures released Night Trap on the SEGA CD, five years after the company started work on the game. Today, some fans realise that using VHS tapes to distribute a game was a weird decision, simply because of the fact that the main intention of VHS tapes is to store media, mainly videos.
What did the critics think?
Night Trap was released on the following console (according to Wikipedia, in no particular order):
– Sega CD
– Sega 32X
– 3DO
– MS-DOS
– Mac OS
– Microsoft Windows
– PlayStation 4
– Xbox One
– Nintendo Switch
– PlayStation Vita
At first, reviews for Night Trap on the SEGA CD were mixed, with reviews like CVG’s, who rated the SEGA CD version 71% and Sega Zone’s, which rated the same version 58%. It is important to take into consideration that the video game industry were not used to a game like Night Trap, which could be the reason behind these mixed reviews.
Ports to Night Trap received more negative reviews from critics, mainly because of the fact that a number of modifications were made to the game in these ports such as lowering the FPS cap to 12 instead of 15 and downgrading the quality of the screen.
Reviews were Mostly Positive for the 25th Anniversary Edition of Night Trap, with a lot of users saying that they loved the nostalgic feeling while playing the game. However, there were some bad reviews about Night Trap because of a few bugs, including a soft lock during Ashley’s death scene where all the cameras would freeze.
Controversy
Night Trap is best known for the controversy behind the game. In 1993, there was a Senator Hearing on the topic “Violence in Video Games” where Night Trap, alongside a small group of games, one of which being Mortal Kombat, was brought up.
The Senator Hearing mainly focused on Lisa’s death scene. After watching the scene, the senators said that the scene essentially glorified abuse against women. This was obviously not the case as your mission is to protect the girls from whatever happened to the last visitors. One individual who attended the senator meeting and also made negative comments about Night Trap, later admitted to never playing the game. This is supported in the extra “Dangerous Games”, where Tom Zito recalls asking Lieberman this question.
Another thing to mention about the controversy behind Night Trap is Nintendo’s senior vice president at the time, Howard Lincoln, stated that Night Trap would never appear on a Nintendo system as it did not pass the guidelines that they enforced at the time. This is funny in a way, as Night Trap was eventually released on Nintendo Switch, as well as another Digital Pictures game, Double Switch.
During this controversy, popular toy retailers such as Toys “R” Us and Kay-Bee Toys decided to pull the game from their shelves that December. The senate hearing also led to the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), which is still used today. After the controversy, Night Trap was re-released and work began on porting the game to other consoles, the final list being mentioned in the previous section of this guide.
Achievement Guide
As of 2nd November 2020, there are currently 30 achievements that you can earn while playing Night Trap. The following is a list of the achievements and how to obtain them.
Layout Achievements
To obtain the layout achievements, you need to get either a very good or perfect game on each layout that is available. Currently, there are four:
– 1992
– 1993
– 1994
– 2017
Perfect / Very Good Game
There are two Perfect Game achievements and two Very Good Game achievements. To obtain these achievements, simply trap all augers or the majority of augers with Revamped and Original Icons enabled.
Trapper Achievements
Depending on your skill level, the difficulty of this achievement varies:
– Trapper: Trap 500 augers in Survivor
– Awesome Trapper: Trap 1000 augers in Survivor
– Master Trapper: Trap 1987 augers in Survivor
Nah You Wouldn’t
Get a perfect game and trap Kelli when the game prompts you to do so.
Junior/Lieutenant/Commander
The easiest way to get this achievement is to reach round 60 in survivor mode to get all three achievements in one go.
Deleted Scenes
I’ll be honest with you, I’m not sure on where the deleted scenes are but you should be able to get them all by playing the game enough. If you have information on this achievement, please add me as a friend and let me know!
FMV Rental
To get this achievement, you will need to get all story related videos and auger trap scenes.
Party!
Watch Megan and the girls sing Night Trap in the living room.
Dangerous Games
Go into the basement and watch “Dangerous Games”.
Perfect Timing
To obtain this achievement, successfully trap Jeff instead of Swanson during their fight.
Go into the basement and watch “A Conversation with Jim Riley”.
