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Welcome to Treasure Island Dizzy!
A true story by Joe Dixon
I can't stand to hear anyone complain about the difficulty of 'new' games. Compared to 'old' games, 'new' games are simple. I also can't stand to hear people claim to be computer game champions. So what if you've completed every Playstation game you've played? Modern games were MADE to be completed - the sooner you finish them, the sooner you'll buy new ones, and Sony will just keep getting fatter and fatter. Anybody who falls into either of those two categories I just mentioned probably haven't heard of a game called Treasure Island Dizzy.
I could go as far to say they probably haven't owned a Commodore 64 or a Sinclair Spectrum - I've had a C64 since 1989, and from then until now I'd be hard pressed to name one game I've completed... no, can't think of one. But even by C64 standards, Treasure Island Dizzy was a brazilnut - near impossible to crack. Which reminds me, once I cracked a brazilnut open, and there was nothing inside - I didn't think that was possible.
But that mystery aside, Treasure Island Dizzy was nasty. It wasn't that it moved along at lightning speed - anything but, and there weren't even any moving hazards except for a few jellyfish underwater - the puzzles were all relatively simple, with the odd illogical one solved by process of elimination - by today's standards it wasn't a particularly long game - and yet it was impossibly hard to finish. Why that was I shall try to explain. You see, full of puzzles as Dizzy 2 (as it's also known) is, it's the really precise platform action that catches you out - one tiny tiny move wrong, and that's it, you're dead - and there were all sorts of things killed you - burning torches, water (when you don't have your snorkle), any form of sealife you may meet, and worst of all, things you couldn't even see - like wooden cages which fall on you from higher screens as soon as you pass under them - and you didn't even have a chance to dodge them, as soon as you walked under them, that was it. Frustratingly, so many of the game's hazzards couldn't be avoided until you had been killed by them at least once, and even then it only took a momentary lapse of concentration or misjudgement to land back into them. Which brings me onto probably what makes this game most famous - one life. That's right, one. Unlike modern games, there was absolutely no 'save game' facility there to catch you when you fall - you could play for 3 minutes, you could play for an hour, you could be inches away from the end of the entire adventure, it doesn't matter... if you fall in the water, if you touch a jellyfish, if you stand just a hair under a deathtrap, that's it, end of game, title screen, and much tearing out of your own hair.
So what, you say, some crusty old obscure C64 game is hard to complete. Well, you're right, it may be old now, and it is absolutely crust-tastic, but anyone that owned a microcomputer back then as opposed to a games console can tell you that those Dizzy games were jolly popular - on the C64, on the Spectrum, on the Amstrad, on the Amiga, on the Atari ST, even on the Nintendo Entertainment System - and on top of that, Treasure Island Dizzy was the biggest selling of them all, or so I remember reading in an interview of one of those Codemasters guys. So in this country at least, a lot of people owned it. What percentage of those people ever actually finished the game, I don't know, but it was probably pretty low.
And now to the real story. As fate would have it, it came to pass a few weeks ago that I decided that never having completed a Dizzy game was hanging over my head like a dark cloud of depression and holding me back in life, and with that in mind, I decided it was time - time for my C64 to come out of the closet! And I don't mean my C64 was gay, I mean, I took it out of the bottom of my wardrobe where it's lain for many a month in the dark, and plugged it in to my TV. I had forgotten that my C64 'Datasette' (tape player) had in itself become a bit of a deathtrap, with part of the casing on the part that plugs into the computer missing, and a bare-ended wire poking out the top. If that wasn't bad enough, in order for the Datasette to work, you had to poke that wire back into the bit it popped out from. I didn't let this put me off, though, and proceeded to load Treasure Island Dizzy, which took about 6 or 7 minutes, but once you start watching the flashing colours on the screen, you soon lose all concept of time, so it didn't bother me much.
