Night Trap 25th Anniversary Edition

As you may have heard, Limited Run Games recently did a physical release of the infamous Dana Plato starring fmv horror game, Night Trap. My own personal history with the game isn't nearly as interesting as the game itself's story, but it's a controversial horror game so of course I'm interested. I knew what it was, but at our home the Sega CD was my brother's (even though I bought it for him as a gift). Thanks to the magic of the internet, even though the game had been pulled, he managed to grab a copy. I watched him play a bit, and I think I tried it once or twice. My brother always worshipped at the altar of these fmv games, and in fact still does at times, you can watch him stream Double Switch over on his Twitch account, but they never really grabbed me. I mean, I liked Sewer Shark, Tomcat Alley, and Midnight Raiders well enough, but tracking down my own Genesis and Sega CD to play them was never anything I considered.

Still, I was pretty excited when the announcement of the remaster came earlier this year, and I waited impatiently for news of the release date. If you're unfamiliar with Limited Run Games, in a nut shell, they produce small runs of physical copies of games that have digital releases. You know I love me some physical media, and Night Trap would be my first attempt at ordering from Limited Run. Now, this wasn't my first rodeo when it comes to trying to score something with a limited release. Scalpers, website crashes, bots, I've seen it all. Still, I wanted this and made sure I was at my laptop. I watched the counter tick down, and the second "add to cart" popped up, I hit the button. The site told me I was in line and not to refresh or I'd lose my spot. Finally the time came for me to make payment. I was sent over to PayPal (which I'd already signed in to), and when I was sent back to Limited Run to complete my order, I was notified that the item was sold out. To say that I wasn't happy would be an understatement. 

I basically spent the remainder of that day publicly stating my disappointment with Limited Run on Twitter/FB/etc. To be told to wait because there was a line, and then having the opportunity to pay but then be told the item sold WHILE I was paying, I just couldn't wrap my head around. Why is there a fucking line at all then? In fact, apparently with this particular release alongside Wonder Boy which also released the same day, a lot of people had negative things to say about their business model, so much so in fact that it has since been announced that they will be offering pre-orders on larger titles in the future. But anyway, I was done with them. Yeah, they release half of the run early for East coast people, and the second batch later in the day for West coasters, but I assumed even if I tried again, I would get the same result. In fact, I wasn't even at home or anywhere near a computer when the email came across my phone that the second batch was about to go live. Meh, I thought, fuck these guys. But I have to be honest, there was that little voice that was in my head saying "What if?". Eventually my resolve gave way, and I went to the site with under a minute left on the countdown. The place in cart button showed up, I clicked it, then the dreaded wait in line page came. Oh well, right? Suddenly it went away, much faster than the first time, and there I was looking at PayPal. So I hit buy, was redirected to LR's site, and I smashed the place order button. 

I waited for a while for the email telling me my order was cancelled, or something went wrong, but it never came. What did come was a order confirmation email, and it appeared as if I had successfully scored a copy of Night Trap. About two weeks later now, there it was, a black bubble mailer in my mailbox with the Limited Run Games logo on it. 

Here it is in all it's glory. It comes with the game, obviously, reversible cover art, a booklet, and a folded poster of the original game artwork. It's a pretty slick package for the $30 asking price. I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet unfortunately, but I will be doing so pretty soon. The plan is to stream the game for Werewolves. I'm still undecided as to whether I should play it first, so at least I know what I'm doing when I stream it, or if I should just go in blind and see just how badly I can fuck it up. 

So that's my first experience with Limited Run Games, and how I got Night Trap. If you're unfamiliar with the game, and would like to know more about it I highly recommend watching the documentary from My Life in Gaming which I'm embedding below. I may or may not post the stream vid when it happens here, so if you're interested in that, give the Divided by Werewolves youtube page a sub.