Stuff You Should Know - Selects: Night Trap: The Video Game Failure that Changed the Industry

Episode Date: May 17, 2025

In the early 90s a video game was released that changed the industry, despite poor sales and bad game play. That game was Night Trap. In this classic episode Chuck and Josh present that story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans that combines behavioral science and storytelling to help us navigate the big changes in our lives. I get so choked up because I feel like your show and the conversations are what the world needs, encouraging, empowering, counter-programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world feels dark. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects, your mental

health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj, listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, it's me, Josh. And for this week's Select, I've chosen our 2021 episode on Night Trap, the video game.

One of those overlooked pieces of pop culture history about one of those unfortunate pieces of technology that emerged during a sea change, which made it utterly out of date the moment it was born. It's a great story about a not at all great video game. And I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there. There's Jerry over there being silly, And this is Stuff You Should Know. Video obscure lost video game episode. How did you hear about this? This is your request. Yeah, so Night Trap is the game that we're talking about and I heard about this from watching the Netflix documentary series High Score. Did you Netflix and chill while you were watching that? Jerk.

No, I Netflix by myself and chilled because Emily wasn't watching this. That's a different thing. Yeah, that's a different thing. This was a documentary series on Netflix, I think six parts that covered the history of video games. I can recommend it in one way in that it was a very light kind of fun watch, but it is by no means comprehensive and a little goofy at times in how they handled some stuff. On Night Trap specifically or like in general?

The whole series. I gotcha. But it was fine. And it's, you know, if you're from a certain generation and in the mood for like five plus hours of a bit of a nostalgia kick, you could do worse things. But it's not great. Have you ever seen that documentary? I think it's King of Kong.

Oh, sure. Oh, man, that is one of the best documentaries ever made. I haven't seen it in years. I got to see it again. It's great. I think our old buddy Josh Behrman might have written the original story that that was best of all. Oh, I'm not surprised to hear that.

He had something to do with that. But Night Trap, I learned about because in episode five they covered when video games started becoming violent. So Mortal Kombat obviously factored in heavily in that episode. And then this game called Night Trap, there's another game I do want to cover on a shorty by the way, one of the first LGTBQ games ever that was really interesting and had a cool story. What the heck is it called? I can't remember now. I saw this a couple of months ago, so it's been a while. Oh, what was it? I can't remember, but it's great and that'll make for a good shorty.

But a really cool story behind it. But this is Night Trap, which figured in as the game that kind of brought about, along with Mortal Kombat, but was really central in forming what ended up being the ratings board for video games. I mean, that's almost like understating it. Like this one game paired with Mortal Kombat basically led directly to the creation of that.

Yeah, so that's really why it's notable. The other thing that made it notable, and we'll get into all this, was that it was a live action as in they shot a little movie. Right. That you controlled. Yeah, that you sort of controlled. You could conceivably, theoretically, hypothetically control. Because it wasn't a great game, but it lives in infamy because of every – because it's

a really cool story, I think, in the end. It is a pretty cool story. And the whole thing starts actually with a play from the, I think it was written in 1981 by a playwright named John, oh, what's his last name? Kruisank. Okay, I want to say, or Kruisanch. Shit. You don't think so?

I don't know, maybe. Well, regardless, he wrote a few episodes of Due South. What was that? It was like a show about a Canadian Mountie, I think. Oh, all right. Yeah, he wrote this, and it was, if you've been to Sleep No More in New York, you may have the play Tamera to thank,

because it is a lot like the concept of Sleep No More. As far as I know, this was the one that broke that ground. I think so, and the ground they broke, it's about the painter, Temera de Limpica, who I've never heard of. She was a Polish painter who lived in Italy in the roaring 20s, when the fascists were starting to take power, and she took no guff from them. No guff.

A hedonistic, amazing art deco painter. Art deco portraitist basically. Interesting. So her work's really interesting. I didn't know anything about her. I'd never heard of her until this too. But I looked her up, she seemed pretty cool. But this is a play about her where it is set on a multi-floor building. There are scenes taking place at the same time in multiple rooms. And as an audience member, you can move from one room to the other, missing out

on some stuff, seeing some stuff, interacting. I mean, it's sleep no more. I don't know if they just totally ripped it off or if they said, hey, it's been 30 years. Who's going to remember Tamara? Right. I think it was like they broke that ground. And once you break that ground, you're going to have people following your wake. There's probably been other stuff that did this. but Sleep No More, I think, just got so much attention in New York for its run. It might still be going or maybe coming back after the pandemic.