But now, the important part - I press fire, and start the game, with Dizzy appearing in a rather odd way on a beach. So, off I go, grabbing the empty Treasure Chest to use as a step so I can climb up the cliff to the left. I remember it was about half an hour when I first got the game before me and my brothers figured out what to do. I think we hated the game by that time. I continue to the left, over a bridge with two torches on either side, which always make me nervous, and into the Treehouse complex. First thing I need to do is get the snorkel, which is around the top left corner of the complex, meaning I have to dodge several of those nasty deathtraps along the way. One of them is a real pig - it has a coin (you need 30 of those to REALLY complete the game) sitting half on, half off the trigger zone for the trap, screaming out, "take me and spend me", but plug up your ears and don't listen - you can go back for it later when you need it, for the moment, it's a snorkel I'm after, so I go and get it, and on the way back to the beach I also grab the Video Camera (What it's doing on a desert island I don't know) and the Sharp Glass Sword, whatever use that would be in real life. I leave the camera and sword on the beach, and head into the water with the snorkel nice and safe at the bottom of my inventory list, watching out for pihrannas, jellyfish and manta-rays, and looking for a little blue spade which I'd forgotten the location of. I eventually found it and had the first scare of the game, when I accidentally pressed the jump key instead of the pickup/drop key, and I swear my, or Dizzy's, nose was about a centimeter from a jellyfish's belly, but luckily I missed, and so grabbed the spade and got out of the water before anything else happened. You see, the thing is, in Treasure Island dizzy, you can only hold 3 items, and you can only drop them in the order you picked them up - now I wanted to use (by dropping) the spade underwater, but I would have had to drop my snorkel first, which when underwater makes it hard for the egg to breathe (I quote from the game's instructions - 'Eggs are air-breathers!'. I forgot to mention before - if you didn't already know, Dizzy is an egg. An egg with a face. Must have been layed by one of those chickens Alan Partridge was talking about), so I had to go back to the beach to re-order everything correctly. With that done, I went back under water, with the spade, the snorkel and the video-camera (I'd need it shortly), and dodged the jellyfishes once again, until I found the spot at the other end of the water, where I dig this little bubble thing and for some reason it makes big bubbles come up which I can stand on to get up out of the water and onto the 2nd island (there are two treasure islands, really, the big one on the left and the little one on the right), where I find the music has finally gotten on my nerves and I hit 'M' to switch it off. I find the man at the little shop who I give the video-camera to in exchange for a boat to get home in (did I say two islands? Technically there's a 3rd one on the very far right, which you need a boat to get to, or so I presumed at this stage, as I'd never seen it), and I go and stick it in the water, but I've been ripped off, the boat doesn't have a motor! If only I'd brought the glass sword with me I could go and teach the fool a lesson, but then where would I get my motor from? So, I head back across the water to island #1, taking dynamite on the way, and grab the detonator from the treehouse area, coming really close to getting that coin again, you know, the one near the trap, and head to the furthest left screen of the game, where I blow up some rocks and get a little bag of gold for my troubles, which I reckon is worth a lot more than just a motor, but I head on back AGAIN to the 2nd island, this time taking the sword with me as well, and bargain with the thieving shopkeeper again to get a motor, which I go and stick on the boat. But still it's no good, and when I go and ask the guy he says I'll be wanting some petrol. Which I'll need to pay for. That's fair I suppose. So now I go back yet AGAIN to the 1st island (It may sound boring, but tedious is probably a better word - and nervewracking when you've come so far), taking with me this time two key items, an axe and a bible, which is very blasphemous indeed, and ofcourse the snorkel, where would I be without it. Now, this part was probably the most edgy bit of the game - I cut through the bridge with torches on either side to get into the water below, where I have to pick up a 'Cursed Treasure', and nothing else - because if I drop the snorkel, I drown, and if I drop the bible, I get zapped by the curse the second I get out of the water - which luckily I didn't. So, with this valuable item in hand, I go back to the guy and buy the petrol. Hopefully he'll be cursed by it now, and have diahorrea for a month without toilet paper. And I stick the petrol in the boat, and does it go? Hah. It seems now I need an ignition key, which really should have come with the