Spy vs. Spy (history and reception)

Kemco's Spy vs Spy for the Famicom was on sale in Japan by early June 1986: Famicom Tsushin's first TOP 30 chart, dated 6 June 1986, lists it as a ¥4,900 cartridge. In its June 1986 issue Computer Entertainer counted Spy vs. Spy (First Star) among the American titles available now or soon for the Famicom in Japan. No source read gives the release date. spy-vs-spy-history/release-famicom

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Famicom Tsushin's first TOP 30 chart, dated 6 June 1986 in its issue of 20 June, placed Spy vs Spy eleventh, up from twelfth. spy-vs-spy-history/famitsu-top30

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In Famicom Tsushin's reader-voted TOP 20, Spy vs Spy was thirteenth with 732 points in the chart dated 6 June 1986, and fifteenth with 796 points, down from thirteenth, in the one dated 18 July 1986. spy-vs-spy-history/famitsu-reader-chart

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Spy vs. Spy came out for the NES in North America in October 1988, from Seika. spy-vs-spy-history/release-nes

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The NES manual says the game was produced by Kemco, and its credits name Kotobuki System as producer and Seika Corporation as exclusive distributor. They credit the game concept to First Star Software and name Fernando Herrera and Richard M. Spitalny as project directors; the game is based on the Spy vs Spy characters created by Antonio Prohías, the property of E.C. Publications. spy-vs-spy-history/nes-makers

The warranty page (PDF p. 20) is Seika-Kemco's.

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The NES manual calls itself Mad magazine's official instruction manual. It says Mad and Spy vs Spy are trademarks of E.C. Publications, used with permission, and that the game's audio-visual material was designed and copyrighted by First Star Software in 1984 and 1988. spy-vs-spy-history/licence

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The player is a spy who has to escape an embassy before time runs out, carrying the top-secret briefcase filled with a passport, a bag of money, a key, and the secret papers, and board a plane through the embassy's only exit. spy-vs-spy-history/premise

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The NES game has three modes: Training, a simplified game in which a spy needs only the briefcase and one item; VS COM, against a computer-controlled spy; and VS PLAYER, for two players, with the white spy on controller 1 and the black spy on controller 2. It has eight levels in order of difficulty. Higher levels have more rooms, and as they go on a second floor is added; each level has its own time. spy-vs-spy-history/options

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The screen is split: the top half follows the white spy and the bottom half the black spy, played by the second player or the computer. Both spies act at once, so each player has to watch and remember what the other does; the manual calls the two features Simulvision and Simulplay. spy-vs-spy-history/split-screen

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The items are hidden in the rooms' furniture and behind their pictures, as weapons sometimes are, and opening or lifting an object can set off a booby trap instead. spy-vs-spy-history/search

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When both spies are in the same room they fight, with the A button. A spy who has collected a hidden weapon uses it automatically, and the first spy to find a given weapon keeps it for the whole game. Each hit weakens a spy; one whose power runs out leaves the screen for 10 seconds and loses 30 seconds from his clock, while the other plays on. Setting off a booby trap on purpose costs 10 seconds and restores full power. spy-vs-spy-history/combat

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Each spy can set four booby traps: dynamite bombs and giant springs, hidden in furniture or behind pictures; buckets of water, set on closed doors; and time bombs. Every trap but the time bomb has a remedy hidden in the rooms: the umbrella, always on the coat rack, guards against the bucket, wire cutters disarm the spring, and the water bucket protects against dynamite. The map marks a booby-trapped room with a small yellow square, but not time bombs; a spy who enters a room with one turns blue and has two seconds to get out. spy-vs-spy-history/traps

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In its report on the June 1988 Consumer Electronics Show, Computer Entertainer wrote that Kemco-Seika's only 1988 release would be Superman, and that it had also licensed Spy vs. Spy II: The Island Caper from First Star, among games mostly scheduled for 1989; describing Sega's Spy vs. Spy card, it called the Island Caper the game licensed to Kemco-Seika for the NES. The game Seika brought out for the NES in October 1988 was Spy vs. Spy, whose manual sets the mission in an embassy. spy-vs-spy-history/nes-plans

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At the same show Sega announced Spy vs. Spy on a Sega card, licensed from First Star, which Computer Entertainer called the first of the three Spy vs. Spy games, with the black and white spies on a split screen. spy-vs-spy-history/sega-card

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Computer Entertainer's January 1989 review, unsigned, said Spy vs. Spy had made it to yet another system, this time from Kemco-Seika, the newest Nintendo software company in the U.S., and called its scenario familiar by then. Its writers found, in every version they had reviewed, that the game was best for two players, who make the most of setting traps and finding remedies; they called the play fun and tongue-in-cheek, and the split-screen graphics simple but pretty good. spy-vs-spy-history/ce-review

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Computer Entertainer's January 1989 review gave the NES version two and a half stars for graphics and two and a half for game play, out of four. spy-vs-spy-history/ce-score

{
 "review": "Computer Entertainer",
 "of": 4,
 "scores": {
  "graphics": 2.5,
  "game play": 2.5
 }
}

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Computer Entertainer gave the NES version's suggested retail price as $36.95 in January 1989. spy-vs-spy-history/price-nes

Kemco's Famicom sequel, Nangoku Shirei!! Spy vs Spy (The Island Caper), presents itself in its manual as the return of the two spies, addressing players who met them in the previous game. Its back cover names Kemco's Kotobuki System, a licence from First Star Software and E.C. Publications, and a design credit to Mike Riedel. Famicom Tsushin's schedule of 6 February 1987 had it due in late March 1987, a ¥4,900 cartridge. spy-vs-spy-history/sequel-famicom

The manual is the sequel's, not this game's; no manual or box of Kemco's first Famicom Spy vs Spy has been read. A schedule is a plan, not a release date.

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