Collecting Stuff

[Zurc]

Did you guys like the gather aspect in the Dizzy games? I mean stuff like collectiing 30 coins, gems, cherries etc.

I enjoyed completing the story, but not seeking out those items. Sometimes they would be hidden in the background which boiled down to spamming the enter key. I suppose it did give the game some replay value.

[Adz.M]

It was a good challenge in the Dizzy games.

I had a spot of trouble finding 1 Coin on Fantasy World, then found the amazing illusion by accident.

Finishing a Dizzy game has always made me feel proud :)

[delta]

yeah i think it added an extra aspect to the game, an extra challenge.

so much so, it's a rather integral part of Diamond Mine Dizzy.

trust me, you'll be tearing your hair out with some of them.... :v2_dizzy_biggrin:

[Joe]

if I was designing a new dizzy game, I'd keep in the '30-item' thing, but I probably wouldn't have anything hidden behind the background. It kind of worked in Treasure Island Dizzy because 1) quite a high proportion of the coins were hidden, so you knew to look behind scenery for them (whereas in games like Magicland, only a few were hidden in this manner, so you didn't necessarily realise that they might appear behind scenery), and 2) the first-in first-out inventory style is better suited to it than the menu inventory of later games. Hiding stuff behind objects is ok though, because a player is going to try and pick up every object at least once.

Personally I liked the Diamonds in Magicland Dizzy as the best item, what do other people think? So far as I remember there were Coins (twice), Diamonds, Cherries and Stars.

[xelanoimis]

I don't like hidding the whole coin/diamond behind other object,
because the player will end up hitting enter on every rail, bush, tree, and stuff...

I preffer to partially hide them, like in "The Other Side" where you can see
the sparkle of diamonds behind the hiding objects.

And I think that most importantly it's to show the coin/diamond to the player,
but not to make it directly accessible. To make him wonder "how on earth would I get to
that little coin?".
For example put a coin in a room on top of something, high enought so the player
wouldn't be able to jump directly and pick it up, but to find another way to drop on top
of, like from the secret room above, it and have it.

Also coins in hidden rooms make sense. Find the room, find the coin!

And if the game has coinds hidden very well, behind objects, I think it should provide
a simple ending, without the need of having all the coins. But if the player gather all of them,
a more complex ending should reward his efforts.

Anyway, the hidding of coins should be very well balanced with the story as it advances.
There is nothing worse than to finish all the puzzles in the game and have to start hitting enter
to find some last coins so you can finish it. It could take many boring hours
and that would be the point where most of the players would search the internet for
coins locations or just drop the game. And if the ending just say "well you finished it now!"
you would feel pretty bad about wasting time searching for them.

[Joe]

It could take many boring hours
and that would be the point where most of the players would search the internet for
coins locations or just drop the game. And if the ending just say "well you finished it now!"
you would feel pretty bad about wasting time searching for them.

I've been there :neutral: but what would you do before the internet, i.e. in the early 90's when nobody had it? The premium phoneline didn't tell you where to get them either.

[xelanoimis]

I was spending days playing those games, when I was younger.
And it was fun. We had a few magazines with walkthroughs and maps
with coin locations, but they were hard to get your hands on, in those days.

Hobbit they were called. Very good magazines.
The Z80 stuff was very nice, including programming code, and very useful
code indeed. Also some walkthroughts of PC games (XT and 286). I remember
we were reading them like stories (didn't had access to such machines then).

Today, all adventures are measured in hours of playing, not days.
If it's too long it might be considered boring.
Probably because they are not as good as the old ones :p
It still takes me a few days, or a nice weekend to finish a good adventure, though...
Not to mention the weeks I spend playing "The longest journey" :)

[Grim_Reaper_666]

I only played POYF and Spellbound on Amiga. The cherries on POYF were kinda pointless, an adventure to bake a pie or whatever was not very exciting and they have no purpose other then to finish the game.

However spellbound makes great use of it (only halfway thru so far) Not only do you not get a tedious message every time telling you that you got 1, It also did a kool flashy and fly away animation, as well as you needing them to save each of your friends. I actually feel joy and rewarded to gain a star unlike POYF where its like - "ohhh look, another mandatory cherry.... yumm yumm"

The only bad thing about SB stars is the way some are hidden, i would never have found them in a million years without a guide.

[Peter]

I only played POYF and Spellbound on Amiga. The cherries on POYF were kinda pointless, an adventure to bake a pie or whatever was not very exciting and they have no purpose other then to finish the game.


The end of the day the point of the cherries was basicly a game within a game (along with the Coins and Diamonds in the other games) admittedly the idea of collecting them to bake a pie was bit strange, but then look at the other games uses of the collectables.

Fantasy World : 30 Coins to buy a treehouse
Magicland : 30 Diamionds to give to the devil so he can cast a spell to send you home.
Prince of the Yolkfolk: the 20 cherries for a pie.
Spellbound: 40? Magic stars to rescue the yolkfolk.

[MJongo]

Fantasy World Dizzy has a map you get at the end of the game that shows the locations of the coins, so it is just a matter of going to the correct square and looking around. Otherwise I probably never would have found the coin above the warehouse, so I thought that feature was neat.

EDIT: Oops, apparently that is only in the PC version.

[AndyC]

Fantasy World Dizzy has a map you get at the end of the game that shows the locations of the coins, so it is just a matter of going to the correct square and looking around. Otherwise I probably never would have found the coin above the warehouse, so I thought that feature was neat.

EDIT: Oops, apparently that is only in the PC version.

It's in the Amiga version as well.

[Mat_Dizzy]

I only collected them when they we're essential to completing the game!