motor, and is really quite ridiculous. Why Dizzy couldn't have just stuck a coathanger in the ignition or, surely not, get off his backside and paddle to safety, I don't know, but what can you do. To get one final valuable, I use the sword to unlock a trapdoor hidden under a tombstone which takes me underground, where I have to jump past some VERY tormentingly placed barrels and torches, made so much worse by the fact that Dizzy, being a bit of an idiot, somersaults repeatedly when he jumps, and if he doesn't land on his feet, he rolls until he does, which made it extra difficult to get across to another trapdoor which I unlock with a key (Which I also took before going down the first one) and hey presto, I find Blackbeard's hidden underground kitchen, where I pay my respects by stealing his microwave oven, and selling it to the fool at the shop for the 4th and final bit of boat kit, the ignition key. Hopefully Blackbeard will find the microwave and think the shopkeeper stole it, and break his bones. Finally I can start the boat, and it starts to move back and forward across the water. Now I'm very nervous, because I've just equaled my own previous high score - last time after all that effort I missed the boat and landed in the water. It wasn't funny. but no suck bad luck this time, I'm on it, and was almost sort of disappointed to find that getting off on the other side, that was it. I'd made it. Nowhere else to explore. I read the note which went something along the lines of 'Well done, you've solved all the puzzles, you're a Dizzy 2 expert', and went to walk smuggly out of the screen to the right, when another bloke stops me, and tells me I need the 30 coins to continue. Curses! Over the course of the game I'd picked up 24 out of the 30, and I knew where most of the others were. So, one more time, I head back to the 1st island, reflecting on my adventure, which had lasted about an hour so far, and how clever I was, as I wandered back into the Treehouse complex, where many of the coins are hidden. I'm thinking about where the rest of the coins are as I see a rather obvious one, sitting on a platform all on it's own, and so I head on up to get it, not entirely concentrating, still wondering where else I might find the last few coins, when as I approach this coin, Dizzy stops in mid-walking animation and my face goes white. The deathtrap moves down onto him, followed by a suitably deflated 'bwaaaang' sound effect, and I don't do anything except stare at the screen. Then a short 'ha ha game over' tune plays as Dizzy's arms and legs shoot off in all 4 diagonal directions and his egg body shrinks away. And we're back on the title screen. Which I stare blankly at for a while before slapping my head and exclaiming, "AAAARGH!".
And there ends my quest for glory. Now hold on a minute, according to the instructions, TECHNICALLY, I DID complete Treasure Island Dizzy by reaching the end. Sort of like finishing Sonic The Hedgehog without all the Chaos Emeralds. But it still made me feel miserable to have come so close to greatness only to fall at the last hurdle.
That's right, story's over. I bet you were waiting to hear me say I got an electric shock from the Datasette, weren't you? You saddistic person. Well, so such luck. Though I did once get a shock from an Acorn Electron PSU. I had a cold and runny nose, I pulled the connector out of the computer with some force, the cable went up my nose and zapped me. Luckily it was only about 18V and I got it out as quick as it went in, but you get the idea.
So, you're probably wondering, what has been the point of this? You know, I'm not sure I remember myself, actually. Maybe I'm saying, has anybody else out there ever completed a Dizzy game? Or failed to at the worst possible time, like I did? Or maybe I was providing a very long and vague walkthrough to the game. In which case I've probably submitted to the wrong section.
but finally, and most importantly, the Brazilnut - does anybody have a theory about what happened to the nut inside? Could it have failed to grow, somehow? Or was it stolen by a clever squirrel that can eat nuts through their shells? Or perhaps some sort of parasite eat it from the inside. In which case it was probably better I didn't get the chance to eat it.
The End
Amazing Fact! The title of this story was taken from the soundbite heard upon loading the Spectrum version of the game on a 128k machine. Welcome to Treasure Island Dizzy! I never want to hear those words again.
A true story by Joe Dixon
I can't stand to hear anyone complain about the difficulty of 'new' games. Compared to 'old' games, 'new' games are simple. I also can't stand to hear people claim to be computer game champions. So what if you've completed every Playstation game you've played? Modern games were MADE to be completed - the sooner you finish them, the sooner you'll buy new ones, and Sony will just keep getting fatter and fatter. Anybody who falls into either of those two categories I just mentioned probably haven't heard of a game called Treasure Island Dizzy.
