''Spy vs. Spy'' is a video game written by Michael Riedel for the Commodore 64 and published by

First Star Software First Star Software, Inc. was a Chappaqua, New York based video game development, publishing and licensing company, founded by Richard Spitalny (who remains the company's president), Billy Blake, Peter Jablon, and Fernando Herrera in 1982. It is ...

in 1984. A port for the Atari 8-bit family was released simultaneously. It is a two-player, split-screen game, based on '' Mad'' magazine's long-running cartoon strip ''

Spy vs. Spy ''Spy vs. Spy'' is a wordless comic strip published in '' Mad'' magazine. It features two agents involved in stereotypical and comical espionage activities. One is dressed in white, and the other in black, but they are otherwise identical, and ...

'', about the slapstick antics of two spies trying to kill each other with improbably elaborate traps and weapons. It was ported to the Apple II,

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...

, Atari ST,

BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...

Commodore 16 The Commodore 16 is a home computer made by Commodore International with a 6502-compatible 7501 or 8501 CPU, released in 1984 and intended to be an entry-level computer to replace the VIC-20. A cost-reduced version, the Commodore 116, was ...

, MSX,

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

, Amiga, Master System,

Game Boy The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...

, Game Boy Color, and Nintendo Entertainment System.

Gameplay

The object of the game is to collect various secret items in a briefcase and exit the building through a door to the airport, either before the opposing player exits or before the timer runs out. While searching for the items, traps can be laid to take out the opponent (or the player himself, if careless). Each spy has a personal countdown timer which depletes by 30 seconds upon each death. The arena is an

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually den ...

, constructed from a series of interconnected rooms laid out on a grid pattern. Higher levels have more rooms and therefore a larger play area. The spies can engage in hand-to-hand combat (achieved by wiggling the joystick or

directional pad A D-pad (short for directional pad or digital pad; officially referred to by Nintendo as a +Control Pad) is a flat, usually thumb-operated, often digital, four-way directional control with one button on each point, found on nearly all modern vi ...

left and right or up and down when the spies are in proximity to each other) as well as place traps on the furniture and doors which occupy the playing area. These traps are triggered when a spy searches a piece of furniture or opens a booby trapped door, resulting in a cartoon-style animation showing the subject being shot, blown up, etc., and floating up to heaven as an angel. Strategy is introduced by limiting the numbers of each trap a spy can use and by allowing the traps to be triggered by either spy. Some pieces of furniture also contain 'remedies' which match up to specific traps; these allow a trap to be defused, but can only be fetched one at a time.

Reception

Video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

'' magazine described it as "a rousing action-strategy contest" and praised the game's "excellent" graphics as "befit

ing Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 1992 ...

a game so rooted in a visual medium." The reviewer also noted that "no one has more successfully captured the original feel of the source nor offered a more satisfying result". ''

Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...

'' agreed in its faithfulness to the original, and praised both the simultaneous two-player and one-player options. ''

Antic Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977-1978 by ...

'' called it "one of the most original and clever games for the Atari computers yet". The magazine praised the simultaneous two-player display and concluded, "I cannot recommend this game highly enough." The ZX Spectrum version was rated number 20 in the ''

Your Sinclair ''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993. History T ...

Official Top 100 Games of All Time''. '' Computer and Video Games'' scored the Sega Master System version 90% in 1989 and 88% in 1990.

Legacy

A remake including the original version was released for iOS in 2012, but is no longer available. Two sequels to the original 1984 game were produced: '' Spy vs. Spy II: The Island Caper'' and '' Spy vs. Spy III: Arctic Antics''. The third game was also released for the IBM PC. These kept the basic gameplay while tweaking some core features.

References

External links

* *
''Spy vs. Spy''
at Atari Mania
Video from the C64 version
on archive.org {{Authority control 1984 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games Atari ST games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commodore 16 and Plus/4 games Commodore 64 games First Star Software games Game Boy Color games Game Boy games IOS games Kemco games Master System games MSX games Multiplayer and single-player video games NEC PC-8801 games Nintendo Entertainment System games PlayStation 2 games Sharp X1 games Split-screen multiplayer games Video games based on Spy vs. Spy Video games developed in the United States ZX Spectrum games Tynesoft games fr:Spy vs. Spy