“ | If you don't have the brains, or the guts for this assignment, give the controls to someone who does. | „ |
~ Lt. Simms, Intro |
Night Trap is a 1992 Interactive fiction video game by Digital Pictures for the Mega CD, Sega CD, Sega CD 32X, and 3DO. Night Trap is themed after the Slasher film genre, and it's graphics consist completely of live action footage. It features the late actress Dana Plato from the TV series Diff'rent Strokes, and was one of the games that helped bring forth the ESRB ratings system.
Plot[ | ]
Night Trap has the player take the role of a Sega Control Attack Team agent, known by his teammates as "Control". SCAT has been investigating the lake shore home of Victor and Sheila Martin, where 5 teenage girls recently disappeared during their vacation there. Last night SCAT sent in an agent to infiltrate the house, there he found a security system that controlled cameras in every room of the house, and various traps located throughout each. The agent programmed an override into the security system, so that Control can monitor the rooms and control the traps via a small remote. Five new girls are coming to the lake house for a vacation, so SCAT has sent in Kelli, an undercover SCAT operative along with them to infiltrate the house personally. It is the player's job to protect Kelli and the other five girls from whatever problems they encounter.
Gameplay[ | ]
The player, "Control", has control over all the cameras and traps in all eight areas of the Martin's lake house. It's the players job to survey the house, and protect the girls from any intruders in the house using the traps.
The player must manually survey through the security cameras to see if there any any intruders in the rooms, a chirping cricket noise will play if the room is empty. A small meter on the screen determines how close an enemy is to the trap, when the meter is full, the trap can successfully be used to capture them. The security system is accessed by a color code, the default code is Blue, but can be changed by anyone in the house so the player must watch the characters through the cameras to see if the code is ever changed. Intruders can appear anywhere in the house, either simply lurking through the rooms and hallways, or attacking the characters themselves. The player can only let so many intruders get by before they attack the girls, or cut the override cable that gives you control of the traps, causing you to lose the game. You're capture count is represented by two sections on your control panel, reading Captured, how many you've successfully trapped, and Possible, the total number of intruders that have entered the house.
Story[ | ]
The game opens with the player, nicknamed "Control", being briefed by Special Control Attack Team commander Lieutenant Simms on their latest mission. Control is being sent to a lake house alongside undercover operative Kelli, to investigate the house and the owners after the recent disappearance of five teenagers who stayed there. A SCAT operative who recently infiltrated the house found it was full of surveillance cameras and traps, and was able to hack into them. Control's job is to monitor the house through the cameras and use the traps to protect Kelli and five new girls who are coming to the house for a vacation.
At the lake house, the Martin family; Victor and Sheila, their children Jeff and Sarah, and cousin Tony, are waiting for their guests to arrive. Cindy, Ashley, Megan, Lisa, her younger brother Danny, and Kelli are visiting the lake house for a vacation getaway, after being invited by Sarah. Victor and Sheila are leaving to do charity work for the "Augers", and leave Sarah, Jeff, and Tony to watch after the guests. Outside, the girls run into Weird Eddy, one of the Martins neighbors, who creeps the girls out.
The girls follow the Martins inside the house and head into the kitchen, but first Kelli tells Control to take a look through the house. As the guests head into the kitchen, Danny notices a walk-in refrigerators in the kitchen, which is bolted and locked. The girls decide to head down to the lake, and Sheila tells Sarah to take care of the girls why they're meeting the Augers. Sheila then tells Victor she thinks there's something odd about Kelli, and she says they should tell the boys to change the security code "to be safe". Jeff and Tony come inside after scaring away Weird Eddy, and they change the security code before Victor and Sheila leave. As the girls come back in from the lake, they decide to have a party since Sarah's parents are gone. Tony and Jeff come in and tell Sarah that someone's taken control of the security system, and she tells him to see if he can get it fixed. As the girls leave to check out their rooms upstairs, Jeff notices Tony eyeing Ashley, to which he replies "she looks exactly like Madeleine". Tony and Jeff then leave the room through a hidden entrance in the book shelf, and decide they should change the code again.
Danny goes wandering around the house, and heads into the kitchen and tries to open the locked refrigerator. He then heads into the hallway, and stumbles upon a secret doorway, which keeps him from being spotted by two of the masked intruders who Control's been trapping throughout the house. The men enter the kitchen and unlock the refrigerator, to reveal a device that they use to drain the blood from a human corpse. Danny heads back into the kitchen and sees the men draining the blood, and runs back into the hallway only to encounter more, which he quickly escapes from.
One of the SCAT agents comes to the house undercover to check in on the girls, and make sure they're all alive and alright. The girls head downstairs to see who's there, while Lisa heads into the bathroom to do her hair. The SCAT agent, realizing the girls are all alive and safe, leaves, and Tony, Sarah, Jeff and the girls head into the kitchen to get something to eat. Meanwhile in the bathroom, Lisa is confronted by one of the masked men, who she believes to be Megan pulling a trick on her. More intruders show up and they attack her with a strange hook-like device, that straps around her neck and drains her blood unless Control saves her and she flees the house.