I would like to see that. I would love to see Tamera too, but it ran in New York, but it started a Toronto art festival, I think. Oh, interesting. And then some producers set it up in LA, and that's where it had its longest run, from about the mid-'80s to the 90s. They had this, just kept going and going and going. I was reading an LA Times article on it.

But the reason that it factors into this is because it's basically the basis for this game Night Trap, where there are different things going on in different rooms, and you kind of cycle, toggle between the different rooms through security cameras in these rooms to see what's going on. And while you're doing that, you're missing stuff that's happening in other rooms in this game. And if you miss too much stuff, you lose. If you catch enough stuff and you do everything right and press all the correct buttons, you win. But that's basically how it applies. It's like this almost an homage to this play in video game form, but it's full motion video,

meaning it's like a film or TV show that you vaguely control or put better you interact with. Yeah, and the idea of the game, and we'll get a little bit more into the development of it in a minute, but it is basically like a party happening at this house. Young like coed types, like sorority girls maybe. It's very sort of titillating and that was one of the big deals. A little bit. I think this was overstated. Even for the time I wouldn't say. I mean you got married with children was like ten times more titillating. This is very tame I think.

Well, you know, obviously part of the controversy comes from assaults on women in the game understandably. But again, we'll get to that. It is even tame compared to a lot of the stuff that was out at the time. But what's going on in the game is they are these pseudo vampires called augers that are the bad people in this game. And Jim Riley, who conceived of this game, when he had the idea of, I think he was watching security camera, a security camera screen with all these different rooms, and it hit him like, what a great idea. And then he saw this play and he said, we can actually do something like this. Like, what if a user and a game player could go into any of these views that they want and if they're missing something, they're missing something, it might be important, but they're in control of the game.

Right. And I mean, that's... Or the story, rather. Right. But again, I think you really pointed out something important. That was the concept. In the actuality, they kind of missed the mark a little bit. Yes. So, with the game, it was originally designed as part of a platform called Control Vision. Yeah. I think internally it was called Nemo, N-E-M-O, and it was being created by a company called Axlon.

And Axlon was actually a Nolan... Such an 80s, like, video game company name. But it was a Nolan Bushnell company. After Atari, he founded Axlon among others. I think he created five companies at the same time in parallel using this incubator that he had created. And the developers at Axlon started creating a full motion video. VHS based, we should point out. Yes, on VHS.

And to get from one place to another, rather than this is the breakthrough thing, this is the thing that made this work. And they did get it to work. Yeah. But using VHS tapes, you could toggle between stuff in virtually real time without the VHS player having to rewind or fast forward, which would have really just kind of put the kibosh on the whole thing.

But instead, because of the interlacing that video uses, they could actually choose what field to show at what time and basically switch between them. Which was, I mean, it looks archaicic but it's a remarkable technology at the time to be able to do that. Right. Yeah, it's still mind-blowing. Like I'm like I vaguely understand how this actually works. But the fact that they actually got this to work and had a proof of concept going, enough

that Hasbro was like sold, that was a big deal. Yeah, and this was 85 one of their designers was the legendary Tom Crane who designed pitfall One of my favorite all-time games on the Atari. That's a good one But it was a good team and they went apparently to these hammer performances. They're also inspired by Dragon's Lair Do you remember that game? I do I was never into it, but I remember watching it. It looked cool. I mean, it was an animation game where it was fully animated and used laser disk to project this animated footage. So it looked awesome, but it wasn't that great. The gameplay wasn't great. No, but it followed a story. There was a story that was happening, and then every once in a while

there was something you had to do to move the story along right as part of the game And if you didn't do it right the dragon like turned you into ash or something like that, right? Yeah, but you're not actually controlling the player which was the big difference in these games right regular game You're you're creating a sequence like you're doing this and then sitting back and then hopefully the thing you're hoping to happen happens. Now the thing that differentiates that from Night Trap is that there was no coherent story. While you were off doing something that you were supposed to be doing to win the game, the story kept going on over here. So you can't follow a storyline that way. No, which is a big deal.

