Who wants to see a remastered version of Night Trap, raise your hand?
That's what the creators of the original title want to know, as they have launched a Kickstarter campaign for Night Trap ReVamped. For those who may have forgotten about this little slice of schlock, Night Trap was originally released for the Sega CD, 3DO, and PC, and puts players in the role of a Special Control Attack Team (S.C.A.T…. heh heh) agent as they monitor unique traps built into the house of the weird lake house inhabited by the Martins, where several young girls have gone missing.
Oh, and there's also creepy vampire-type things trying to kill everyone. And big hair. Lots of Aqua-Net involved in the production. And Kimberly from Diff'rent Strokes. So even more Aqua-Net.
The game, which figured prominently into the creation of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) after a witch hunt led by Senator Joe Lieberman along with games like Mortal Kombat and Doom, was one of the first to utilize full-motion video, or FMV. While this was an interesting concept in 1992, the technology was in its infancy, and provided pixelated, choppy video, making Night Trap not only notorious, but notoriously bad.
The Kickstarter hopes to redeem the image of Night Trap as well as ride the wave of remastered nostalgia. According to the campaign, the developers state:
The ability of computers and gaming platforms to display richly vibrant and full-res video has finally caught up with the vision we had almost thirty years ago of what full-motion-video products ought to look like: interactive television which, despite all the promises, has never arrived. We chose Kickstarter to make sure we're not suffering from a double case of self-adulation and self-delusion, and to see if there's really an audience that either agrees with us, or believes that our minimum $20 price point makes it painless to find out what interactive films are all about. With your support, we can carry the project through to its conclusion and let fans and newcomers alike experience interactive live-action gaming, at a level of quality and resolution never before possible. We’re looking to raise funds in order to code and manufacture the new version of the game, and we’d appreciate any contributions which our fantastic community of fans can provide! Just as much as the fans who have been begging us to do this for years, we’d love to see the S.C.A.T. team back in action again, and we can work together to make it happen.
In addition, the campaign reveals that if reception to the idea is positive, the developers are toying with the idea of a Night Trap 2. Could there be more people in all black shuffling around oddly harassing young women in nightgowns in the future?
Comrades, what are your memories of Night Trap? Have you played it, and would you play a remastered version? Is this a campaign you might back?