Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure
An eggy hero cracks the budget charts
Codemasters and the Oliver Twins built a puzzle-platform franchise around a lovable egg and some fiendish inventory riddles.
Released in 1987 for the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC, Dizzy: The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure introduced players to a cheery egg navigating perilous screens, collecting items, and solving puzzles. Its success spawned sequels, spin-offs, and boxed compilations that kept budget racks stocked for years.
Fast facts
- Developers: Philip and Andrew Oliver, published by Codemasters.
- Format: single-screen platformer with inventory-based puzzles and precise jumps.
- Releases of this title, in full: ZX Spectrum, reviewed by CRASH in November 1987. The Commodore 64 version followed a year later — ZZAP!64 reviewed it in September 1988. An Amstrad CPC version is usually listed alongside the Spectrum original, unconfirmed here from a contemporary review. A late MSX2 release appears in 1992.
- Not this title: the Amiga, Atari ST and NES games people remember are later Dizzy games, not ports of the first one.
What the press made of it
CRASH‘s November 1987 reviewer was won over against his own taste: “Dizzy may be a little too cute and cuddly for my liking, but there’s a great game hidden within those small and furry folds… it’s fab.” The same review lands a period observation about Codemasters’ house style — the inlay “goes a little overboard — the word ‘brilliant’ appears four times.”
Cultural footprint
Dizzy’s approachable art and budget price made it a household name. The franchise proved that playful characters and clever puzzles could compete with action-heavy arcade conversions.