Was the NES version outsourced?

I've recently acquired a boxed NES copy of The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy (original American release). What caught my interest was the Codemasters logo on the box - it's something that I've noticed only now: it doesn't say "written by Codemasters", but rather "licensed by Codemasters".

I wonder what is that about. Having briefly checked other Codemasters/Camerica game boxes, it says "licensed" on some, "written" on others. I'm not sure if there's any rhyme or reason to that - Big Nose the Caveman says "Licensed by Codemasters", and Big Nose Freaks out says "Wirtten by Codemasters", even though they both were made by Optimus Software (according to the ingame credits).

So... was the NES Dizzy outsourced, and if so - to whom? Or did they just choose the words to put on the box at random?

Apparently, the 16-bit Sega version of Fantastic Dizzy was made by another company, Chameleon, which there is scarce info to be found, other than the brief mention on Sega Retro, and the game box itself ("Designed by Chameleon", whatever that means). It's also mentioned in the development documents on this site, albeit in the context of the SMS version of Go! Dizzy Go! (their logo was apparently supposed to be on the title screen).

Hi Yojc.

 

The American release of The Fantastic Adventures Of Dizzy was not outsourced. Camerica was an american company that distributed Codemasters titles in the USA.

Chameleon was an internal team at 'Dizzy Enterprises' which worked on the title.

 

Hope this helps.