Magicland Dizzy
A fairy-tale Dizzy adventure developed by Big Red Software with story and design input from the Oliver Twins.
Image credits and source
Original cover / promotional artwork
Credit: Codemasters — artwork belongs to its respective rights holders
Game at a glance
- Status
- Classic
- Released
- 1990
- Platforms
- Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Amiga, DOS
- Genres
- Adventure, Platform
- Developer
- Big Red Software; The Oliver Twins (story/design oversight)
- Publisher
- Codemasters
Development and publication
Development: Big Red Software; The Oliver Twins (story/design oversight). Publication: Codemasters.
The Oliver Twins created Dizzy and contributed the concept, design or oversight identified above. Programming and conversions are credited separately.
Making the game
Andrew and I were deep into NES development on Fantastic Dizzy but knew there was a huge demand for a follow up to Fantasy World Dizzy on home computers. So we wrote up some rough design ideas and contracted development to a local developer that we knew called Big Red Software, they were already working with Codemasters. Like all new experiences, it was very interesting and we learnt many good lessons for the future.
We worked with Neal Vincent at Big Red to flesh out the story and design. The plot had Evil Wizard Zaks take his revenge on Dizzy by imprisoning the Yolkfolk in Magicland and Dizzy had to free them all before returning home. To make matters worse, each had been trapped with their own unique spell that required solving. Dylan had been tangled up in a bush, rooted to the spot. Denzil had been frozen inside a block of ice and was Zak’s latest statue for his Ice Palace! Dozy was found lying on an altar in Sleepy Hollow in a deep, magical sleep. Dora was turned into a frog in the Haunted Swamp. Daisy has been super-enlarged and imprisoned in Zak’s Oubliette, whilst Grand Dizzy was trapped in a strange world on the other side of Zak’s Magic Mirror.
The guys at Big Red did an excellent job of creating a great game that was a natural progression of the Dizzy series and it was a huge hit. We liked the game so much we redeveloped it for the NES calling it Wonderland Dizzy.
Did you know?
Towards the end of production, Paul Ranson the owner of Big Red proposed the next Dizzy game by writing a full design, with a map, and sending it to us for our approval. It was called Dizzy Goes to Hollywood, the title obviously being inspired by the Pop group “Frankie Goes to Hollywood”. The game took the concept literally and had Dizzy visiting various famous film sets for spoof re-telling. We agreed at first to this, but on later consideration, felt that Dizzy should stay in fantasy worlds and not be brought into a modern-day human world. Whilst we were sure they would be disappointed initially at the decision, they were quick to replace the main character and proceeded with the game calling it ‘Seymour goes to Hollywood’ and it did extremely well for them and Seymour is a great name for an explorer!
Original documents
Archived Magicland Dizzy document (PDF)