That was a big differentiator between it and Dragonslayer. All right, well let's take a little break here. No, which is a big deal. That was a big differentiator between it and Dragonslayer. All right, well let's take a little break here. That's a good setup, I think, and we'll come back and get more into Night Trap right after this. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glodd. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug band. Benny the Butcher, Brent Smith from Shinedown, got Be Real from Cypress Hill, NHL Enforcer Riley Cote, Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Kar Karamoosh. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. Hey everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary. Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies, and there's just endless things about this universe

that I find fascinating. All right, well, basically, we're both nerds. We love learning about this extraordinary universe, and we love sharing what we've learned. So that's what we're gonna do. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy beautiful cosmos.

From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales. Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic, during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum. Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures, and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next.

In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there

and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good

Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So I mentioned the Augers. We need to explain a little bit about this game and what it was supposed to be and what it ended up being because in the Netflix documentary, Jim Riley basically is like, well, the first thing they created a demo called Scene of the Crime. And it was a detective game. And Hasbro liked it, like I said, but they had a big problem because the original idea that Jim had was to have ninjas. And he's like, it'd be great. These ninjas come in, they got throwing stars, they got weapons, and they're doing all this stuff and you can control it and it's super cool.

And Hasbro is like, wait a minute. We can't have what we call reproducible violence. So anything that a kid, like kids love throwing stars and we can't show ninjas throwing stars into people because a kid will go and do that. You can't have a knife because a kid can go get a knife out of a drawer. It's got to be something that a kid cannot reproduce. So, so they said, okay, well, how about what if the ninjas turn out to be and I'm sorry, I know ninja is the plural of ninja. Sorry, everyone. What if they turn out to be vampires? Right. And Hasbro said, I kind of like where you're going with this, but kids can still like bite

people on the neck. What else you got? I think it came the other way though. I think that was a note from Hasbro. Oh, was it? I'm pretty sure they were like, what if they were vampires? And Jim Riley was like, okay, I guess I can do that. Biting people's necks.

And then Hasbro was like, can't do that because kids can bite necks too. So what they found, and this is a great metaphor for the Night Trap overall. Yeah. What the ninja originally, or what they turned out to be in the end were loping vampires who used what looked like a Ghostbusters proton pack. Sort of, yeah. who used what looked like a Ghostbusters proton pack with a collar of the kind that Arnold Schwarzenegger was wearing at the beginning of Running Man.

Like a clamp sort of. Yes, on the end. And that is what they used to draw the blood from the hapless teens who you were in charge of protecting as Night Trap. Yeah, so what Hasbro did was they noted it to death and neutered it to death because they said, he even was like, all right, I can do vampires. I can run around and hurt people. And they said, no, no, no, they can't even run around.

It's too scary if they're fast. So they came up with augers who in the game they're described as vampires who had been half-bled and left to die. So they are not quite vampires, but they aren't human either. And that makes them lopey and lumbery instead of being able to move fast. And if you see them, they look like they're wearing garbage bags. They're lumbering around. They're drawing the blood using a trocar is what the name of that thing was. Oh, is it? Okay.

Because it was definitely its own thing. It was its own thing. And it's funny in the documentary, Jim Reilly was like, in the end he said this trocar, which, you know, it didn't show it explicitly. It showed the clamp going around the neck and this little drill inside of a shaft start and then sort of moving and then blood being drawn. But it doesn't show like going in the neck or anything. No.

But he said what they ended up with, he said to me was something far creepier than a vampire biting someone's neck. But they were like, it's not reproducible though, so it's fine. And it's also it's weird that Hasbro is so fixated on not including reproducible violence because apparently they saw Night Trap as a way to interest adults. Because they apparently found out during focus group testing of Scene of the Crime, I believe, that the parents who were in the room or were part of the focus group were saying like, I really kind of like this.

It's like a TV show, I really kind of like this. It's like a TV show but I get to control it. Right. Because it looked like something that they understood. Right. Yeah. And so Hasbro was like, oh, okay, this has been like a kid's thing up to this point. Maybe we can finally crack into the adult market with this stuff.

So it's weird that they kidified it to death if they were trying to use it to capture adults. But maybe they were like, it has to go both ways in case adults don't like it. Well, I think in the documentary they make the point that Hasbro was, I think the adults were looming out there as a possibility, but they were like, adults will never play video games. So what they really wanted until they grow up and continue to play video games. What they really were after was a teenage market which didn't fully exist at this point. Like an old 16 and 17-year-old boys, which is why they put sorority girls in a nightie at a slumber party, was an all in an effort to sort of titillate people like me.

