The Harpy's Eyrie?

I think the Harpy's Eyrie was an excuse to stick an extra room in the 8-bit games :tongue:

You can get to the top of that screen easily on the C64 version, but when you reach the top, The Harpy goes after you and you either lose a life or a lot of health (one of the two).

Thank you very much for solving my question. When I saw this for my first time I also was surprised for this... and even more because I couldn't reach that high (I play Dizzy on Spectrum).

Thanks again for your help!! {yolkfolk}:animwink:

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I heard rumors that the harpy can be hit with the Big Stick (that is left over after it’s used, unlike other items).

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You lose the stick after you use it on the goat on the C64 version.

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[quote data-userid="364" data-postid="80002"]

I heard rumors that the harpy can be hit with the Big Stick (that is left over after it’s used, unlike other items).

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You lose the stick after you use it on the goat on the C64 version.

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Finally, checked this rumor!

• The harpy kills me almost instantly, and even if I manage to use the Stick at that brief moment, it does nothing - just pops out to hover in mid-air.

• Interestingly, after the item dialog closes, the harpy moves to its initial position so it can be bypassed this way. Alas, there's nothing but clear sky up beyond (yes, with no clouds). Busted another theory that alleged there were something.

• The stones of the nest can be stepped onto, I even managed to set the respawn point onto them when I timed it so that I was standing there before the harpy touched me.

• Jumping the highest possible to the right, I managed to land on top of the Hellgate. When I jumped to the right from there, Dizzy jumped through the empty sky above and began to slowly rolling to the right along the Hellgate screen's top, flickering between it and the sky screen above and ultimately falling off the edge of the world. He then flew through several empty sky screens (some of them had diamonds in them, allegedly corresponding to those still left on the map) and ultimately landed into the beyond the looking glass screen with the pawns (falling right onto the spikes and dying {yolkfolk}:guilty: ) .
  The thing that astonished me the most in this sequence is that I didn't fall through the inner stones in hellgate or see random stuff beyond the map (as would be the case if the program accessed memory beyond the map's area; there were the diamonds indeed but I wouldn't be able to collect them while airborne in any case). That's the quality they made programs of in that era!!! {dizzy}:dizsmile: :tup:
  (I did fall through the frame of the pawns' screen but that must be 'cuz it's the same or lesser height than Dizzy's model box so when he spawns in it, there's empty space right under him).

• I couldn't jump to the left from as high above 'cuz the harpy was always blocking the way. And when I jumped from the nest's stones, it always touched and killed me before I left the screen. After seeing all of the above, however, I'm pretty sure there's just sky there as well. And I wouldn't reach the fake stairs above the geyser even if I jumped off the very left edge of the nest anyway.

So, this rumor is finally busted once and for all (heh, it's been like 20 years!!!)!

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I think the Harpy’s Eyrie was an excuse to stick an extra room in the 8-bit games :tongue:

You can get to the top of that screen easily on the C64 version, but when you reach the top, The Harpy goes after you and you either lose a life or a lot of health (one of the two).

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Pretty much this, iirc. I always loved the exploratory aspect of games like Jet Set Willy, where simply finding there was another screen up there (like the Watch Tower in JSW) was reward enough for looking.

As for the Harpy, it was just an in-joke with myself really. I got in trouble once in junior school for calling a teacher a harpy, and my dad (RIP) wasn't so much upset that I'd been naughty as pleased that the Greek mythology books he'd bought for his kids had had an effect ... even if was only improving my insult vocabulary :smile:

I don't think there was anything more to it. Unfortunately my original Dizzy 4 design docs are trapped on an old Amstrad 386 PC up the loft. I can try to retrieve them if there's enough interest to warrant the hassle, but we're talking WordPerfect 5.1 and Deluxe Paint II for MS-DOS - current software at the time but ancient history now :smile:

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Unfortunately my original Dizzy 4 design docs are trapped on an old Amstrad 386 PC up the loft. I can try to retrieve them if there’s enough interest to warrant the hassle, but we’re talking WordPerfect 5.1 and Deluxe Paint II for MS-DOS – current software at the time but ancient history now :smile:

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I don't know if you had a look around our site, but we have a page where we collect concept art, maps and documents from when most of the Dizzy games were being worked on back in the day.

https://yolkfolk.com/concept-document-archive/

We're always more than happy to help preserve any more Dizzy related history on the site, especially if there's anything we don't have right now. :smile:  

@khaosadz Cool. I've have a look into trying to do that at some point then. Might as well archive it for posterity, if we can.

Assuming the old 386 still fires up, and the files haven't rotted on its HDD in the last 30-odd years, all that PC has is a 3.5" floppy drive to actually get stuff off the machine. I don't have a 3.5" disc drive on my current PC. So I'd probably have to mail the floppy to someone who could access it - but we'll cross that bridge if and when I manage to get the files onto a floppy in the first place.

@blatherskite please do this. I think the community would appreciate it massively and solved a 15 year old thread!