Cloak & Dagger (rev 5) - MAME machine

Arcade Video game kit published 41 years ago:

Cloak & Dagger © 1983 Atari.

Agent X, complete with trenchcoat, Bogie hat, and briefcase, hurries through a series of adventures and misadventures to retrieve stolen plans and destroy dastardly Dr. Boom's subterranean bomb factory. Our masked hero descends to the depths of Dr. Boom's laboratory in a special elevator. On each floor he encounters a series of conveyor belts that are moving explosives. A giant bomb ticks down the game seconds while devices of Dr. Boom's plotting, such as bomb converters, forklifts deflecting shots back at Agent X, robot guards, acid pits, and crawling eyes shooting death rays, challenge the player(s).

CLOAK & DAGGER is a 1- or 2-player game with a color raster video display. You control Agent X as he descends underground floor by floor in an elevator to Dr. Boom's lab, located on the 33rd floor. Your main goal is to retrieve Top Secret plans that are surrounded by an electrical arc. To stop the electrical current, Agent X must shoot all the fiery nodes as he fights off robot guards.

As Agent X leaves the elevator on each floor, he must make his way carefully and quickly across the screen to another exit. Each floor displays a configuration of conveyor belts moving green unarmed and red armed explosives. Agent X can pick up the green explosives. The red explosives will explode on contact. Some floors have marauding robot guards, death-ray shooting crawling eyes, and acid pits.

Once Agent X has the top secret plans in hand, he must make his way back to the surface. If he exits on a floor that was bombed on the way down, he will find a massive crater protected by node monsters and the previously mentioned attackers. If he exits on a floor that was not bombed, a superguard will join the other attackers to challenge Agent X. On the final level, rumors are that he will meet the notorious Dr. Boom himself.

At the center of the display, a double-coiled fuse to a giant bomb is ticking down the game seconds for each level. Agent X can light the fuse in a rush for bonus points, but must be able to escape that level before the bomb explodes. If the fuse has shortened on its own to one coil, it lights automatically and prompts Agent X to make a mad dash to the waiting elevator. The doors close just as a burst of light from the explosion is seen. The game's perspective now changes to a full view inside the elevator. Messages flash across the elevator to give helpful hints on the next level.

Dr. Boom has placed explosive mines on every 4th floor. On each of the preceding 3 floors Agent X can pick up a secret map box that will show him part of the safe path across the minefield on the next 4th floor.

Agent X's first goal is to travel successfully from one elevator to the other; his second goal is to pick up a secret box to get a map of the minefield on levels 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, and 32; the third goal is to light the bomb fuse and escape before the explosion.

As game play progresses, Agent X may find an extra-life box and a mystery box that give bonus points, double speed, half speed, and occasionally, an extra life. Extra bonus points are earned for picking up green unarmed explosives or for skipping floors.

If Agent X succeeds in capturing the top secret plans, he must fight his way back up to the top level. The appearance of box compressors, crawling eyes, and other enemies are more random on the way up than on the way down. If Agent X makes it back to the surface, a free game will be awarded (depending on the settings of the option switches).

The game ends when you use up your last life or successfully make it to the surface.

TECHNICAL
Game ID: 136023

Players: 1
Control: Double 8-way joystick
Buttons: 1

TRIVIA
Released in December 1983 as a conversion kit for Defender, Stargate, Robotron, or Joust. There were about 5000 units produced which made it into the market place.

A Cloak & Dagger unit appears in the 1984 movie 'Cloak and Dagger'.

This game was in development independently from the movie of the same name under the title "Agent X". When the game was about 70% completed and the movie was about 40% done, the movie producers and editors came to Atari to see if Atari had a game they could film as backdrop to the movie scenes which needed a 'Cloak & Dagger like spy game'. Atari agreed to change the name of its game to 'Cloak & Dagger' and they put a couple of tid-bits into their script which referred to 'Agent X' (Dabny Colman's character). The game actually arrived on the scene about 2 months before the movie was released. It was tested under the name 'Agent X' in it's initial field test (about 5 months before the movie was released), but was never produced as anything but 'Cloak & Dagger'.

John McAllister holds the official record for this game with 1,497,744 points on April 1, 2009.

SCORING
Shooting cave walls: 1 point
Shooting unarmed explosives: 10 points
Shooting armed explosives: 50 points, 100 bonus points
Shooting sleeping guard: 50 points, 100 bonus points
Picking up unarmed explosive: 100 points, 100 bonus points
Shooting alert guard: 200 points, 100 bonus points
Shooting lab arc-node: 200 points
Picking up mystery box: 200-1800 points, 100 bonus points
Shooting node monster: 1000 points, 100 bonus points
Shooting crawling eye: 1000 points, 200 bonus points
Shooting super-guard: 2000 points, 200 bonus points
Shooting Dr. Boom: 50,000 points
Picking up secret plans: 100,000 points
Lighting fuse: 2000-9000 bonus points (the shorter the fuse the more points awarded)

Note: Once fuse is lit, all points awarded are doubled!

TIPS AND TRICKS

• Hints for Game Play:

Develop skill for controlling the 8-position joysticks.
Memorize the mine fields.
Destroy the crawling eyes by spreading out shots.
Judge timing through the box compressors that first appear on level 17.
Learn levels where it is best NOT to shoot everything.

• Level Skip: Pull both joysticks down when you are in the lift. You'll descend far more rapidly, skipping several levels at a time.

STAFF
Team Leader: John Ray (JMR)
Designed and programmed by: Russel Dawe (RBD)
Graphics by: Dave Ralston (DAR)
Software support: Mike Mahar
Hardware engineer: Doug Snyder

CONTRIBUTE
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