Magicland Dizzy

Magicland Dizzy
Commodore 64 cover art for Magicland Dizzy
Developer(s)Big Red Software
Codemasters
Oliver Twins
Publisher(s)Codemasters
Designer(s)Neal Vincent
The Oliver Twins
Platform(s)Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS
Release
(Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga)[1][2][3]
(CPC and Atari ST)[4][5]
(DOS)[6]
Genre(s)Adventure, platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Magicland Dizzy is a platform adventure game published in Europe in 1990 by Codemasters for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amiga platforms. By 1992 there were also MS-DOS, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC versions available. It is the sixth game in the Dizzy series, and the fourth adventure-based Dizzy title. The story, set in a fantasy world called Magicland, follows on from the events of Fantasy World Dizzy, the previous adventure title. In Magicland Dizzy the player controls Dizzy, an egg-shaped character, who is trying to save six of his friends who have been placed under spells by the Evil Wizard Zaks.

The game was the first Dizzy game not to be developed entirely by Dizzy's creators, the Oliver Twins. Instead, whilst they were focusing on other projects, Magicland Dizzy was designed by Neal Vincent and coded by external developer Big Red Software. The Oliver Twins retained design-approval oversight.

The game is sometimes alternatively known by its development title, Dizzy 4, with the Roman numeral IV visible at the top of the game screen, behind the player's score. A prequel, Into Magicland, was released to promote the game and featured a new character that was never seen in any of the series games again. The game was widely acclaimed by critics across the platforms with scores typically in the 80-95% region. Criticism was leveled at its similarity to previous games in the series and the awkward inventory system. By November 1991 it was noted that the Dizzy games had sold more than half a million units across all platforms. A NES version titled Wonderland Dizzy was developed in 1993 and later released in October 2015.

  1. ^ "Data for Magicland Dizzy for Sinclair ZX81/Spectrum". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  2. ^ "Data for Magicland Dizzy for Commodore 64". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  3. ^ "Data for Dizzy: Magicland for Amiga". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  4. ^ "Data for Magicland Dizzy for Amstrad CPC". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  5. ^ "Data for Magicland Dizzy for Atari ST". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.
  6. ^ "Data for Magicland Dizzy for PC DOS". GameFAQs. Retrieved 17 June 2010.