Secret Agent is a 1992 side-scrolling Platform Game released by Apogee Software (now 3D Realms) and based on the engine of the earlier Crystal Caves. Much like its predecessor, it was released as three games and licensed as shareware: the first game is free as a teaser, while the other two were made available for purchase (and can be still bought from 3D Realms or from GOG.com
).
The games feature top Secret Agent 006½, assigned to infiltrate the island strongholds occupied by the evil Diabolical Villain Society, or DVS. The DVS has stolen the plans for the Red Rock Rover, a powerful satellite laser weapon, and has hidden the plans in heavily guarded bases on each island. To find the blueprints, you must defeat the security network by destroying the satellite dish in each stage. Doing so will require fending off armed guards and dangerous robots, navigating trap-filled corridors and deadly mazes, and gathering keys, security disks to turn off laser barriers, and dynamite to blow open the exit door and make your escape. Once all the satellite dishes are destroyed, the way to the final stage is unlocked, where you must find and retrieve the blueprints and escape. Doing so ends the episode with a debriefing and picture of your escape, while explaining your next move. The three episodes are "The Hunt for Red Rock Rover," "Kill Again Island," and "Dr. No Body."
June 30, 2021 saw the surprise release of Secret Agent HD, a full remake of the original Secret Agent by Emberheart Games. This version includes all-new music, achievements, improved frame rate, multiple difficulty levels, a level editor, animated ending screens, and a brand new fourth episode, "The Spy who Dumped Me," with new graphics, enemies, and items. In the fourth episode, despite retrieving the blueprints and destroying Dr. No Body, the evil doctor was able to download himself into a new, more powerful body, and build a copy of the Red Rock Rover. Now, 006½ must fly to the final, most heavily guarded DVS base, destroy all the satellite dishes to prevent Dr. No Body from transferring his consciousness again, and finally destroy Dr. No Body and his Red Rock Rover laser weapon to restore peace to the world.
This game provides examples of:
- Body Backup Drive: How Dr. No Body survived the end of episode 3. He was able to broadcast his consciousness into another robot body. Episode 4 has you destroying his communication network to prevent this from happening again.
- Brain in a Jar: Dr. No Body is shown to be a full conversion cyborg, with his head consisting of a small glass tank with a brain in it.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The HD edition contains a secret level which is significantly more difficult than anything that came before, featuring unique hazards such as moving blocks that can kill you instantly.
- Card-Carrying Villain: DVS stands for Diabolical Villain Society.
- Collision Damage: The ceiling fans look like meaningless decorations, but will deal collision damage when jumped into.
- Death Throws: When killed, your character leaps off the screen while waving his hands and eyes madly as if he had an epileptic fit.
- Floating Platforms: The game has a lot of these, though it always takes care to make them at least a little realistic; even in outdoor settings, all platforms are visibly attached to something solid, like a pole. Though, curiously, the clouds sometimes serve as floating platforms.
- Fun with Acronyms: The evil organization goes by the acronym of "DVS" (when each letter is read aloud, it sounds like "devious").
- Goggles Do Something Unusual: They cause a bunch of previously "invisible" (read: nonexistent) platforms to appear.
- Graphics-Induced Super-Deformed: The title screen and the cutscene pictures show the secret agent with normal human proportions, but his in-game sprite has his head take up half of his body.
- Instant Gravestone: Happens to the human enemies once you kill them completely. The higher-ranking enemies turn into lower-ranking enemies until you kill the lowest, weakest form, at which point they become a gravestone (which can be picked up or just destroyed for points.)
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: The game features a classic version of this trope: colored doors (red, blue and green), colored keys, doors disappear when you walk into them with a key. On some levels it's possible to pick up a key when you've already got one of the same colour, which causes you to waste a key and inevitably makes the level unwinnable.
- Interface Screw: The question mark, which reverses your left/right controls.
- Invincible Minor Minion: The robot that floats one square above ground.
- Invisible Block: See Goggles Do Something Unusual, above.
- Jetpack: The HD release adds a jetpack pickup. It can be used to fly for a limited time.
- Mad Scientist: The main villain and head of DVS, Dr. No Body. A full conversion Brain in a Jar cyborg, who has backup brains he can download his consciousness into if his current body is destroyed.
- No-Damage Run: You get a score reward after finishing a level if you pull it off.
- One Bullet at a Time: A standard mechanic of the game. A rare power-up allows you to fire an additional bullet.
- Painfully Slow Projectile: Enemy bullets travel at the same speed at which you run. Your own bullets are a bit faster.
- Robot Dog: One of the enemies is a large, robotic boxer-like dog. There's often a doghouse nearby where they roam.
- Shout-Out: Each one of the episode names: "The Hunt For Red Rock Rover", "Kill Again Island", "Dr. No Body", and in the HD remake, "The Spy Who Dumped Me".
- Super Drowning Skills: Touching water means instant death. (Except at the end of the second episode, where you leave the island in scuba gear.) However, the HD release adds a scuba gear pickup which allows you to survive in water for a limited time.
- Spelling Bonus: Collecting the letters S-P-Y in order gives a score bonus.
- Sprint Shoes: Literal shoes that make you run fast (and, more importantly, jump further).
- Thief Bag: One of the things you can collect to earn points.
- Threatening Shark: Some of the pools of water have sharks in them. They do one hit point of damage, which makes no difference because you'll land in the water a split second later and die.
- The Unfought: There's no boss battles in the game, so completing the third episode shows the player having already subdued Dr. No Body and left him chained to a chair in a room rigged with explosives. This is remedied in the HD remake, where the final level of the new fourth episode now features a final showdown with the rebuilt Dr. No Body and the Red Rock Rover laser weapon.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: The fourth episode ends up doing this to the previous three episodes. Despite reclaiming the blueprints for the Red Rock Rover across three episodes, and seemingly killing Dr. No Body at the end of the third, he rebuilt himself and built the Red Rock Rover from memory, forcing 006½ to travel to the final island to stop him once and for all.