Right. And it worked like a charm. I had never heard of it back then. Because you just, you would play Night Trap and Netflix and chill by yourself. Right. So they actually had to shoot this like a movie, you know. They shot it in Culver City on a sound stage. And what they would do back then for, and you know, there were more full motion games of the time. And you would try and cast one recognizable face among this cast to sort of, they called it the anchor, to like, all right, well this has got so and so in it. And who did they cast for Night Trap?

Dana Plato from Different Strokes, Kimberly. Kimberly, who passed away very tragically. Man, I was reading about her life. She had a hard sad life man Very tragic story. Yeah, it is. It's very sad and they actually went back and ruled her death of suicide later Did you know that I don't know if I knew that yeah, she died by suicide ultimately because she overdosed on drugs or yeah, and Soma I believe which is like a Generic lore tab Interesting, which I think you really have to try like I don't think that's an accidental thing which is like a generic lore tab. Interesting.

Which I think you really have to try. Like I don't think that's an accidental thing, which is probably why they did that. But it was at a family reunion in Oklahoma. Wow. Which I'm like, God, man, that's just a sad ending. And her son actually died by suicide as well later on. Really? I think I knew that.

Like not super long ago, right? Yeah, in the 2010s. Yeah. Oh man, very sad. But yeah, Dana Plato was cast as that anchor. She played Kelly, who was a secret agent who had infiltrated the house. She was undercover. Yeah, she's undercover and she would talk right to Cameron and say things like, you've got to get to the other room because the augers are after whoever, Mary. Help her. Yeah, go help her.

Yeah, and we should say also, so the group of crime fighters that she was a part of was called SCAT, the Special Control Attack Team, SCAT. And then I don't know if we also said, so the people who own the house had invited this group of teens that included undercover Dana Plato, Kelly, which I saw admittedly on Wikipedia. This is a great example of night trap being night trap. In the credits at the end, Kelly's name is spelled with a Y on the end. In the player's, the user's hand guide.

It's an I. It's an I. Yeah. That's Night Trap for you right there. But the family that invited the kids, the teenage girls out for a weekend at their house are actually themselves vampires with teeth and everything. They're not augers. They're actually vampires.

And they don't attack people. No, they brought them there for the augers. Right, right, right. To source their Yeah, I think they're not augers. They're actually don't attack people No, they brought them there for the auger right right right to source their blood. I guess yeah There is a pretty funny scene in it when did you watch any of it? I watched the whole thing. I watched I think grumpy gamers did like a playthrough. Yeah, they have a full I watch their their stuff, too Yeah I've watched a lot of night trap stuff The best part is when they're explaining in the game what the Augers are and the woman says, you know, it's a vampire who's been blah, blah, blah. And one of the scat guys

is in the background and he goes, you've got to be jiving me. I didn't see that. Oh, it was great. It was like, was this game made in 1989 or 1973? It was really confusing like what era it was. So you said it was shot on a soundstage in Culver City. Yeah. And it took like 30 days almost. They had to shoot a ton of stuff. Yes, because it was like a 250-page script, which is incredibly long.

Wow. Ed, who helped us out with this one, he points out that a two-hour movie might have 120-page scripts. It's about a minute per page, is the rule of thumb. This is 250 pages for a video game that was not very good. Yeah. That didn't have a lot of dialogue, but there were a lot of different outcomes that could happen in one, just one particular scene. Sure. So if you shot a scene, you had to shoot it multiple times to get what you wanted.

Right. And then you had to shoot it multiple times to get what you wanted, and then you had to shoot those multiple times, multiple times for each outcome. Yeah, and we should say that the violence in the game, like we said, is suggestive for the augers. You don't really see anything. The only real violence is when the augers are dispatched of, but it is very much a wily coyote, bugs bunny sort of thing. Yeah, it's the much a Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny sort of thing. Yeah, it's the definition of cartoonish. Yeah, like there will be a Murphy bed will flip them out of a window or they'll just

well like fall through a trap door. The stairs very like one of the things if they're coming down the stairs, you can trap them by collapsing the stairs. Yeah, they'll go flat. That's a cartoon. When they fall into the trap like a smoke machine pours smoke out of it, it's impossible that they weren't going for cartoonish violence. There's no way that the producers and directors were trying to be like scary in any way, shape

or form. But it was shot by Don Burgess, who was nominated for an Oscar less than a decade after Night Trap for Forrest Gump. So they had a real team. It wasn't just, you know, they didn't say, all right, let's go out in the valley and use some, like a porn crew. And just do this thing. Like they had a real crew.

