Unreleased Fantasy World Dizzy NES remake finally comes out - 24 years later
A cracking way to celebrate Dizzy's 30th birthday.
Classic 80s video game mascot Dizzy celebrates his 30th birthday today. His first outing, Dizzy - The Ultimate Cartoon Adventure was released in 1987, a fact that should make some of our readers feel more than a little bit old!
To mark the occasion, the plucky egg's creators, Phillip and Andrew Oliver have released a brand new Dizzy game named Mystery World Dizzy.
The game, unveiled today at a special Dizzy Day exhibition at the National Videogame Arcade, is essentially a NES remake of fan favourite, Dizzy 3: Fantasy World Dizzy. It was initially created in April 1993 but due to financial issues, never saw release.
In their official biography, Let's Go Dizzy: The Story of The Oliver Twins, Andrew reminisces about its development. "We had some good staff and I thought we could direct them to make an updated, slicker version of our favourite Spectrum Dizzy game - Fantasy World Dizzy.
"We had always wanted to go back and change some things. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and the original game was written at home with no involvement from others. Now we had the opportunity to modify the original where we thought we could make it better. Sadly this game was never finished."
With the help of programmer Lukasz Kur, the Polish Dizzy fan responsible for restoring another lost Dizzy game, Wonderland Dizzy, the Oliver Twins have finally completed the game, some 24 years later.
The game is free to play right now on the Mystery World Dizzy website, but true fans will at some point be able to purchase physical NES carts containing a working version of the game via the Mystery World Dizzy Kickstarter campaign.
Like the good eggs they are, The Oliver Twins will donate all proceeds from the Kickstarter to charity. The total amount raised will be shared equally between the NVA and Special Effect, the UK charity that helps people with disabilities enjoy video games.
The Oliver Twins released physical NES carts of their last lost Dizzy game, Wonderland Dizzy, which promptly sold out. Copies now command three figures on eBay, so if you're a Dizzy fan, make sure you scramble to get yourself a copy as soon as possible.