Q&A: THE OLIVER TWINS, CREATORS & DEVELOPERS, DIZZY
Take an egg-shaped cartoon character, place him in various fantasy worlds involving wizards, trolls, pirates and princes and what do you get? One of the most successful and admired game series' of the third-generation period. Dizzy bounced his way over 10 different formats over a course of 14 titles, finally bowing out on the SEGA Master System. I had a brief chat with the brains behind Dizzy, to discover why it become such a hit, and if there is any future for Dizzy in the modern era. No, he was not inspired by Kinder Eggs either! |
DIZZY IN TIME: THE GAMES
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Q&A with The Oliver Twins, Creators of the Dizzy series
When you first wrote Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, what was your inspiration behind it and what did you set out to achieve?
We loved cartoons, and we’d been playing some early platform games like Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner. We found these games too difficult and graphically, too artificial and surreal. We wanted to create a platform game that had easier platforming, looked more like a cartoon and had thought provoking puzzles that weaved together a fantasy story. |
Why do you think this little egg-shaped hero was embraced by so many and is still so popular today?
It created a new make-believe world, and characters that had their own challenges and motivations. It suggested so much more than just sets of screens and limited sprite graphics.
After Fantasy World Dizzy, you contracted the core Dizzy format to Big Red Studios. Did you have any doubts that this may have been a mistake given the popularity of the previous games?
We had grown a big fan base on the Spectrum with Dizzy, and we wanted to move on. Not away from Dizzy, but onto new platform. Not the Atari ST or Amiga as most people were doing, but on to the Nintendo console (NES). We were excited by the opportunity this new console model offered and it gave us a chance to make Dizzy bigger, bolder and for the American market. It took a year to create Fantastic Dizzy on the NES, and we knew there were many Dizzy fans with Spectrums and CPCs who wanted the adventures to continue, so we worked with our friends at Big Red Studios to continue the series. We didn’t have any doubts; many of those people work for us now at Blitz Games.
It created a new make-believe world, and characters that had their own challenges and motivations. It suggested so much more than just sets of screens and limited sprite graphics.
After Fantasy World Dizzy, you contracted the core Dizzy format to Big Red Studios. Did you have any doubts that this may have been a mistake given the popularity of the previous games?
We had grown a big fan base on the Spectrum with Dizzy, and we wanted to move on. Not away from Dizzy, but onto new platform. Not the Atari ST or Amiga as most people were doing, but on to the Nintendo console (NES). We were excited by the opportunity this new console model offered and it gave us a chance to make Dizzy bigger, bolder and for the American market. It took a year to create Fantastic Dizzy on the NES, and we knew there were many Dizzy fans with Spectrums and CPCs who wanted the adventures to continue, so we worked with our friends at Big Red Studios to continue the series. We didn’t have any doubts; many of those people work for us now at Blitz Games.
Out of all the Dizzy games, including the non-adventure titles, which title are you most proud of and why? Also, is there a Dizzy game in which you were disappointed with the outcome but was released anyway?
Fantastic Dizzy was by far the biggest and best, and it combined all the first three games and some of the arcade (spin-off) Dizzy games into one large adventure. There are probably many little irritations we have with all of finished titles, but we had the mentality of hitting deadlines and getting the games out. It would have been so easy to just keep polishing, adapting and changing, but we were always keen to complete and move on. |
The ‘Dizzy Returns’ project got me quite excited I have to be honest, but with the Kickstarter campaign unfortunately failing to raise enough funds, is the return of Dizzy still a possibility?
It’s unfortunate that it didn’t succeed and I think we didn’t pitch it correctly. We relied too much on people knowing what the old games stood for, and how with modern techniques you could make it all so much better. It seemed people either were not familiar with the old games, or thought we were going to create something that what still very old-school. We wanted to bring the characters into 3D and make elaborate new stories and worlds, with far more novel puzzles and features. Sadly we were able to convey this and instead people seemed to think it was lot of money for a retro game. I think we’ll leave it for now, its maybe best it’s remembered well than brought back poorly. Maybe one day we may look to bring Dizzy back. Never say never.
Finally, you have always said Dizzy was designed simply to be a face with arms and legs, evolving into an anthropomorphic egg as understood by gamers, but why the boxing gloves?
Simply, we were working with VERY limited colours and pixels. White seemed to work well for the face and we wanted contrasting hands and feet. We knew the backgrounds would be more realistic colours found in nature. Green, Brown, Blue etc. So Red would stand out and stand off the background. We’d designed the face/body as rather chunky and the hands and boots became similarly chunky. The hands started to look more like boxing gloves and we thought it was a unique look that worked well. |
We at The Pixel Empire would like to thank The Oliver Twins for their time in answering our questions, and we wish them well in their future projects with Blitz Games. Visit Blitz Games Studios and The Oliver Twins websites for more info!
Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure (CPC) review
The first and the best? The Pixel Empire travel back to 1986 in order to relive a certain adventurous egg's first platform outing. It's really rather good. |
Fantastic Dizzy (NES) review
Read what Chris thought about the Olivers' favourite Dizzy title, in his review of the beautiful NES version of Fantastic Dizzy. |