Created in 1986 by Andrew and Phillip Oliver (The Oliver Twins) for Codemasters, Dizzy the egg was an 80s phenomenon. Dizzy spawned eight full length adventure games as well as six spin-off games, and was ported to many formats including Spectum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Atari ST and several consoles.

Dizzy began life on the ZX Spectrum. His somersaulting antics where due largely to the fact that the Oliver Twins had previously developed a program called ‘Panda (PhillipANDAndrew) Sprites’ which enabled them to rotate sprites by any degree. Yes, in the 80’s, rotating a sprite was a difficult affair.

The Games

The original game, ‘Dizzy: The ultimate cartoon adventure’ was a platform/adventure game set in a fantasy land that was inspired by the poem ‘The green eye of the yellow god’, by J. Milton Hayes. It was a groundbreaking game, with awesome graphics and some of the slickest gameplay around at the time.
The game saw Dizzy roaming around a highly hazardous land avoiding spiders, birds and water (Eggs cant breathe underwater you know), whilstseeking out ingredients for a potion to rid the land of the evil wizard Zaks.

Dizzy on wikipedia
Dizzy remakefor the PC

Dizzy proved immensely popular, so it wasn’t too long before the Oliver Twins began work on a sequel: Treasure Island Dizzy.

Treasure Island Dizzy was a much harder game, with a bigger map and only one life!
Dizzy now had the ability to carry up to three items at a time, and featured improved graphics and animation. Notably, Treasure Island Dizzy required the player to find 30 hidden coins in addition to solving all the puzzles and working through the game in the normal manner. Coins would often be hidden behind innocuous bits of background scenery with absolutely no clue to their location.

Treasure Island Dizzy is available for free download from the Codemasters website. They’re using a C64 emulator, but let’s not hold that against them.

Download Treasure Island Dizzy from Codemasters
Treasure Island Dizzy on Wikipedia

The Dizzy franchise went from strength to strength, with a further 6 adventure games, all proving immensely popular, and the creation of a family of egg like characters to accompany Dizzy, known affectionately as the ‘Yolk Folk’.

Dizzy & the Yolk Folk

Dizzy

The prince of the Yolk Folk and the star of the show. Dizzy is always the egg to come to the rescue when the yolk folk are in danger. Repeatedly defeating the evil wizard Zaks, making the land safe for eggs of all ages, and generally just being awesome.

Daisy

Dizzy’s girlfriend and the love of his life. She’s hot, she loving, careing and supportive… but has an annoying habbit of always getting captured and used as bait to lure Dizzy into traps. Kind of like Elisha Cuthbert in 24… but with wizards.

Denzil

Denzil is just pure cooooooool… he’s laid back and easy going. Usually to be found listening to his walkman (tape, not MP3 – this is old skool, people!) and wearing shades in all manner of unsuitably lighted environments.

Dora

She’s sweet, she’s kind, she’s altogether lovely… the kind of egg you might like to bring home to meet your mother. She’s a bit of a wet blanket really, but she is the youngest member of the Yolk Folk, so we have to give her a break.

Dozy

It’s not just a clever name… Dozy can’t keep his eyes open for 30 seconds straight. Having a conversation with him can be pretty infruriating. But still, who can blame the poor guy, waiting around for Dizzy to save you can take a while, as the maps are generally massive… You ‘ave a little kip mate.

Dylan

Dylan was born in the wrong decade, as he’s a bit of a flowery, tree-hugging hippy. So not much use in a fight. He’s into plants and trees, saving the earth, reducing carbon emissions etc.

Grand Dizzy

Grand Dizzy’s the oldest and wisest of all the Yolk Folk, and like Papa Smurf before him, can always be counted upon for sage-like advice… or utter gibberish, depending on what mood takes him.

The evil wizard Zaks

Honestly, how can one wizard hold so much of a grudge against a bunch of eggs? I don’t know the answer, but it’s safe to say that if he didn’t, a large portion of my childhood would be empty and devoid of entertainment.
The evil wizard Zaks (it actually says ‘evil wizard’ on his birth certificate, so it was a forgone conclusion really), is always trying to kidnap, cast spells upon or otherwise inconvenience Dizzy and various members of the Yolk Folk. He has this nasty habit of coming back from the dead too, which is a little unfair methinks.

The Dizzy Fans

Dizzy was such a popular computer game character, that a rather large Dizzy scene has evolved. Several new Dizzy games have sprung up over the years, including remakes of the original games. Some of them are simply fantastic,while some of them are awful flash games with bizarre graphics and no gameplay whatsoever but SO popular was Dizzy, that a group of people actually came together to create a Dizzy game creator.

Dizzy AGE(Dizzy Adventure Game Engine) allows fans of the game to easily create new Dizzy games that keep the same look and feel of the originals. And I have to say that theyre absolutely spot on.
Since the inception of Dizzy AGE, several new Dizzy games have come out that are so close to the feel of the original that its almost as if they were created by the Oliver Twins themselves.

The original ‘Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure’, is available for free download, remade through Dizzy AGE and only the lack of the Spectrum ‘Attribute Clash’ (where Dizzy takes on the colour of the background) would let you know that you werent playing the original.

There are many other new Dizzy games created with Dizzy AGE, and I’m sure, more to come

Dizzy AGE: Offical website
Dizzy AGE games
All Dizzy fan games

But what of the Oliver Twins?

Well, the twins went on to create a successful games development agency known as Blitz Games. While they’re creating many original games and doing very well, theyve never forgotten their egg-like hero and have created a concept trailer of what they imagine a new Dizzy game would look like. As the copyright for Dizzy is jointly owned by them and Codemasters, it seems that neither are able to create a new game, but an online petition has been created to show support for the idea… We live in eternal hope.

The Oliver Twins website
Blitz Games
The ‘Fantastic Dizzy’ concept site
Bring back Dizzy petition

Further Dizzy reading

These Dizzy related links are all great places to get information on our egg-like friend.

YolkFolk.com
The biggest Dizzy fansite, hosting Dizzy AGE, the ‘bring back Dizzy petition’, and busy Dizzy related forums. Well worth a visit.

Dizzy on Wikipedia
Always a good resource for retro gaming information Wikipedia has extensive (if not 100% accurate) information on te Dizzy franchise.

Dizzy on World of Spectrum
The World of Spectrum site hosts screenshots and walkthroughs for the Dizzy games, as well as links to scans of articles from computer magazines that featured the game in the 80’s.