Submission #8877: DigitalDuck's ZXS Dizzy 3 and a Half in 03:40.59

Dizzy Three And A Half is a prequel to/prologue for Magicland Dizzy released exclusively for Crash Magazine. The Evil Wizard Zaks is back from his demise in the original Dizzy, and teleports the Yolkfolk to Magicland, casting evil spells on them to imprison them there forever. Dizzy must free them all... but first, he needs to get there.

This is a tool-assisted speedrun of Dizzy Three And A Half for the ZX Spectrum. It completes the any% category, arriving in Magicland quickly as possible.

TAS timing (power on until last input): 11047 frames, 3:40.852

RTA timing (press SPACE to start the game until WEIRDHENGE appears): 2627 frames, 0:52.519

The run is performed on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2A. Dizzy Three And A Half synchronises its game engine to the screen's refresh rate, and therefore generally runs marginally (~0.1%) faster on 48K than on 128K versions. However, 128K versions of the Spectrum run their Z80 processor at a slightly higher clock rate, and the +2A and +3 also have some improvements in memory access speeds; this means that menuing and room transitions are faster on these models. The +3 is a disk-based system, and Dizzy Three And A Half has never been officially released on disk, so the run uses the +2A and loads the game from tape.

The game runs at a relatively constant 12.5fps (one in-game frame every four screen refreshes). Menuing and screen transitions take longer than this and are simply processed as quickly as possible ignoring framerate. For the rest of this section, "frame" refers to in-game frame.

Dizzy moves horizontally at four pixels per frame, whether on the ground or in the air. While standing or walking on ground, he can stop and turn around instantly, but he cannot be controlled in the air. A jump can only be performed while standing or walking on ground; this pushes Dizzy upwards at a fixed velocity and sends him into a roll. He cannot be controlled while rolling and will continue rolling until he is both on the ground and on his feet.

Dizzy can pick up and drop items, and the game revolves around his using this ability to solve puzzles. By pressing the menu button, the inventory will open. If an item is within Dizzy's reach, he will also pick it up. Dizzy can initially hold two items at a time, and picking up a third item will cause Dizzy to automatically drop the first. Selecting an item in the inventory will make Dizzy use or drop it. The menu can only be opened while standing still, and items do not act under physics; once dropped, they are stationary and do not move until picked up again.

If an item is dropped within its designated use area, the item will (usually) disappear and some interaction will occur (e.g. opening a bridge). In addition, some items have no purpose and exist as red herrings. The short rope and long rope items are unique, as both must be held at the same time in order to combine them into a new item. The skyboots allow us to walk on clouds while they're in our possession.

All rooms start in a fixed state, but maintain their state between visits. Dizzy starts with three lives and a full health bar; contact with enemies results in a draining of health, with a life lost when health is fully drained. Falling into water is an instant loss of life.

As Dizzy 3 And A Half is a fairly short and simple game, with the most generous counting giving seven screens, there isn't much to break. There are no known glitches that allow us to complete the game faster, so we simply do the game as intended, fast.

We start by saying hi to Danny, who has found a pair of skyboots and got himself stuck falling upwards. We grab a starting handle and a long rope, and use the long rope to get Danny down. He gives us the skyboots, which allows us to walk on clouds.

This allows us to reach Grand-Dizzy's machine, where we take a short rope and tie it to the long rope to make a knotted rope. We tie the knotted rope to the machine and repeatedly use the starting handle on it until it starts, powering the teleporter. We jump in the teleporter, and arrive in Magicland ready for the next game.

Dizzy Three and a Half was a fun little bonus for readers of Crash magazine in the day, giving a taste of how the Dizzy games play. Obviously I'm working on Magicland Dizzy proper, but this is technically a numbered entry in the franchise and it'd feel wrong if I missed it.

Special thanks go to The Oliver Twins for making the game, Sir Clive Sinclair for making the Spectrum, and everyone in the Speedtrum Specrunning community for keeping da speccy alive.

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: Well, everything looks good here. I'm surprised how the inputs respond on certain frames, so I thought it might have the same behavior as a Commodore. I tested out my optimization techniques on your inputs and they didn't improve anything. So, the hardware and style of coding doesn't have the same issues that I have to deal with.

Accepting.

fsvgm777: Processing.