Night Trap controversy indirectly led to Petz series

Night Trap designer Rob Fulop has explained how his experience on the notoriously controversial Mega CD title inspired the Petz series.

In an interview published on Gamasutra, Fulop said the controversy surrounding Night Trap proved personally embarrassing.

"Friends of mine, my parents and my girlfriend, didn't really get games," he said. "All they knew was that a game that I had made was on TV, being talked about as being bad for kids.

"And, you know, Captain Kangaroo came on TV and said, 'This is bad for kids.' It was horrible."

After that, Fulop was determined to make a game "so cute and so adorable that no one could ever, ever, ever say that."

The designer quizzed a Santa impersonator as to what gifts children commonly asked him for, which provided the inspiration for the seminal virtual pets series.

Petz has shifted millions of copies since its inception in 1995, and is currently part of Ubisoft's portfolio.

Night Trap was a full motion video game first released for the Mega CD in 1992 - back when awful grainy video graphics were the future - and was the centre of a media furore which resulted in its withdrawal from sale in several territories. The plot involved hidden cameras and attacks on scantily clad women.