You know, and apparently Hasbro spent, depending on who you ask, at least a million dollars on this. Yeah, they least a million dollars on this. Yeah, they said one five in the documentary. So they put some money into it. And it is not apparent on the screen. The sets look terrible. The doorways, I don't know if you noticed, but any doorway, they didn't build the door down to the floor. They built the door down to like a one foot tall step over. So anytime someone opens the door, they step over this like one foot tall like wooden set. That's awesome. I mean the set is basically like they could have repurposed it for growing pains or family ties or something like that.

Or no, they probably would have said like, this doesn't look good enough. Maybe small wonder. I think they used it for small wonder. How about that? There is no nudity, we should point out, but it, again, was never going to be kid-friendly, but also when you will get to the court stuff, when you hear how it's described by these senators. It's so over the top. It's so over the top. Yeah. Should we take a break?

You don't want to take a break, do you? No, I'm excited and I'm ready to keep going. Let's take a break? You don't want to take a break, do you? No, I'm excited and I'm ready to keep going. Let's take a break. All right. Well, I guess we should take a break by saying that Hasbro dumped the game. This is a nice cliffhanger. Oh, okay. Hasbro dumped the game.

Wait, wait. Well, Hasbro dumped the game or not, Chuck? Okay. We'll find out right after this. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. Hey everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary. Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies and there's just endless

things about this universe that I find fascinating. All right. Well, basically we're both nerds. We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned. So that's what we're going to do. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy, beautiful cosmos. From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales.

Each Tuesday and Thursday, we take an hour long dive into some science topic, during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum. Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi,

for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming, how she's turning so-called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories that truly make them feel seen. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. It's this idea that there are so many stories out there, and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content. The term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen.

Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment, and sports collide. And hear how leaders like Anjali are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good Company on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck, it's cliffhanger answer time.

Hasbro dumped the game. Oh my gosh. Because A, it wasn't that great, but the big reason was because CD-ROM technology started up and they were like, we've got VHS technology and we sunk a million five into this turkey. Yeah. Like, let's just dump it and that should have been the end of it. Not just Night Trap, but the whole Control Vision thing, the whole platform that Night Trap was just going to be a game on. Totally gone.

CD-ROM killed it. Hasbro said, forget it. The thing is, the people who worked on designing this game said, no, no, no, Hasbro's being short-sighted here. It's too good. This game in particular, maybe Control Vision is dead. Granted, the VHS thing, we're going to just forget about that. But this game is too groundbreaking to just let die.

So they actually went to Hasbro and said, how much will you sell us the footage, the code, the whole shebang for Night Trap for? And the designers actually bought the game from Hasbro and took it and founded their own company, Digital Pictures. Do you know how much they sold it for? No, I couldn't find it either.

I would guess peanuts, basically. They probably were like, I don't ever want to hear the words night or trap together again to get it out of here. But these designers, developers, directors, writers, everybody got together, formed Digital Pictures and bought it and started developing Night Trek, ironically for CD-ROM, which is the very type of media that killed it in the first place. Yeah, but by Jim's telling on the documentary, I don't know if they were already going CD-ROM or if it was initiated by Sega, but he got a call, he said, out of the blue from Sega, who had their gaming system at the time, Sega Genesis, and then Sega CD was an add-on system

featuring this new CD-ROM technology. And he said they got a call that said, hey, you want to develop this for CD-ROM. And he probably got a good laugh out about that and the irony. And then said, sure, because Night Trap must live. Yes. This guy is dedicated to Night Trap living. If there's one thing that he wants to keep alive in the world, it is Night Trap. That's right.

So they started developing it for CD-ROM. It was a step up for sure from what I can tell. Like the graphics worked a lot better. The problem is, is this was 1992? 1992 was when it was finally released as a CD-ROM game, yeah. They had shot all this footage in the late 80s. But it looked like the late 70s. There was a big difference between, say, 1988 and 1992, style-wise.

