Cloak & Dagger

Introduction

Cloak & Dagger is a Russel Dawe-designed dual-joystick shooter released by Atari Games in 1983. It was originally developed under the name "Agent X," but was later renamed to coincide with the release of a movie named Cloak & Dagger. In the movie, an Atari 5200 version of the game appears as a crucial plot element.

Story

The evil Dr. Boom stole some secret documents and now it is the player's job to retrieve them, by following the Doctor in his secret underground lair, collecting the plans, then escaping by replaying the same levels in reverse order.

Controls

Two joysticks are used to play Cloak & Dagger, one for movement and the other for aiming the player's gun. Both movement and firing can be in any of the eight directions of the joystick. Shooting is simply done by pointing in the directing that the player desires to shoot, no additional button press is required. The player also has a "fuse" attack which can be used to light the fuse of the bomb placed in the center of each level. Though the fuse will eventually light automatically, lighting it manually increases the danger and gives the player bonus points.

Gameplay

In Cloak & Dagger it is up to the player to go from one end of the level to the lift that goes down on the other side of the level while trying to destroy as many crates as possible (destroying them rewards the player points) and not get him or herself killed by doing so.

In the centre of every floors a bomb is planted that the player can set of by either firing at the tip of the detonation chord with the normal gun or by hitting the detonation cord at any point with the "fuse" attack. Once the detonation chord runs out the bomb will explode and drown the floor in flames destroying every object on it. The downside is that these flames will also kill the player's spy if they hit them so the player must hurry to the lift when the bomb is about to explode.

Hazards

Within the levels the player will also encounter various hazards.

• Security Robots: A robot that wanders around the floor and shoots at the player.

• Exploding barrels: Similar to the normal barrels that the player has to shoot to rank up points but will kill the player if he shoots them when standing next to them.

• Forklifts: While not directly a thread to the player, forklifts reflect bullets back.

• Bomb Detonators: Robots that go off and try and detonate the central bomb.

• Mines: Some of the later levels will have mines that will only be visible for a flash every couple of seconds and can be destroyed with the gun. Depending on the number of map parts the player collected in the previous level a safe path through the minefield will be displayed