Down in the kitchen, Jeff asks Sarah if she left the "body box" unlocked, pointing to the fridge. After the girls leave, Sarah and Jeff check the fridge and find the body being drained inside and realize that the "Augers" are entering the house. Kelli goes searching around the house, and finds a drawer containing pictures of several girls, with their heights, weights, and blood types on the back. She also finds a locket, with a picture of a young woman who looks like Ashley inside. Tony confronts her for looking through their stuff, and tells her to stop digging into things. He then takes off his sunglasses, showing his eyes are bright green and approaches her. As Jeff, Sarah and the other girls come in he puts his glasses back on and they all leave the room. Danny is trying to convince Megan and Cindy that they're in danger, and tells them how he found the security control room in the basement. Meanwhile Sarah and Jeff tell Tony that the Augers are in the house, and they decide to change the code again.
The girls hear Kelli and Cindy scream outside, and rush out to find Weird Eddy confronting the girls. Eddy tells them that they're in danger, but they ignore him and head back inside, Danny however listens to him believing he knows about the strange men. Eddy tells him that they're called Augers, and that they're similar to vampires that require blood to survive, and are currently dying from malnutrition. Danny tells him that they need to warn the others, but Eddy tells him that some of them may be vampires too. Eddy then gives Danny a special laser gun he designed, that can be used to kill the Augers. Back inside, Sarah and Jeff head down to the control room to see if Tony has found any Augers, and they decide to change the code again.
Ashley and Kelli head upstairs, and Kelli tells her that she's working undercover and that she should hide out in her room to be safe. Kelli goes to look around the house, and Ashley heads into her room, where she is confronted by Tony. Tony tells Ashley that she needs to leave now, and his eyes start glowing green as he becomes agitated when she keeps asking questions. Ashley screams, and Kelli comes in with a gun. Tony then teleports behind Kelli and grabs her gun, he then leaves through a hidden exit in the bathroom and tells Ashley that he wanted to warn her because she reminded him of someone he loved. Kelli then radios Mike, one of the soldiers in the attack squad telling him that she believes the Martins are vampires. Mike orders in an attack to the other squad member but they are both ambushed by Augers. Danny heads back inside and shoots an Auger with the laser gun, which disintegrates it. Danny then goes into the kitchen and warns Megan and Cindy, but they still don't believe him. In the hallway Danny runs into Eddy, who's disguised himself as an Auger, they then split up and look through the house with their laser guns. Eddy heads down to the control room, and Danny gets captured by the Augers, unless he is saved by Control and he escapes. Meanwhile Cindy and Megan find the body in the refrigerator and are confronted by Augers. They run upstairs and lock themselves in the bedroom with Ashley and Kelli, and Kelli tells them that she's a SCAT operative, and that Control is looking out for them. The Augers then break through the door with an axe, and the girls barricade themselves in the bathroom, but not before they kill Ashley and drain her blood, unless Control saves her.
The Augers get into the bathroom, and the girls escape downstairs and split up. Cindy escapes into the den, and is saved when Tony shows up and scares off the Augers, but Tony then kills and drinks her blood himself. Megan and Kelli head into the hallway, and Megan is captured by two Augers and can either be saved if Control traps one of the Aguers and she escapes, or accidentally trapped and killed herself if the trap is activated at the wrong moment. Kelli then runs into the foyer and is confronted by two Augers, who are then scared away by Tony who confronts Kelli. Tony tries to attack her on the staircase, but control actives the trap and Tony is killed.
Victor and Sheila return home and sense something is wrong, so they go looking for Sarah and Jeff. Meanwhile outside, the SCAT attack team has arrived and they take out several Augers, and rush inside to confront Victor and Sheila. Kelli and the other SCAT agents interrogate the Martins in the Den. They tell them that they're vampires, and that the Augers are the result of a vampire victim who has been half bled and left to die, resulting in a form of zombie like creature that requires blood to survive. The Martins explain how they use the house to gather blood to give the Augers so that they can have just enough to survive, without becoming full vampires. As one of the agents comes in to subdue Victor, he throws him through a window with ease, and stands uninjured after they open fire on him. An Auger then breaks in and kills one of the operatives, and Sheila kills another one. Jeff then gets into a struggle with one of the operatives, and Control kills them both with the bookshelf trap.
Kelli, now the only survivor, runs out of the den and up the stairs with Victor, Sheila, and Sarah following after her. Kelli runs into the bedroom and is cornered by the Martins, and pleads with Control through the camera to save her with the traps. Control kills Sheila with the closet trap, and Kelli leaps across the bed and into the bathroom where Control has the choice to kill Victor with a wall trap. Kelli then runs into the hallway followed by Sarah, who is lastly killed with a floor trap. The game's ending is thereby defined by whether or not Control killed Victor, where if he did Kelli would walk out of the house safely, but if he didn't she would be subdued by Augers, and killed personally by Victor. There is also an alternative joke ending where Control can kill Kelli with the same floor trap used to kill Sarah.
Trivia[ | ]
- At the end of the game, when Kelly walks through the trap used to kill Sarah, you can use it to kill Kelly as an alternative joke ending. If you don't kill her, she will make a joke about how you could have done it.
- Night Trap, as well as Sewer Shark, were originally planned and developed for Hasbro's Project N.E.M.O. game system before the console was shelved, and the games were designed for other consoles.
- The actor playing the corpse in the refrigerator is the same actor as Weird Eddy.
- Weird Eddy may be a homage to Weird Ed, a character from another Slasher film themed video game Maniac Mansion.
- SCAT originally stood for the Sega Control Attack Team, but was changed to Special when the game was ported to other consoles.