It was apparent. Visually apparent and immediately apparent to anybody, say, a video game playing age. Yeah, agreed. That was a big strike against Night Trap to begin with. But probably the biggest strike of all was that it wasn't a highly playable game. It was not a good game.

And it probably would have just kind of faded away. Like it sold, I guess enough that it qualified as like a not a disaster. They at least did more than break even, but it probably would have just fallen into the dustbin of history, had it not been for Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Senator Herb Cole of Wisconsin, a couple of Democrats who created this crusade about violent

video games in I think 1993. Yeah. And so this very much mirrored if you listen to our Satanic Panic episodes and the PMRC and music labeling. MPAA. MPAA. Like this was all the time when everyone was saying, hey, listen, we need to start at least labeling this stuff so parents know what their kids are doing.

And just watch a little bit. You know, there's all kinds of, it was in the Netflix documentary, but there's all sorts of stuff on YouTube about these hearings where they're talking about the disgusting trash and the filth and the hyperviolence and it's like it's really not that violent. So here's the thing. They went after moral combat. Yeah, which was super violent. It really was. And they went after Night Trap, which was again cartoonish.

Not a drop of blood spills from a person's body. Right. But it had ladies in lingerie one yes, okay I'm not defending any kind of violence against women of course not defending objectifying women But night trap was unfairly railroaded. Oh, yeah because for some reason I think probably because it was Because, for some reason, I think probably because it was film. It was people. Like the people were controlling people. That was the difference because there were a hundred exploitation movies and horror movies by this point. Sure.

Two hundred. Three hundred. It was on. That were a thousand times worse than this. Yeah. But the fact that you were controlling, yet they never said, and they make a big point about this in the documentary, like you weren't doing the violence, like the whole point of the game was to stop the augers. That's, yes. Like you weren't the person doing the augering.

You're preventing the violence. Yeah, I guess that's why they called them augers because it was kind of like an auger. Yeah, yeah. The tool was. Yeah, that's what I guess. Well, crowbar, towbar, what was it called? it was kind of like an auger. Yeah, yeah. The tool was. Yeah, that's what I guess. Well, crowbar, towbar, what was it called? Crowcar? Chow car?

Chow car, yeah. Crowbar. But yeah, and they never, I mean, Jim Riley was like, they clearly never even played the game. Yeah, no. They were talking about— The cover of the thing was lured. They didn't like the cover of the box.

Yeah. Yeah, they definitely hadn't played the game. It was just impossible from what they were saying't played the game. It was just impossible from what they were saying. It happens in the game. And the big one was, like you were saying, that it let players carry out sexual violence against women. No, you do the opposite of that. There's violence that is carried out by the augers if you don't do it right, if you're not good at the game.

If you lose, yes, exactly. But even then, like, even in the most disturbing scene, which was the one with the lady and the nightie looking in the mirror, the augers come in behind her, and it's for sure creepy looking at first. But, you know, then they get out the croak car. I can't even remember. Trocar. Trocar.

And she's like, ah, ah, and it's like the worst B movie. And then they just sort of drag her over the threshold of one of those doors. I would say gently escorted through the door. Like you don't see any of the violence even. It's all just suggested. Right. But again, Night Trap got lumped in with Mortal Kombat. And because of this, because it was very clear that the writing was on the wall,

the media has a really great track record of this, because it was very clear that the writing was on the wall. The media has a really great track record of saying, oh, God, if we don't come up with a rating system ourselves, Congress is going to impose it on us. And so they came up with the ESRB, the Entertainment Software Rating Board. That's right. It was an industry-created, self-imposed rating system that was brought about in large part because of Nitro. Right. So Sega pulls the game eventually. It became really popular because of these senatorial hearings, which is what always happens.

Yes, that's exactly right. It was starting to fade away. It would have been lost to history. And then the senators came in and were like, go buy that game. Kids wanted to play it. But Sega did eventually pull it. Digital Pictures re-released it as their own distributor and rated it M for Mature. And that should have also been the end of it, right? Yeah, it should have just kind of went away, especially after Sega pulled it, because it got pulled from KB Toys and Toys R Us, because of kids,

but like you're saying, it was still around, and then when Sega pulled it, it was like you couldn't find it anywhere. That should have been the end. And then in 2014, Tom Reilly, Jim Reilly? Jim. Jim Reilly started a Kickstarter and said, we're going to resurrect Night Trap. All we need is $330,000. People are going to go crazy for this.

