// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs "Dizzy – The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure" spinning out of control? Yes, it's dizzy-ing.
| Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Publisher | Codemasters |
| Designer | Oliver Twins |
| Series | Dizzy |
| Platforms | Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum |
| Release | 1987 |
| Genres | Adventure, platform |
| Mode | Single-player |
Dizzy (also known as Dizzy —The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure) is an adventure-platform game, the first video game featuring the character Dizzy, an anthropomorphic egg. The game was designed by two British brothers, the Oliver Twins. Dizzy was published by Codemasters and was released in 1987.
Gameplay
[edit]The game is a platform adventure where Dizzy must search the fairy tale land of Katmandu for a Leprechaun's Wig, a Cloud's Silver Lining, a Vampire Dux Feather, and a Troll Brew and deposit them in a cauldron to make a potion to defeat the evil wizard Zaks. The gameplay involves collecting items and moving to other locations where the item is required; for example, at one point a raincoat is needed to protect against damaging rain. This is made more difficult because only one item can be carried at any given time. The game includes several lines from J. Milton Hayes' poem The Green Eye of the Yellow God on banners in certain screens, where they serve as clues on how to solve some puzzles, as well as references to a pair of Danger Mouse episodes including "Bad Luck Eye of the Little Yellow God” (itself parodying the Kipling poem) and the following episode “The Four Tales of Danger Mouse” in which vampire duck feathers must be collected.
Unlike later games in the series, which focus more on the inventory-based puzzles, this game features a very large number of hazards that kill the player on contact. With only three lives initially to complete the game, this made the game challenging to complete.
Development
[edit]The Oliver Twins said in an interview, on the British television show When Games Attack, that the character Dizzy was originally not supposed to be an egg at all but just a face with hands and feet. They then said they accepted everyone thought he was an egg and decided to go with that. They also said they used to plan out levels on the back of spare rolls of wallpaper.
Dizzy gets his name from the character's tumbles and somersaults while jumping, a feature inspired by the Oliver Twins' graphics software Panda Sprites which enabled them to rotate an image easily so each frame did not have to be manually drawn. The software distorted complex sprites so the character was required to be simple, hence the choice of an egg.
Reception
[edit]| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Crash | 78%[1] |
| Sinclair User | 9/10[2] |
| Your Sinclair | 7/10[3] |
| ACE | 788[4] |
In 2017, the game was placed on Eurogamer's "10 games that defined the ZX Spectrum" list.[5]
References
[edit]- ↑ "Dizzy Reviews". Archived from the original on 15 June 2024.
- ↑ "Dizzy". Archived from the original on 15 June 2024.
- ↑ "Dizzy". Archived from the original on 5 April 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2016.
- ↑ "Dizzy". ACE. No. 1. October 1987. p. 54. Retrieved 11 June 2026.
{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Mason, Graeme (9 April 2017). "10 games that defined the ZX Spectrum". Eurogamer. Gamer Network. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
External links
[edit]- Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure at MobyGames
- Dizzy at SpectrumComputing.co.uk
- The Oliver Twins website Archived 14 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine