According to an interview in the December issue of retro gamer.
The real reason Dizzy 2 has one life is actually because of a problem that could occur. Say if you dropped the snorkel underwater, you would instantly drown again if you restarted in the water. But even if you started on the beach. You wouldn't be able to get back in the water again. The game would be impossible to finish.
So... the Olivers were running out of time and had no ideas how to fix it the lives were reduced to 1. Right at the last minute. Up until then the game had 3 lives just like dizzy 1!
Maybe the Oliver Twins didn't have enough time to think of these ideas at the time. Having a life energy bar which would be like a timer underwater would have also been a good solution as well. Treasure Island Dizzy is really hard with just 1 life though. The slightest mistake or mis judgement can be fatal in this game. I remember playing it years ago and getting right to the very end having found all the gold coins and crossing the river on the boat to get out of the island and the stupid Dizzy rolls went a bit too far and Dizzy fell off the boat and into the water and drowned, right at the final hurdle. As you could imagine I wasn't impressed :cry:
I actually quite like the fact that Dizzy only has 1 life in Treasure Island. Let's face it, the game is much smaller than the original Dizzy, and other than the 1 life issue it's hardly a complicated, tricky, or taxing game.
Yes, you need quite a few goes to complete it but if there was more than 1 life it'd be a walk in the park :teethy:
yeah this game is actually really short. If it wasn't for the coins it would only take about 15 minutes to do all the puzzles. The inventory bug (moving two places at once at random) makes journeys into the water take even longer.
If it wasn't for the coins it would only take about 15 minutes to do all the puzzles.
I've completed the game (DizzyAGE version) in about 19 minutes before now, including the coins.
It's interesting that you can rocket through the DizzyAGE version of Treasure Island so quickly. In Clover you can't die, and it's amazing the difference that makes. The original XBLIG version had roughly the same number of puzzles and items as Magicland Dizzy, and a larger map.
On average it took people about <6 hours to complete, which is far, far quicker than it took me to complete Magicland, that's for sure! I think if there ever was a remake of Dizzy, it'd have to have many, many more puzzles than the originals. Just hopefully not split up into levels like Crystal Kingdom :/
Say if you dropped the snorkel underwater, you would instantly drown again if you restarted in the water. But even if you started on the beach. You wouldn’t be able to get back in the water again. The game would be impossible to finish.
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I'm a little surprised that that situation didn't occur to the programmers earlier. Dropping the snorkel in the water is an easy beginner's mistake, right? I guess they were just so engrossed in the design of the puzzles that they didn't put enough thought into what happens after Dizzy loses a life.
Still, I would have thought one of the later ports of the game could have resolved the issue and returned the extra lives by making certain items teleport back to their original locations if they were left in places those items were used to reach. Like the pogo could come back if it was left on the island you have to pogo to along with another key item. Making the far beach an alternate continue point might have been nice too, and could have solved the "snorkel on the far beach" problem. But I suppose the original release was so successful, nobody really wanted to change the game's formula too much then.
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