I could go as far to say they probably haven't owned a Commodore 64 or a Sinclair Spectrum - I've had a C64 since 1989, and from then until now I'd be hard pressed to name one game I've completed... no, can't think of one. But even by C64 standards, Treasure Island Dizzy was a brazilnut - near impossible to crack. Which reminds me, once I cracked a brazilnut open, and there was nothing inside - I didn't think that was possible.
But that mystery aside, Treasure Island Dizzy was nasty. It wasn't that it moved along at lightning speed - anything but, and there weren't even any moving hazards except for a few jellyfish underwater - the puzzles were all relatively simple, with the odd illogical one solved by process of elimination - by today's standards it wasn't a particularly long game - and yet it was impossibly hard to finish. Why that was I shall try to explain. You see, full of puzzles as Dizzy 2 (as it's also known) is, it's the really precise platform action that catches you out - one tiny tiny move wrong, and that's it, you're dead - and there were all sorts of things killed you - burning torches, water (when you don't have your snorkle), any form of sealife you may meet, and worst of all, things you couldn't even see - like wooden cages which fall on you from higher screens as soon as you pass under them - and you didn't even have a chance to dodge them, as soon as you walked under them, that was it. Frustratingly, so many of the game's hazzards couldn't be avoided until you had been killed by them at least once, and even then it only took a momentary lapse of concentration or misjudgement to land back into them. Which brings me onto probably what makes this game most famous - one life. That's right, one. Unlike modern games, there was absolutely no 'save game' facility there to catch you when you fall - you could play for 3 minutes, you could play for an hour, you could be inches away from the end of the entire adventure, it doesn't matter... if you fall in the water, if you touch a jellyfish, if you stand just a hair under a deathtrap, that's it, end of game, title screen, and much tearing out of your own hair.
So what, you say, some crusty old obscure C64 game is hard to complete. Well, you're right, it may be old now, and it is absolutely crust-tastic, but anyone that owned a microcomputer back then as opposed to a games console can tell you that those Dizzy games were jolly popular - on the C64, on the Spectrum, on the Amstrad, on the Amiga, on the Atari ST, even on the Nintendo Entertainment System - and on top of that, Treasure Island Dizzy was the biggest selling of them all, or so I remember reading in an interview of one of those Codemasters guys. So in this country at least, a lot of people owned it. What percentage of those people ever actually finished the game, I don't know, but it was probably pretty low.
And now to the real story. As fate would have it, it came to pass a few weeks ago that I decided that never having completed a Dizzy game was hanging over my head like a dark cloud of depression and holding me back in life, and with that in mind, I decided it was time - time for my C64 to come out of the closet! And I don't mean my C64 was gay, I mean, I took it out of the bottom of my wardrobe where it's lain for many a month in the dark, and plugged it in to my TV. I had forgotten that my C64 'Datasette' (tape player) had in itself become a bit of a deathtrap, with part of the casing on the part that plugs into the computer missing, and a bare-ended wire poking out the top. If that wasn't bad enough, in order for the Datasette to work, you had to poke that wire back into the bit it popped out from. I didn't let this put me off, though, and proceeded to load Treasure Island Dizzy, which took about 6 or 7 minutes, but once you start watching the flashing colours on the screen, you soon lose all concept of time, so it didn't bother me much.
