Magicland Dizzy
| Magicland Dizzy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Codemasters |
| Publisher(s) | Codemasters |
| Designer(s) | Neil Vincent and The Oliver twins |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Enterprise 128, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, CD32 |
| Release | December 1990 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Magicland Dizzy is a computer adventure game published in December 1990, designed by Neal Vincent and the Oliver Twins and published by Codemasters for the Amstrad, Spectrum, DOS and Amiga. It was the sixth game in the Dizzy series, and the fourth adventure based Dizzy title, so was developed under the name Dizzy 4 (and the Roman number IV can be seen at the top of the screen, behind the player's score).
This was the first Dizzy game not to be designed by the Oliver Twins. Design work was done in-house by Neal Vincent (incorrectly credited as Neil) with the Oliver Twins retaining design-approval oversight, and coding was contracted to external developer Big Red Software.
In the game, Dizzy's enemy Zaks, the evil wizard, has returned from the dead and spirited Dizzy's friends off to Magicland and put each under a spell; Dylan, the hippie, has become a talking bush, Denzil, who thinks he's so cool, has been frozen in ice, Grand Dizzy, who's gone a bit senile, is trapped in a backwards mirror world, Dora has been turned into a frog, Dozy's in an even deeper sleep than usual, and Daisy's grown too big to escape Zaks' dungeon.
Into Magicland
In order to promote Magicland Dizzy, a five screen mini-adventure for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum known as Into Magicland or unofficially Dizzy three and a half was given away with the January 1991 edition of Crash, a UK based magazine. It featured Dizzy and his cousin Danny and is a prequel to the main game, ending with Dizzy teleporting to the first screen of that game. Danny never would appear in any game before or after, nor would he appear in "Magicland Dizzy" itself.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (October 2008) |
- The game includes a nod to Pac-Man, with Dizzy using a "power pill" to overcome ghosts.
- On the Commodore 64 version, placing the magic lamp item in the small indentation in the floor on the right side of the Cracks of Doom screen teleported Dizzy into the sky high above the rightmost swamp screen. It is not clear if this was intentional or a bug.[citation needed]