"Night Trap (Primarily) Introduced Video Game Ratings" is a documentary focused on Night Trap and it's infamous government hearings across the globe, and how this one video game brought in video game ratings.
Politicians and governments jumped out of their seats scared that a game this “sexist”, “gruesome” and “violent” existed within the realm of video games, they decided to introduction video game ratings. With this documentary exploring the various government hearings and publically televised shows about the Night Trap and how it was too violent for children to be playing.
Night Trap was developed for an older audience, and when it finally released in 1992, after years of delays, it was picked out of the cartoon and unrealistic line up of already released titles and blamed for everything that was and still occurring negatively impacting the world.
This documentary was conceptualised, developed and produced solo.
The full documentary was published on the 3rd of June, 2025, and can be viewed exclusively on YouTube.
Fun and Unique Statistics from this Documentary:
1. The Script totals over 10,000 words
2. Research included over 50 articles, videography content and news articles
3. Has a total runtime of 1 hour and 4 seconds (1:00:04)
4. Contains 32x Unique People Headshot Animations
5. Has 9x Custom Sub-Title Animations
6. Features 8x Chapter Animations
7. Developed over the course of 4 Months
YouTube Thumbnail
The thumbnail's design is to resemble the original Night Trap logo and effect that occurs on opening the game, where the A would swing open and blood would fall out if it.
To keep the thumbnail clean, I decided to have the blood graphic within the the text instead of dropping one letter, while it would have matched the original, it would have created more visual clutter and had less space for the text to shine.
The old film strips are to represent the film media being used as the visuals, while also encompassing what the game was called out for being "gruesome" and "violent". As it showcases scenes from the game and how these scenes were portrayed within the media, instead of being taken for their full worth or context.
The background is simple, with a black fading into a blurry grey background, to add some colour and to make the original game's opening, and also the opening for the documentary.
Chapter & Sub-Title Animations
Featured below is one of the chapter transition animation, which encompasses the original design style of the game on the Sega CD. The green text within the field is each chapter's title. This animation was built from the ground up to be fully customisable, such as the blinking light and the side-to-side light, being easily interchangeable between colours and movement.
The animation to the right is a subtitle animation, which occurs when the chapter is broken down into multiple sections, such as across the multiple government hearings within the United States and in Australia. This animation is to resemble the animation of the remote that occurs at the start of the game, which does the same animation fade in and out.
People & Group Intro. Animations
One of the unique features for this documentary is whenever a quote appears on the screen, a profile shot of the person who is talking will appear next to the quote. These animations are the same across the documentary and only change for the text and the profile shot.
Included in these animations was one to resemble how the development knew everyone, and that they came together. As it was in the 90s, it was more who you knew as there wasn't a preferred way to communicate effectively yet.