But now, the important part - I press fire, and start the game, with Dizzy appearing in a rather odd way on a beach. So, off I go, grabbing the empty Treasure Chest to use as a step so I can climb up the cliff to the left. I remember it was about half an hour when I first got the game before me and my brothers figured out what to do. I think we hated the game by that time. I continue to the left, over a bridge with two torches on either side, which always make me nervous, and into the Treehouse complex. First thing I need to do is get the snorkel, which is around the top left corner of the complex, meaning I have to dodge several of those nasty deathtraps along the way. One of them is a real pig - it has a coin (you need 30 of those to REALLY complete the game) sitting half on, half off the trigger zone for the trap, screaming out, "take me and spend me", but plug up your ears and don't listen - you can go back for it later when you need it, for the moment, it's a snorkel I'm after, so I go and get it, and on the way back to the beach I also grab the Video Camera (What it's doing on a desert island I don't know) and the Sharp Glass Sword, whatever use that would be in real life. I leave the camera and sword on the beach, and head into the water with the snorkel nice and safe at the bottom of my inventory list, watching out for pihrannas, jellyfish and manta-rays, and looking for a little blue spade which I'd forgotten the location of. I eventually found it and had the first scare of the game, when I accidentally pressed the jump key instead of the pickup/drop key, and I swear my, or Dizzy's, nose was about a centimeter from a jellyfish's belly, but luckily I missed, and so grabbed the spade and got out of the water before anything else happened. You see, the thing is, in Treasure Island dizzy, you can only hold 3 items, and you can only drop them in the order you picked them up - now I wanted to use (by dropping) the spade underwater, but I would have had to drop my snorkel first, which when underwater makes it hard for the egg to breathe (I quote from the game's instructions - 'Eggs are air-breathers!'. I forgot to mention before - if you didn't already know, Dizzy is an egg. An egg with a face. Must have been layed by one of those chickens Alan Partridge was talking about), so I had to go back to the beach to re-order everything correctly. With that done, I went back under water, with the spade, the snorkel and the video-camera (I'd need it shortly), and dodged the jellyfishes once again, until I found the spot at the other end of the water, where I dig this little bubble thing and for some reason it makes big bubbles come up which I can stand on to get up out of the water and onto the 2nd island (there are two treasure islands, really, the big one on the left and the little one on the right), where I find the music has finally gotten on my nerves and I hit 'M' to switch it off. I find the man at the little shop who I give the video-camera to in exchange for a boat to get home in (did I say two islands? Technically there's a 3rd one on the very far right, which you need a boat to get to, or so I presumed at this stage, as I'd never seen it), and I go and stick it in the water, but I've been ripped off, the boat doesn't have a motor! If only I'd brought the glass sword with me I could go and teach the fool a lesson, but then where would I get my motor from? So, I head back across the water to island #1, taking dynamite on the way, and grab the detonator from the treehouse area, coming really close to getting that coin again, you know, the one near the trap, and head to the furthest left screen of the game, where I blow up some rocks and get a little bag of gold for my troubles, which I reckon is worth a lot more than just a motor, but I head on back AGAIN to the 2nd island, this time taking the sword with me as well, and bargain with the thieving shopkeeper again to get a motor, which I go and stick on the boat. But still it's no good, and when I go and ask the guy he says I'll be wanting some petrol. Which I'll need to pay for. That's fair I suppose. So now I go back yet AGAIN to the 1st island (It may sound boring, but tedious is probably a better word - and nervewracking when you've come so far), taking with me this time two key items, an axe and a bible, which is very blasphemous indeed, and ofcourse the snorkel, where would I be without it. Now, this part was probably the most edgy bit of the game - I cut through the bridge with torches on either side to get into the water below, where I have to pick up a 'Cursed Treasure', and nothing else - because if I drop the snorkel, I drown, and if I drop the bible, I get zapped by the curse the second I get out of the water - which luckily I didn't. So, with this valuable item in hand, I go back to the guy and buy the petrol. Hopefully he'll be cursed by it now, and have diahorrea for a month without toilet paper. And