Cloak & Dagger (video game)

Cloak & Dagger
Developer(s)	Atari
Publisher(s)	Atari
Designer(s)	Russel Dawe 'Rusty'
Platform(s)	Arcade Game
Release date(s)	1984 (Arcade)
Display	Raster

Cloak & Dagger is an Atari video game based on the 1984 film of the same name. The video game was critical to the movie's plot. This collaboration was part of a larger phenomenon at the time of movies featuring video games as critical plot elements (as with Tron and The Last Starfighter) and of video game tie-ins to the same movies (as with the Tron games for the Intellivision and other platforms).

Development

The game was created by Russel Dawe. The game was under development using the title Agent X when the movie producers and Atari learned of each others' projects and decided to cooperate. When Atari was consulted to provide a game as an element of the movie, they tweaked Agent X and renamed it Cloak & Dagger. Dabney Coleman's character was then named "Agent X" in the movie.

Arcade release

The game saw limited arcade release as a conversion kit for Robotron 2084 cabinets. The arcade version of Cloak & Dagger appeared in March of 1984, prior to the release of the film. The Cloak & Dagger game screens from the movie are mostly from the arcade version, and not the Atari 5200 game console as it would appear in the film. Although a 5200 version of the game was planned, it was never released due to the video game crash of 1983 and eventual sale of Atari. Because the Atari 5200 version of Cloak & Dagger wasn't complete during filming, the cartridge props are actually other 5200 games with a Cloak & Dagger label stuck on them.

External links

• FAQ about the Atari 5200 version of Cloak & Dagger, including discussion of the movie tie-in.
• IMDb > Cloak & Dagger (1984) > Trivia