Night Trap was Hasbro’s failed attempt to make less scary vampires
In the late 1980s, toy company Hasbro was adding to its slew of entertainment offerings with games like Battleship. Video games were still treated with suspicion by much of the general public, but Hasbro started pursuing a different kind of interactive experience: a movie that could be influenced by audience decisions. In the process, while attempting to make a nonviolent family game that could be enjoyed by nearly everyone, Hasbro helped create some of the creepiest vampires in video games — and the star of the 1993 U.S. Senate hearings meant to address violence and video games.
Night Trap began development with a company called Axlon, with help from Nolan Bushnell, as a means to explore creating games with a brand-new video playback technology called NEMO. The multiple-track video playback technology could play up to four video tracks simultaneously, allowing for a cinematic adventure with multiple branching paths. The plan was to develop and film sprawling visual experiences that could bridge the gap between video games and Hollywood, and have it all put together into an interactive experience.
Members of what ultimately became Night Trap developer Digital Pictures had previously created for Hasbro a prototype called Scene of the Crime using the NEMO technology. The game featured an in-home burglary that players were meant to solve, after switching between different camera feeds on a home’s security system and witnessing the actions of every person leading up to when a safe was robbed.
After failing to secure the rights to A Nightmare on Elm Street, development shifted into expanding the premise from Scene of the Crime into an even bigger mystery and interactive experience.
The original idea for Night Trap was for a
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