''Spellbound Dizzy'' or ''Dizzy 5'' is an

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extr ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

, featuring the character

Dizzy Dizziness is an imprecise term that can refer to a sense of disorientation in space, vertigo, or lightheadedness. It can also refer to disequilibrium or a non-specific feeling, such as giddiness or foolishness. Dizziness is a common medica ...

, released in November 1991 by

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in Octo ...

. The series was originally developed by the Oliver twins but they had little involvement with this title other than executive sign-off, leaving

Big Red Software The Big Red Software Company Limited, doing business as Big Red Software, was a British video game developer based in Leamington Spa, England, that was founded by Paul Ranson in October 1989. History Big Red Software was incorporated on 16 Oc ...

to redesign the graphics engine and design the game and puzzles. The game is the fifth in the Dizzy series, excluding arcade spinoffs such as ''

Kwik Snax ''Kwik Snax'' is an arcade style maze video game play developed by the Oliver Twins and was published in 1990 by Codemasters for the Amstrad CPC, Spectrum, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, and Amiga. It was the fifth game in the '' Dizzy'' series and ...

'' and had the largest map of any Dizzy game to date with 108 screens. Consequently, it is by far longer and more difficult than any other game in the series. The gameplay is also complicated by the fact that Dizzy loses health when falling from heights (a feature which was removed from subsequent games). This level of difficulty made many players

cheat Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate cri ...

by using

patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song ...

es giving Dizzy unlimited lives. The game also presents slightly different user interface, graphics and concepts that never occurred earlier or later in the series: an inventory with items icons, separated collection (stars) and healing (apples) items (in other games they are always '2 in 1'), hidden passages and dynamic animated set pieces (the travel tunnels, the mining cart, etc.) There are additional animations and abilities, such as swimming and eating. The Spectrum version of the game, like all the titles since ''Dizzy 3'', has both 48k and 128k versions packaged. The 128k version features richer graphics and animation, extended dialogue and a background music track.

Spellbound Dizzy Lite

The release of the Commodore 64 version of Dizzy's Excellent Adventures (a compilation featuring five games) comes with a significantly reduced version of the game, with many bugs. The complete version of the game was later released for the computer. The release for other platforms is the same in both releases.

Reception

The ZX Spectrum version was voted number 18 in the ''

Your Sinclair ''Your Sinclair'', or ''YS'' as it was commonly abbreviated, was a commercially published and printed British computer magazine for the Sinclair range of computers, mainly the ZX Spectrum. It was in circulation between 1984 and 1993. History Th ...

Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time''.

References

External links

* * {{Dizzy series 1991 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Atari ST games Amiga CD32 games Codemasters games Commodore 64 games Dizzy (series) Europe-exclusive video games Video games scored by Allister Brimble ZX Spectrum games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Big Red Software games Single-player video games