It's going to be the greatest Kickstarter in the history of Kickstarters. And it was not the greatest Kickstarter ever. It was a really, really bad Kickstarter that had a lot of criticism, skepticism, and ultimately only garnered, I think, about $40,000 when they were after $330,000. And that was in 2014. Yeah. So that obviously was the end of Night Trap, right? That was not the end of Night Trap. The bad game that refused to die. In 2016, there was a video on YouTube that showed someone playing Night Trap on their

telephone, on their smartphone. And I don't know if it was Jim Reilly or one of the original devs saw it and was like, what is going on? You can't play Night Trap on a smartphone because it was never developed with that technology unless that smartphone is playing a CD that I don't know about in the background. And they got in touch with a person, his name was Tyler Hoagel, and he was a mobile game programmer who followed, was a fan of the original, like in a cult fan way. That's a deep cut at that time.

Oh, super deep cut. And then basically said, I'm going to get a playable version hacked together for smartphones and did it like semi-successfully. Yeah. So he basically created this just on his own and then once the video surfaced and the original developers, Jim Riley and some of the others got in touch with him, they said, here man, here's, we lost the code years ago, no one has any idea where it is. But we do have original 35 millimeter footage, which is time stamped, which is really critical because you have to wait, we'll talk about how to play it in a second. The timing is everything between the video and the player's controls. So with the time stamps, Tyler Hoagel was able to basically create

a new modern 25th anniversary edition that just is actually kind of a, as far as Night Trap goes, it's the best Night Trap that there could possibly be. Yeah, that was the 2017 25th edition rated T for teens this time. Still preposterous. Which is funny. And apparently, you know, you said he lost the code, but he was like, that's really easy. Like, I've got all this footage that's time stamped.

Yeah. He's like, I can code this thing in my sleep, basically. He basically did. So, there's a 25th edition of Night Trap, which apparently Nintendo has a version of. Oh, interesting. Which is kind of funny because at the time of those Senate hearings in 1993-94, Nintendo famously said they would never allow Night Trap on their platform and they did. Yeah, and Nintendo is still sort of known as the more family-friendly unit.

I think they even had a bloodless Mortal Kombat, if I'm not mistaken, or maybe it was a setting. Oh, I think yes, it rings a bell. Did you see the new Mortal Kombat movie? I have seen zero Mortal Kombat movies. The new one just came out on HBO Max. Is it good? It's pretty good. I mean, did you play the game? Yeah, yeah.

Do you have nostalgia for the game? Sure. Yeah, you should watch it. Okay. It's good enough. It looks good and there's great fights and then some nice Easter eggs. Okay. It's like the Mortal Kombat movie that should have been because they made one previously that wasn't that great. Matthew Feeney Yeah, from the 90s.

Matthew Feeney Yeah, but this one looks pretty cool. Matthew Feeney Okay. Okay. I'll check it out. Matthew Feeney You rip out spines and hearts and I'll look at stuff. Matthew Feeney Oh, okay. I'll go check it out.

Matthew Feeney And the way they do the blood, it looks just like the game. Matthew Feeney Is it rated T for teen? Matthew Feeney No, it's rated R. Matthew Feeney Okay. For teen. Matthew Feene. Because it's a movie. But we mentioned that it wasn't that great of a game because of the gameplay. One of the biggest problems was that you've got all these stories going on in these different windows,

but you can only kind of control one at a time. So when you're controlling one scene, other stuff is going on. And we mentioned that makes it impossible to follow the actual story. That's a big problem. So it suffers there. Yeah. But there's also this thing where you have a red light, a green light, and a yellow light. And when these lights turn on, if it's the right color light, is when you engage the trap button.

Right. And that's when the auger will flip out the window, but it has to be timed right. Yeah. And apparently while you're in these other rooms, if you want to follow the story for a couple of minutes, they will change the codes, the color codes. So if you're in another room, they'll be like the code is now green, and you don't know that because you're not watching it, so you go back and you think the code is red, and so you're losing the game.

