I remember that level and I also can't collect S P Y in the right order.

I'm reviving this old thread because I recently played Secret Agent once more and came across the same level. I found this video walkthrough. On minute 33 you can see that the P is at a different position than in my screenshot.

Was this level fixed? I can't find anything about a patch for that game.

That video walkthrough is from episode 3 not episode 1. I remember not being able to get the P in the correct order either. I think its just the level being badly designed is my guess unless there was actually a patch. I'm pretty sure the maximum score doesn't fit in the bottom of the screen cause its > 99999 either.

Unfortunately I think the problem occours in episode 2 and possibly 3 as well where you can't get them in the right order.

That video walkthrough is from episode 3 not episode 1

You're right, it's a different level.

Unfortunately I think the problem occours in episode 2 and possibly 3 as well where you can't get them in the right order.

That's true, there is one level where you have to jump under a P and can't jump low enough to miss it. I wonder how these screw-ups happened. Both look like the disgner thought it was possible to not collect the letter and then later nobody ever playtested these levels?

perhaps the people testing didn't connect the dots and realise the S P Y were supposed to spell out SPY I mean I finished Secret Agent so many times (>10) and yet I never realised that they spelt out the word SPY. I actually quite embarrassingly would always move slow to the Y in hope that it would be 10K. Its quite embarrassing now to think about it that way but ah well. I mean I didn't even work it out after playing duke 1 where you could spell out DUKE and duke2 where you could spell out NUKEM but I guess I didn't play them anywhere near as much as Secret Agent.