SPY vs. SPY®
featuring Simulvision™ and Simulplay™

History
First Star developed the first of its three games in its SPY vs. SPY® series to exploit its license of the popular cartoon series featured in MAD Magazine and included real-time animation, superb graphics, competitive game play and mad-cap action. The title’s appeal was greatly enhanced by First Star’s revolutionary, split-screen display, Simulvision™. This unique solution to head-to-head competition, invented by First Star, allowed both players to be active simultaneously, eliminating the need to alternate turns. Simulplay™, as supported by Simulvision™, enabled players to move about collecting items, setting traps (using the Trapulator™) and engaging in hand-to-hand combat if they entered the same play field.

Published by First Star in 1984 for the Atari 4/800; C-64 and Apple II, the game was exceptionally well received all around the world. There were Amiga, Amstrad, BBC/Electron, and MSX computer versions of the first game in the SPY vs. SPY series by the time the sequel was released. SPY vs. SPY, Vol. II-”The Island Caper”™ was also released for the Atari 4/800; C-64 and Apple II by First Star while it enjoyed an equal success by our licensees which included: Sega Enterprises, Ltd.; Accolade; Kotobuki/KEMCO; EPYX; and, Zoomsoft.

Kotobuki, under license from First Star, released SPY vs. SPY - Vol.1 for the NES in North America. Spy Vs Spy Vol. 1 sold 300,000 units in North America. Kotobuki also shipped Spy vs. Spy Vol. 1 in Europe and achieved excellent sales there as well. The Game Boy version of SPY Vs SPY was released first in Japan in June of 1992 and was then later published throughout the rest of the world and re-released in 1997. In February of 1999 First Star granted a worldwide license to Kotobuki for the Game Boy Color rights to SPY vs. SPY-Vol.1. Sega Enterprises, Ltd. licensed the Sega rights, throughout the world, for SPY vs. SPY 1 on their 8 bit Master System. They released the program in both Japan and Europe prior to its release in North America for Christmas 1988. SEGA renewed their license to this program for a fifth year due to continuing sales. Combined video game sales for the SPY vs. SPY programs, worldwide, on various systems are now about 2 million units.

Awards

• BEST ARCADE GAME
  by Commodore Microcomputers Magazine

• YEAR’S BEST COMMODORE ENTERTAINMENT SOFTWARE
  by Ahoy! Magazine

• GAME OF THE MONTH
  by Electronic Games Magazine

• SPA SILVER CERTIFICATE*
  *50,000 unit sales for Accolade sales, which were just under 100,000 units

• CES SOFTWARE SHOWCASE
  Outstanding Original Programming

• CES SOFTWARE SHOWCASE
  Innovations

Reviews

• “Competitive two-player games are quite rare. This is perhaps the best one ever designed...the fluidity of play, with spies constantly pulling off defensive and offensive maneuvers, gives this one a stratospheric excitement level...(Game of the Month).” 
  --Electronic Games

• “...offers a wealth of opportunities for strategic play, while the humorous effects of the practical jokes add to the fun ...meeting a friend at Joke and Dagger Street provides some of the best two-player gaming we’ve seen lately..truly original game.”
  --The Video Game Update

• “No one has more successfully captured the original feel of the source nor offered a more satisfying result...the graphics here are excellent, as befits a game so rooted in a visual medium...the spies look great, and so do the details.”
  --Video Magazine

• “The skill with which the slapstick rivalry between the spies has been preserved makes these computerized foes every bit as much fun as the pair who have been amusing MAD readers for years...a fine print amusement has become a challenging and entertaining game.”
  --Personal Computing

First Star Software’s games in the SPY vs. SPY® series include property of E.C. Publications, Inc. MAD Magazine is a registered trademark of E.C. Publications, Inc. Simulvision™, Simulplay™, Trapulator™, The Island Caper™ and Arctic Antics™ are trademarks of First Star Software, Inc. Audio visual material Copyright © 1984, 2008 First Star Software, Inc. All rights reserved.