Research: Night Trap Origins

Night Trap was released in 1992 for the Sega CD, an expansion device for the Sega Mega Drive.  However, Night Trap originally started as a different game in 1986, called Scene of the Crime.  Scene of the Crime was shot using live actors, sets, and props.  Since it was a trial game, it was only four minutes long.


Night Trap was originally intended for the Control-Vision console.  The Control-Vision, better known by the in-house developer codename NEMO (Never Ever Mention Outside) was being developed in 1985 by Axlon, a company that was founded by Nolan Bushnell.  This would be his attempt to break the Nintendo-dominated market at the time, filled with Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) consoles.

Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bushnell is an important figure in video gaming history.  He founded Atari in 1972, which would lead to the Atari 2600 console and the establishment of Chuck E. Cheese's and essentially introduced video games to the public.  However, Bushnell was ejected from the company in 1978 after Time Warner bought it from him in 1977.  Bushnell would later form Catalyst Technologies Capital Ventures Group, which would fund Axlon.

Axlon partnered with Hasbro to make the Control-Vision.  The Control-Vision was designed to use VHS tapes instead of ROM cartridges to store games, and Scene of the Crime was developed as a tech demo to the "InstantSwitch," a technology which would allow for seamless switching between video tracks in games.  Because VHS was the storage format, a much higher video and sound quality was possible than on other consoles, and even PCs of the time.

Bushnell also put a man named Tom Zito to work on the project.  In 1987, they expanded Scene of the Crime and filmed the entirety of Night Trap in three weeks (which explains the out-of-place 80's aesthetics for a 90's game and the hammy B-Movie acting).

Hasbro ultimately decided to scrap development of the Control-Vision two month's before its intended release date of January 1989.  The console was simply too expensive.  Specifically, the RAM costs for the console would have been $100 alone, which would force the console to retail at $299.  This was far too much in comparison to the NES which retailed at $100.

Tom Zito

Axlon was absorbed by Hasbro, but Tom Zito purchased the rights to Night Trap.  He took the film and put it in archive, where it would sit until Zito later founded Digital Pictures, a company known largely for making FMV games.  Because the CD format had enough storage space to hold video (albeit with shoddy quality due to high compression), Night Trap was ported to the Sega CD.