I stick the petrol in the boat, and does it go? Hah. It seems now I need an ignition key, which really should have come with the motor, and is really quite ridiculous. Why Dizzy couldn't have just stuck a coathanger in the ignition or, surely not, get off his backside and paddle to safety, I don't know, but what can you do. To get one final valuable, I use the sword to unlock a trapdoor hidden under a tombstone which takes me underground, where I have to jump past some VERY tormentingly placed barrels and torches, made so much worse by the fact that Dizzy, being a bit of an idiot, somersaults repeatedly when he jumps, and if he doesn't land on his feet, he rolls until he does, which made it extra difficult to get across to another trapdoor which I unlock with a key (Which I also took before going down the first one) and hey presto, I find Blackbeard's hidden underground kitchen, where I pay my respects by stealing his microwave oven, and selling it to the fool at the shop for the 4th and final bit of boat kit, the ignition key. Hopefully Blackbeard will find the microwave and think the shopkeeper stole it, and break his bones. Finally I can start the boat, and it starts to move back and forward across the water. Now I'm very nervous, because I've just equaled my own previous high score - last time after all that effort I missed the boat and landed in the water. It wasn't funny. but no suck bad luck this time, I'm on it, and was almost sort of disappointed to find that getting off on the other side, that was it. I'd made it. Nowhere else to explore. I read the note which went something along the lines of 'Well done, you've solved all the puzzles, you're a Dizzy 2 expert', and went to walk smuggly out of the screen to the right, when another bloke stops me, and tells me I need the 30 coins to continue. Curses! Over the course of the game I'd picked up 24 out of the 30, and I knew where most of the others were. So, one more time, I head back to the 1st island, reflecting on my adventure, which had lasted about an hour so far, and how clever I was, as I wandered back into the Treehouse complex, where many of the coins are hidden. I'm thinking about where the rest of the coins are as I see a rather obvious one, sitting on a platform all on it's own, and so I head on up to get it, not entirely concentrating, still wondering where else I might find the last few coins, when as I approach this coin, Dizzy stops in mid-walking animation and my face goes white. The deathtrap moves down onto him, followed by a suitably deflated 'bwaaaang' sound effect, and I don't do anything except stare at the screen. Then a short 'ha ha game over' tune plays as Dizzy's arms and legs shoot off in all 4 diagonal directions and his egg body shrinks away. And we're back on the title screen. Which I stare blankly at for a while before slapping my head and exclaiming, "AAAARGH!".
And there ends my quest for glory. Now hold on a minute, according to the instructions, TECHNICALLY, I DID complete Treasure Island Dizzy by reaching the end. Sort of like finishing Sonic The Hedgehog without all the Chaos Emeralds. But it still made me feel miserable to have come so close to greatness only to fall at the last hurdle.
That's right, story's over. I bet you were waiting to hear me say I got an electric shock from the Datasette, weren't you? You saddistic person. Well, so such luck. Though I did once get a shock from an Acorn Electron PSU. I had a cold and runny nose, I pulled the connector out of the computer with some force, the cable went up my nose and zapped me. Luckily it was only about 18V and I got it out as quick as it went in, but you get the idea.
So, you're probably wondering, what has been the point of this? You know, I'm not sure I remember myself, actually. Maybe I'm saying, has anybody else out there ever completed a Dizzy game? Or failed to at the worst possible time, like I did? Or maybe I was providing a very long and vague walkthrough to the game. In which case I've probably submitted to the wrong section.
but finally, and most importantly, the Brazilnut - does anybody have a theory about what happened to the nut inside? Could it have failed to grow, somehow? Or was it stolen by a clever squirrel that can eat nuts through their shells? Or perhaps some sort of parasite eat it from the inside. In which case it was probably better I didn't get the chance to eat it.
The End
Amazing Fact! The title of this story was taken from the soundbite heard upon loading the Spectrum version of the game on a 128k machine. Welcome to Treasure Island Dizzy! I never want to hear those words again.
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Treasure Island Dizzy - The Horror Continues
Another, rather shorter, story, by Joe Dixon
Unbelievable. After the pain that was my crippling last minute defeat at Treasure Island Dizzy on the Commodore 64, I vowed never to play the cursed game again. And yet...
