Creators Of Classic Video Game "Night Trap" Launch Kickstarter Campaign To Fund Re-Release Of Controversial Game In Response To Loyal Fan Following

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Fans of the classic video game "Night Trap" have spoken and the game's creators have listened. The original producers of "Night Trap" have launched a $330,000 Kickstarter campaign to fund the re-release of the popular and controversial video game. The producers intend to upgrade the quality of the video to high definition and improve overall gameplay using technology not available when the game was originally released. The Kickstarter campaign can be found at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1018579240/night-trap-revamped?ref=email.

Widely considered the first full-length interactive movie ever created, "Night Trap" was initially released in 1992 and sold close to 1 million units over the next three years. It gained a loyal fan following, partly as a result of the 1993 Senate hearings on violence in video games. Former Senator Joseph Lieberman co-chaired the hearings, characterizing the game as ultraviolent, sick and disgusting, and incorrectly claiming that the object of the game was to trap and kill women. When Digital Pictures executives were called to the hearings to testify, and explained the object of the game was to save women, not kill them, they were silenced in what many felt was an attempt to misrepresent the game and unfairly brand it as an example of extreme violence in video games. Several retailers pulled "Night Trap" from their shelves, and the hearings resulted in the formation of today's ESRB video game ratings system.

The game was produced for approximately $1.5 million and filmed in 1986. It was originally intended for Hasbro's ControlVision video game platform, but the system was never released and the game never finished. The video footage was eventually purchased by executive producer Tom Zito, and finally released in 1992 by Digital Pictures, a company Zito co-founded, first for the Sega CD console and, in 1994, for the PC and Mac.

"Night Trap" is an interactive horror movie spoof that uses full-motion video to tell a story about a group of girls having a slumber party and becoming the targets of vampire villains. Players set traps in an effort to capture the vampires and save the girls from having their blood sucked. Among other obstacles, the player must know when to activate traps, have the correct color codes for the traps to work properly and accumulate knowledge of the rapidly unfolding story.

The 30-day Kickstarter campaign is offering contributors a variety of rewards, including vintage posters, signed copies of the re-release, limited edition box sets, copies of documents from the congressional hearings and the opportunity to be listed as a producer of the game.

"This has been a long time coming," said Tom Zito, the original executive producer of "Night Trap" and former CEO of Digital Pictures. "We have had an increasing number of fans contact us about improving and re-releasing the game, so we finally decided to take the first step and raise the funds needed to bring the title back."

Yahoo! Games named "Night Trap" one of the top 10 most controversial video games of all time.

Contact: Steve Honig
The Honig Company, LLC
818-986-4300
[email protected]

SOURCE Night Trap