The games are set in various fairytale-like locations and typically involve Dizzy trying to save his friends and family, the Yolkfolk, often from the schemes of his nemesis, the evil wizard Zaks.

[4] For example, the opening screen of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk tasked the player with escaping from a locked cell using a jug of water, a pile of leaves, and a box of matches.

[7] The main protagonist and player character for the series is the eponymous Dizzy, an anthropomorphic egg with big eyes, a smiley face, boxing gloves and minimal identifying features.

[8] Throughout most of the series, Dizzy is joined by a cast of recurring characters, also eggs, known as the Yolkfolk, who make up his friends and family.

By alluding to other well known stories, the games are able to present scenarios and puzzles that are interesting and appealing[citation needed], while also accessible even to a young audience.

[6] Similarly, the games' simple black-and-white morality, with many of them having the final goal of defeating the evil wizard Zaks, was also a nod to their fairy tales roots.

Speaking on the subject, Andrew Oliver said that "it's common in any fairy tale to have an evil person to defeat, and so we went down this route".

[2] It was initially released for Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum since the two platforms' similar hardware (both use the Z80 microprocessor) made it easier to develop for both simultaneously.

[14] At first, Codemasters' David Darling was not impressed by Dizzy, and wanted the Olivers to continue to create more Simulator games instead.

[2] Regardless of the reason for the change in format, it proved to be a successful one, with Philip Oliver later commenting that "people get more involved in the adventures but the arcade games sell just as well".

The extra characters allowed the Olivers to include more dialogue in the game, moving it further towards their original conception of an interactive cartoon.

Kwik Snax was the last Dizzy game for the original Amstrad and Spectrum formats the Oliver Twins developed.

By this point, it was clear that these formats were not going to survive for much longer[20] and both Codemasters and the Olivers wanted to expand Dizzy into the video game console market.

Spread too thin to work on new home computer titles themselves, the Olivers decided to contract out future development to Big Red Software.

[2] Speaking after the fact, the twins commented that they had previously contracted out development of ports of their games to other system, and that this felt like the natural next step for them.

By this time, they were working almost entirely independently, creating games that fit the pre-established formula with minimal oversight or input from the Olivers.

[6] Working on the new system also proved to be something of a challenge for the Olivers, who were unused to the longer development cycles and higher degree of polish required for console games, where they had to compete against titles such as Super Mario.

[26] Speaking in 1992, Andrew Oliver stated that the Dizzy series received more fan-mail than all other Codemasters games combined.

[27] In addition to its success in its home market, the Dizzy games were also extremely popular in Russia and Eastern Europe.

[17] The series was sufficiently popular that various merchandise was made for it, such as clothing, mugs and clocks, even though this was unusual for video games at the time.

[4] Dizzy games made numerous appearances on cover tapes and disks of British magazines, usually in the form of cut-down versions or demos.

Indeed, the appearance of a version of the original Dizzy on an Amstrad Action cover tape has been credited with popularising the idea of covermounts in the UK.

However, the twins concede: ... if he were ever to make another appearance it would have to be something special ... he would have to compete with the likes of Jak and Daxter and Ratchet & Clank – and those types of games require big budgets and many months of development.

The main page on the site featured a pair of eyes peering from an egg carton, accompanied by the phrase "Guess who's back?".

[25] The following month, the website DizzyGame.com was opened, featuring details of the new release: a port to mobile platforms of Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk.

[33] Oliver Twins launched a Kickstarter project titled Dizzy Returns in November 2012; the game was to be the first official sequel in over 20 years.

[34][35] The Oliver Twins asked Dizzy fans to help pledge £350,000 to the Kickstarter campaign in order for the game to be made.

[36] They attributed the failure to starting the campaign very early in pre-development and therefore not having anything concrete to show to potential backers and stated that while they were still interested in revisiting Dizzy in the future, any such project would have to have a "considerably different" vision.

[75] Clover: A Curious Tale is a 2009 adventure game that has similar mechanics to and is considered an homage to the Dizzy series.