I must enjoy putting myself through sickening ordeals. Today, on the 20th of January 2002, many weeks after the tragedy of the C64 attempt, I loaded up the Spectrum version of the game onto a Sinclair 128k machine. Why? Just to hear the crackly 'walkie-talkie' quality soundbite of 'Welcome to Treasure Island Dizzy' the game greeted you with upon loading. But time passed, and soon I found myself thrown back into the terrible quest for valuable items and gold coins. I won't bore you again with the slightly more detailed account of my adventure that I produced following my last journey. In fact, I'll get straight to the point. Picture this scene - all puzzles complete, 29 coins out of 30 unearthed, underwater, at the far right side of the middle ocean. I was desperately and cautiously searching out that final liberating coin, and as I peeked into this dead end screen with a low roof, I said to myself, and probably jynxed myself in the process... 'Wait a minute, there's a fish in here somewhere, better get out before I-'
Yes, well you can probably guess what happened next. At least, you get the general idea. To be precise, to avoid meeting this fish, I walked back out of screen to the left, JUST at the EXACT moment the cursed thing decided to re-enter from the left. The result, a lifeless floating egg (as opposed to the exploding egg of the C64 version), and a lifeless floating me for several minutes. Once again, unable to believe I'd went through the nightmare all over again, I exclaimed "AAAAAARGH!".
Now, after getting 29/30 coins and dying roughly 6 screens from ultimate glory, I am swearing on my copy of Treasure Island Dizzy that I will NEVER EVER try to complete this ludicrous challenge ever again, ever.
Though it's hard to get rid of the feeling I've said that to myself before. There may be more heartbreak waiting around the corner, and I'll have to face it like a man.
The moral of the story is, no matter how many times you fall in your aim to reach your goal in life, and no matter how hopeless it can seem at times, if you keep getting up from it, you'll get closer to that goal every time. Not that you'll ever reach it, you'll just be even closer to acheiving it when it all blows up in your face, which only makes it worse, so next time you're face down in the mud, just stay there, because it's quite comfortable and less effort.
And I'm still waiting to get some feedback about the Brazil Nut, surely a nut can't grow without a kernel in the middle? If anyone else has a theory or similar experience, we'd all like to know about it.
The End
Amazing Fact! - Treasure Island Dizzy wasn't spellchecked very well. Infra-Red is spelt as Infa-red. Alright, not that amazing. Quite understandable really, they do sound similar. Sorry about this poor amazing fact. My face is red. In fact, my face is infa red, I mean, infra red.
Another, rather shorter, story, by Joe Dixon
Unbelievable. After the pain that was my crippling last minute defeat at Treasure Island Dizzy on the Commodore 64, I vowed never to play the cursed game again. And yet...
I must enjoy putting myself through sickening ordeals. Today, on the 20th of January 2002, many weeks after the tragedy of the C64 attempt, I loaded up the Spectrum version of the game onto a Sinclair 128k machine. Why? Just to hear the crackly 'walkie-talkie' quality soundbite of 'Welcome to Treasure Island Dizzy' the game greeted you with upon loading. But time passed, and soon I found myself thrown back into the terrible quest for valuable items and gold coins. I won't bore you again with the slightly more detailed account of my adventure that I produced following my last journey. In fact, I'll get straight to the point. Picture this scene - all puzzles complete, 29 coins out of 30 unearthed, underwater, at the far right side of the middle ocean. I was desperately and cautiously searching out that final liberating coin, and as I peeked into this dead end screen with a low roof, I said to myself, and probably jynxed myself in the process... 'Wait a minute, there's a fish in here somewhere, better get out before I-'
Yes, well you can probably guess what happened next. At least, you get the general idea. To be precise, to avoid meeting this fish, I walked back out of screen to the left, JUST at the EXACT moment the cursed thing decided to re-enter from the left. The result, a lifeless floating egg (as opposed to the exploding egg of the C64 version), and a lifeless floating me for several minutes. Once again, unable to believe I'd went through the nightmare all over again, I exclaimed "AAAAAARGH!".
Now, after getting 29/30 coins and dying roughly 6 screens from ultimate glory, I am swearing on my copy of Treasure Island Dizzy that I will NEVER EVER try to complete this ludicrous challenge ever again, ever.
Though it's hard to get rid of the feeling I've said that to myself before. There may be more heartbreak waiting around the corner, and I'll have to face it like a man.
