The remake

What it is

A native program for today's computers that plays Fantastic Dizzy exactly as the 1993 Mega Drive cartridge does: the same world, the same rules down to the last pixel and frame, the same pictures, music and sound effects, in its five languages. It isn't an emulator running the cartridge: every routine of the original program was traced and rewritten in modern C++, and the game's own graphics, texts and music are taken from the cartridge's data.

It is an unofficial fan-game remake, not affiliated with or endorsed by Codemasters, who published the game, or the Oliver Twins, who designed it.

How it was checked

The original ran in an instrumented emulator that recorded every step: where Dizzy was, what every object and creature did, what each frame showed and what the sound chips played. The remake ran the same inputs, and the two were compared step by step and frame by frame, through the game's routes, its subgames and its screens, until they agreed exactly.

The walkthrough on this site is a complete game played on the remake: all 250 stars, from the treehouse to the ending, without losing a life.

What the remake adds

Everything the cartridge does stays as it was. On top of it, opened with Esc (or the controller's Menu button), the remake has its own menu, drawn on the game's parchment:

• Saves: eight slots with a picture each, a quick save on F5 and quick load on F8.
• Controllers of any kind, and every key and button rebindable. The game's own hints (the pad on the help screen and in the treehouse) show the buttons you've chosen.
• Fullscreen at any size, pixels kept sharp, and an optional CRT look.
• Cheats for anyone who wants them, off at every start: infinite lives, infinite energy, frozen subgame timers, and a teleport to the main places.
• A log and the input of every game played kept in your user folder, so that a problem can be reported and reproduced.

Credits

Fantastic Dizzy © 1993 Codemasters Software Co. Ltd. Designed by the Oliver Twins. Produced by the Chameleon team: main game programming by Derek Leigh-Gilchrist, additional programming by Ash Hogg, main game artwork by Leigh Christian, additional artwork by Joby Wood; with Lyndon Sharp, Paul Griffiths, Ed Hickman, Paul Oglesby, Khalid Karmoun, Darren Yeomans, Peter Williamson, Matt Simmonds and Matt Gray.

This remake, its menus and this website: Enthusiast Guy, 2026.