Spy Fox 2: Some Assembly Required

In Spy Fox 2: Some Assembly Required, the suave and smarmy Spy Fox returns to foil the mad ambitions of Napoleon LeRoach, who has constructed a 1000:1 scale fully operational evil dogbot and is now poised to unleash it upon the unsuspecting world. Fox manages it, of course. Exactly how he does so without compromising his secret identity is unclear, especially since he introduces himself to everyone he meets as "Fox, Spy Fox."

Then again, his identity doesn't seem to be very secret in the first place, which begs the question of how he can be a secret agent anyway, which begs the question of who cares.

This game also teaches valuable life lessons!

"Creating false ID cards is something ONLY Secret Agents can do, and then, ONLY when we're on a case."

No teen drinking in kids who grew up on Spy Fox, no sir!

Subtitles
As per most Humongous games made after 1994, Spy Fox 2 has subtitles but no option to show them in-game. They can be enabled by adding the line TextOn=1 to the configuration file hegames.ini. The ScummVM interpreter also adds an option to enable these.

The subtitles were apparently meant mostly for developer use; in the original interpreter, every line is prefixed by an internal reference code in the format [name.hex] (e.g. [SPYFOX.357], [CHIEF.007]). This sometimes reveals names for characters who otherwise don't have any; the security guard outside the service entrance, for example, is "RALPH," while the chef is "DINAH." ScummVM's subtitle function removes these headings.

Cheater Message
Using the Caped Cod talk balloon (which normally only appears in the regenerator path) on Doll or Lee (the cloned sheep) in the flytrap path will trigger a dialogue box with the following message: CHEATER! You shouldn't have the cod talk balloon on the flytrap path! This can only be seen using the debug mode by adding the Cod talk balloon to your inventory while the game is set to the flytrap path.

Debug Mode
Spy Fox 2 has two different lines that can be added to hegames.ini to enable debug modes. The code FoxTimesTwo=C will enable only the debug rooms. The code SputmDebug=82399 will enable debug rooms and debug commands.

Path Select


Pressing Ctrl-C during gameplay will bring up this screen, which allows the player to pick which game path to play and change whether the game considers certain puzzles completed.

Room Select


Ctrl-G activates the room select. Clicking on any room takes Fox to it. Some rooms, like SaveLoad and Intro, don't work, while other seem to be remnants of deleted rooms (see below).

Item Select


Ctrl-I brings up the item select screen. Clicking on any item crosses it out and places it in the appropriate section of Fox's inventory. The arrows next to certain items set the state of that item (e.g., the food required for the Breath Analyzer can exist as the original ingredient or the original and the clone).

Debug Commands
ScummVM disables all of these.

High-Speed Mode
The key combination Ctrl-F enables a turbo mode that makes everything run much faster.

Variable Select
Pressing Ctrl-E prompts the player for a variable number to edit, then for a number to set that variable to.

Goto Room
Ctrl-G prompts the player for a room number to teleport to.

Object Pickup
Ctrl-O prompts for an object number to pick up.

Starting Level Select
Adding the line arcadecheat=1 to hegames.ini and pressing the "GO" button on the Things from Space title screen will prompt the user for a level number to start on.

Level Editor
editor-enabled to hegames.ini enables these extra commands during gameplay:

E will bring up the level editor. I will make the ship invincible.

The level editor is near-complete and apparently fully functional, allowing users to create levels or edit existing ones. It has three basic parts: the layout editor, the object editor, and the level map.

The layout editor is the big black space in the middle. Gridlines mark off each segment of the stage. Clicking on an object picks an object up and allows it to be moved elsewhere.

The object editor is on the right. Clicking on an object brings up its icon in the top-right corner. The arrows allow the player to change its type to any of the asteroids or ships and set its various properties. The "COPY" button clones the object.

The level map is on the left. It shows how far through the stage the part of the map currently visible in the layout editor is. Clicking the arrows at the top or bottom moves the layout editor up or down by the height of the screen. The "SAVE" and "LOAD" buttons work as expected: any level up to 10 can be loaded or saved over freely.

Saving over one of the game's levels and accessing it while playing will bring up the message Just so you know, this level is from your local machine. (You made it)

Playing custom levels does seem to make the game prone to crashing, though. If the editor was ever intended for general users, this is probably why it was removed. It's apparent that the actual levels were made with something more complex -- one of the options for object movement is "CUSTOM," and the editor isn't capable of defining custom paths.

Turbo Mode
Adding the line turbo=1 to hegames.ini puts the game in turbo mode. It's not the same as fast mode since it only doubles the frame rate as opposed to killing the throttle altogether.

Hidden Scene
AGAOnZ_95tA Adding the line FryFox=BurnBabyBurn to hegames.ini adds an extra scene in Room 26, "Regenerator". It's activated by clicking on the electric chair that would normally raise Fox to the next room. With the code enabled, doing so triggers a rather gruesome parody of the respawn sequences from the arcade version of Dragon's Lair. Note that this scene prevents Fox from leaving the room; the only way out is to use debug functions.

Removed Rooms?
Three of the rooms on the room select screen do not correspond to any location in the game: Lava, Switch, and Aval. Clicking on them does nothing. Instead of using the regular path abbreviations, all three are labelled "(CU)", perhaps for "Cut".

According to the map, Lava would have been accessible from Napoleon's dining room, Switch would have been connected to the Dogbot air vent, and Aval would have been contiguous to the Regenerator room. What these rooms were and why they were removed is unclear.

Unused Responses
lwJBI3oGMXo Elmo (the crazed Caped Cod fanboy), who only appears in the regenerator path, has six responses that can be heard by using the Madame Ladybug or Victor (the guy at the ice rink) talk balloons. However, these talk balloons only appear in the flytrap path, where Elmo is absent. As such, Elmo's responses can only be heard by using the debug mode.