Yeah, because you have to have the right security code activated to activate the traps. Because this is the Martin's family's security cameras. The Martin family, the vampires, are the ones who created the traps. You're just hacked into it thanks to your pals at SCAT, who you're basically freelancing for. But when they change those codes, it doesn't show on screen. The character tells another character to go down to the basement and change the code to orange. And a different screen that you may not be watching. Yeah, in a different room that you can't hear or see or anything like that.

Because you're in the living room and this conversation is happening in the kitchen. That is not a thing where it's like, oh, that's a cool little, little, you know, part of the gameplay. That is a maddening, yes, it's a bug, right. So that's a big problem with it as well. And then also, you don't have to get a perfect, you don't have to play a perfect game to win, but if any of the augers get any of the characters, you lose.

If too many augers start to accumulate, you lose. And you get yelled at by the leader of SCAT. It's kind of funny. He gets really mad at you for screwing up. But to win, you're basically memorizing where to go win. And it happens, especially toward the end, really quick. So like you'll set off a trap in one room and you have to go remember what room you're supposed to go to

to get the trap set for the next auger. And it's not really fun. It gets really intense toward the end, but not necessarily fun. Yeah, I mean, hats off to the grabster because he actually played this thing and tried to play it, which was more than I was willing to do. But I did watch the walkthroughs.

Did you see the Night Trap video, or the lip sync video? I did not. There's actually a theme song, Night Trap, Look Out Behind You, or something like that, that one of the characters does an air guitar, tennis racket, lip sync to dancing while the other characters have to watch and pretend like they're not mortified with embarrassment at seeing this. It's really something. Oh, man. I kept waiting in the documentary for a big reveal that, like, George Clooney was one

of the augers or something like that. But Dana Plato is about as A-list as it got at the time, which was probably C-list at the time. Yeah. You got anything else? I got nothing else. Night Trap. Go seek it out. Night Trap, go seek it out.

Night Trap, look out behind you. That's right. If you want to know more about Night Trap, you don't even have to play it. You can just go on YouTube and watch basically the movie. And even then it's still generally incoherent. But since I said it's still generally incoherent, it's time for Listener Man. I'm going to call this speed reading trauma. Hey guys, I should start with the obligatory long time first time.

Finally reason to email and here I am. So hello. I didn't think that a short stuff on speed reading of all things would trigger my first email. But here we go. Halfway through the show I was flooded with a vivid memory of speed reading in my elementary school gifted class. Speaking of other scams. This was in the early 90s. My teacher would drag a transparency with a printed passage.

Oh, I kind of remember this. Across an overhead projector at increasing speeds and after each pass we would take a comprehension test. I had no idea that this was a scam. I just thought it was a standard part of the curriculum that I wasn't very good at and I felt terrible about it. Oh. Then again in my Louisiana public school curriculum, curriculum, we also had to get a hunting license and shoot clay pigeons as part of Louisiana history in middle school.

I grew up shooting clay pigeons. Really? For school? No. Okay. I would like to try that. It's cool. Skeet shooting? Yeah, that's another way to put it. Looks like fun.

Just stand behind. That's the skeet shooting. Yeah, that's another way to put it looks like fun Just stand behind That's the rule, right? Anyway, thanks so much for the entertainment and education Edutainment, especially this past year. I've often had you in my ear while I work from home to feel a little less solitary That is from Kate Ellis Jensen in Boulder, Colorado. Thanks a lot Kate That was a good email very sorry to set off the trauma, but I'm glad that it's passed. I'm presuming it passed.

Yeah, I kind of remember that happening, but I certainly was not in a gifted class. It doesn't sound like a very fun procedure. It kind of sounds like Ray Fiennes revealing himself to Philip Seymour Hoffman in Red Dragon. Oh, spoiler. Do you see? Yeah, that's creepy.

You know what I'm talking about? Sure. We talked about that recently. Yeah, the wheelchair and fire scene was very visceral. Hilarious. Yeah. But also really funny if you stop and think about it. Sure. That movie just danced on the line and sometimes it went over.

Agreed. Well, if you want to know more about Red Dragon, oh wait, I already said that stuff. If you want to get in touch with us like Kate did, then you can email us like Kate did at stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. [♪ music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music ends, music navigate the big changes in our lives. I get so choked up because I feel like your show and the conversations are what the world needs, encouraging, empowering, counter-programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world

feels dark. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects, your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, TT and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes.

From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott.

And this is season two of the World on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to an iHeart podcast.