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While originally not an egg at all (Dizzy was designed as simply a face with arms and legs due to thelimitations of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum), popular perception of thecharacter’s ovoid sprite meant that his egg-ness quickly became canon. Oddly enough, his trademark red boxing gloves only appeared in spin-offs until 1989’s Fantasy World Dizzy.
For a character that featured in a total of fifteen games between 1987 and 1992 though, Dizzy is conspicuously absent from future platforms, despite the fact that the Oliver Twins are still active. So, whatever happened to the world’s most charismatic, most immediately destructible, video game character?
Kickstarter
It’s perhaps not unreasonable to assume that Dizzy went missing in action simply because the demand for egg-based heroes is longer there; in fact, judging by the Oliver Twins’ recently failed Kickstarter campaign centered on the character (Dizzy Returns, which raised £25,620 of £350,000), it’s not much of an assumption at all.
However, it’s hard to envision a world in which a cute little egg in boxing gloves doesn’t fit in, given the fact that simple characters like Kirby, the various Angry Birds, and Minecraft’s Steve continue to endear themselves to gamers. Even the casino niche has its own cast of anthropomorphic characters.
Along with Couch Potato and Cutesy Pie, Betway has introduced intrepid feline Cosmic Cat, to the world of online gaming. The star of his (or her) own 3-reel slot machine, Cosmic Cat serves as a “wild” symbol on the reels alongside a similarly attired mouse. The game, like many on Betway’s site, is very easy to pick up and play.
Development Hell
The truly sad thing about Dizzy is that the character didn’t burn out or fade away; he’s just in perpetual development hell, returning for brief spells of abortive development before disappearing back into the ether. For fans of the famously difficult platformer, it’s been painful to watch.
Back in the era of the original PlayStation, a short trailer was created by the Oliver Twins’ software house, Blitz Games, demonstrating how a Dizzy game might look in 3D. Featuring a little over ten seconds of pre-rendered gameplay footage, the video ultimately proved all mouth and no substance, as that’s as far as development went.
The only real success theseries has had in the modern era is a recent re-release of 1991 game Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk on iOS. However, despite the pleasant graphics and enhanced sound, it’s quite a turgid experience for veteran players; the game’s difficulty level has been reduced to zero with the provision of infinitelives.
Wonderland Dizzy
The Oliver Twins did have one surprise in store for fans though. Back in 2015, an unreleased, forgotten game in the Dizzy saga was discovered in a loft and released for free to the public. Wonderland Dizzy, a game cancelled twenty years ago by British publisher, Codemasters, has quite an obvious NES aesthetic, and lets the player control both Dizzy and Daisy.
So, where does Dizzy gofrom here? As 2017 marks the 30th anniversary of the first game, Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, there’s definitely room for optimism. The Oliver Twins told followers of their Facebook page that they have “lots of stuff planned” for the character this year.
In the meantime, there are plenty of “homebrew” games out there, built on the free DizzyAGE engine. The quality varies – Sunken Castle Dizzy is a fun puzzler, Daisy Does Dallas is something else entirely – but the fact that a long-past-rotten egg still has support three decades on is remarkable.