Who Did It?
Get both endings in Scene Of The Crime.
This Is Your New Favourite Movie
To obtain this achievement, you must get all possible endings to the game. Those include:
– Perfect Game
– Very Good Game
– Jeff bites Cindy
– Tony gets Kelli
– Victor and Sheila cutoff
– Victor bites Kelly
– Sheila bites Kelly
– Sarah bits Kelly
MA-17
Watch all of the death scenes.
Collector
Go to the basement and see “Production Images” on how to get them all. You will obtain the achievement once you have done so.
Video Game History
Watch Lisa die. This is the same scene that was shown and discussed in the 1993 senator hearings.
If I have missed any achievements, please let me know!
Tips and Tricks for a Perfect Game
Before I give you some tips and tricks for a Perfect Game, I would first like to say that you will probably not get a Perfect Game on your first try but these tips and tricks should hopefully increase your chances of getting a Perfect Game earlier than one would usually do.
Do not let the story disturb you
In my opinion, the story is there as a distraction. It’s ok to watch a bit of the story but check all the cameras from time to time to make sure you are not missing any augers. When a cutscene in which an auger can be trapped is loaded, the Possible number will increase by how many augers you are able to trap in that scene, so if you notice an increase, check your cameras.
Listen very closely to the audio
This tip is a bit technical, however it may help some. In some cases during the game where multiple scenes are being played at once, you will hear a small jump in the audio.
A good example of this is at the start of the game, where Victor is talking to Tony. During Victors lines, you can hear a jump in the audio, which you can use as an audio cue for another scene being loaded.
Take advantage of the trap function
Unlike the original versions of Night Trap, your timing does not have to be exact when trapping augers. You are also able to spam the trap button in order to trap multiple augers within a short amount of time.
Tips and Tricks for Survivor Mode
Here are some tips and tricks to get really far in the new Survivor gamemode.
Start each round in the Driveway
While playing in Survivor mode, you should consider the Driveway to be a blind spot, since you cannot see much when a cutscene is being played in that camera, so it is good practice to start every round in that camera.
21 Is the Loneliest Number
After round 21, static will appear on the icons of each camera in which a scene is loaded. I strongly recommend taking this to your advantage, as this gives away each camera in which a scene is being played.
The Bathroom
In my opinion, the bathroom is the most annoying camera in Survivor Mode since there is a cutscene in which you need to trap an auger almost instantly. (For reference, the scene in question is Auger 7 in Story mode).
The 75% Rule
The way Survivor mode works is that after every round, the game will calculate the percentage of augers that you have captured. If said percentage is under 75%, then your controls are cut and the game ends. In short, Survivor mode doesn’t really care if you have a perfect game or not, you just have to meet this one single requirement.
What FMV games can we see in the future?
Double Switch was included in this section of this guide in an earlier revision, however, that game has since been released. You can find it here
Night Trap 2
It is speculated that there is a second Night Trap in development and those rumours were confirmed in Night Trap: 25 Years Later. The people that I currently believe to be involved are:
– Tyler Hogle (Screaming Villains)
– James Riley (Co-Writer and Director of Original Game)
– Tom Zito (Founder of Digital Pictures)
However, please do not get your hopes up about this game, as no further information has been confirmed regarding Night Trap 2. However, I will leave you with a quote from James Riley from the aforementioned video:
“And I will say this, Night Trap and Night Trap 2, world of difference. Night Trap 2 is going to have a much darker, edgier look and style and I think it is going to be far more experiential and in part because we are going to shoot significant parts of it in VR. There will be two releases, one in linen and one in VR but it’s going to be super cool”
This section of this guide will be updated if I receive any new information on Night Trap 2.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you have reached the end of this guide!
For those of you who read the original version of this guide, thank you for taking the time to read my guide and hopefully the information was useful! This revision of the guide contains some new information and is structured a lot better than it was in the original version.
Thanks for reading, once again!
Apart from correcting mistakes and updating information on Night Trap 2, this guide will probably never have a full update again. I might EOL this guide at some point but this is it’s current status for now.
Further Reading
Under Construction, stay tuned for more information!