Five Things You Might Not Know... About Dizzy

Five Things You Might Not Know is a series where, in case you hadn’t guessed, we tell you a number of interesting factoids about a particular gaming subject. We’ll be covering games, characters, companies and all kinds, with bite-sized information morsels to snack on. This week, we are looking at 1980s icon of the 8-bit home computers, Dizzy.

1) Dizzy didn't start life as an egg. When creating the first game, creators The Oliver Twins were trying to come up with a cartoon effect. The egg shape was a result of focussing on giving the character a large face in order to gain more expression. Given the limited size of sprites on the 8-bit machines, this meant little room for arms and legs, so they were diminutive. When the game was released, reviewers and players alike saw the character as an egg and the twins saw no reason to change this, so they embraced it, later creating the Yolkfolk as eggy companions for their main character.

2) Treasure Island Dizzy has one of the quickest deaths in videogames. The starting screen has water just to the right of Dizzy which kills him if he touches it and you only have a single life to play with. If you start off by moving to the right (as you generally expect to in a platformer) your game will come to an end in under two seconds.

3) The most recently released Dizzy title was Wonderland Dizzy for the NES. It was completed in 1993 but cancelled and never released. It eventually got discovered in the attic of one of the twins. Deciding that the game was too good to sit gathering dust, the duo released the game for free as a ROM in 2015, 22 years later than originally planned! Limited edition cartridges of the game have been produced for backers of a Kickstarter-funded book about the history of the veteran developers.

4) The third game in the series, Fast Food, was never intended to be a Dizzy game at all. In fact, the Pacman inspired maze game was originally being made to help market fast food restaurant Happy Eater, and would have featured their mascot. However, this idea was canned during development, with Dizzy being placed in the game instead.

5) The first game in the series, Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure was considered something of a flop. It sold in small numbers and didn't reach the charts initially, but word of mouth and positive magazine reviews saw sales pick up, with the game reaching the charts around six months after release. After the slow-burn success, they decided to create a sequel. That second game was Treasure Island Dizzy and it went on to become a number one hit on the week of release.