The moral of the story is, no matter how many times you fall in your aim to reach your goal in life, and no matter how hopeless it can seem at times, if you keep getting up from it, you'll get closer to that goal every time. Not that you'll ever reach it, you'll just be even closer to acheiving it when it all blows up in your face, which only makes it worse, so next time you're face down in the mud, just stay there, because it's quite comfortable and less effort.
And I'm still waiting to get some feedback about the Brazil Nut, surely a nut can't grow without a kernel in the middle? If anyone else has a theory or similar experience, we'd all like to know about it.
The End
Amazing Fact! - Treasure Island Dizzy wasn't spellchecked very well. Infra-Red is spelt as Infa-red. Alright, not that amazing. Quite understandable really, they do sound similar. Sorry about this poor amazing fact. My face is red. In fact, my face is infa red, I mean, infra red.
Dizzy was one of my favourite games i had on my Atari, my other favs were Daylight RObbery, Mouse Trap (Not based on board game it was some cool puzzle thing) and Kick Off 2. brings back the memories.
Dizzy was unbelieveably cool. I had Treasure Island, Fantasy Land, Magic Land and Ultimate Dizzy. And Fantastic Dizzy on the megadrive, but that probably doesn't count. Is there anybody who actually managed to get all 30 coins on Treasure Island?
Dizzy and Micromachines were the best games to come from Codemasters.
All these Toca racing games are just generic mass market gimmicks.
I think that Codemasters should go back to proper games (atleast they're still making micromachine games!)
All these Toca racing games are just generic mass market gimmicks.
I think that Codemasters should go back to proper games (atleast they're still making micromachine games!)
I used to have Treasure Island Dizzy on the Amiga.
I got as far as getting enough treasure for the boat parts but I couldn't get the ignition key.
After that I gave up and resorted to cheats (I was an 8 year old casual gamers at the time!!!!). Typing "I can fly" allowed me to wizz through the game, collected all the coins, and got a congratulations from the bloke on the sea shore. That was it if I remember...
I got as far as getting enough treasure for the boat parts but I couldn't get the ignition key.
After that I gave up and resorted to cheats (I was an 8 year old casual gamers at the time!!!!). Typing "I can fly" allowed me to wizz through the game, collected all the coins, and got a congratulations from the bloke on the sea shore. That was it if I remember...
He's probably played it again recently
Although with that much trauma coming from one game, it's no surprise he can remember it all
Although with that much trauma coming from one game, it's no surprise he can remember it all
i totally see where your coming from ... didnt you just love dizzy, but the constant deaths were so annoying ... but it was a challenging game ... an unfinished game but still challenging ... and after all these years ... still not gettin anywhere in it i still feel up to playin it ...
im still baffled on how you managed to remember so much about it ... just as though you played just yesterday! :p
im still baffled on how you managed to remember so much about it ... just as though you played just yesterday! :p
The music ruled! Well, it did get a bit repetative after a while...
I had a dizzy game on the NES, it was fun, hard at places but still fun. But the music, how annoying was that!
Amen brother!
I own almost all the Dizzy games (with the exception of Yolk Folk) and I feel your pain
Playing on an old Amstrad CPC 464 with a green screen (yes, that's right, it was green, like the original Gameboy) the Dizzy games were among my favourites, and I probably played them the most out of all my games
However, I never, EVER completed ANY of them. Infact, my brother's friend became a bit of a legend for completing Fantasy Land Dizzy.
And having a green screen monitor didn't make it any easier, I can tell you that!
Luckily some Dizzy games gave you more than one life, but none had a save game feature we all take for granted now a days.
Games were positively UNFAIR back then!
I own almost all the Dizzy games (with the exception of Yolk Folk) and I feel your pain
Playing on an old Amstrad CPC 464 with a green screen (yes, that's right, it was green, like the original Gameboy) the Dizzy games were among my favourites, and I probably played them the most out of all my games
However, I never, EVER completed ANY of them. Infact, my brother's friend became a bit of a legend for completing Fantasy Land Dizzy.
And having a green screen monitor didn't make it any easier, I can tell you that!
Luckily some Dizzy games gave you more than one life, but none had a save game feature we all take for granted now a days.
Games were positively UNFAIR back then!
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