Originating on the Amstrad CPC, Spindizzy is a genius piece of coding and game design. It is an isometric exploration game, where you play as a spinning gyroscope (called GERALD) trying to collect gems across a large map of screens. It was designed by Paul Shirley, and the Spectrum port was handled by Phil Churchyard. Spindizzy on the Spectrum was published by Electric Dreams in 1986.

While I’ve always admired Spindizzy as a game, and as a programming masterpiece, I’ve never been good enough at it to really get anywhere.

Every time you ‘die’ (usually by falling off the landscape, or smashing into it from height) you lose some of your overall time to play the game. And that time doesn’t last very long. You can give your time a boost by finding new screens, which – I think – gives you extra.

Otherwise: pressing fire acts both as a booster for movement, and will also make you ‘stick’ to a steep incline (and not roll downward), if you judge the momentum and use the controls correctly. Spindizzy is all about using your momentum to reach places you need to go to.

I enjoyed re-visiting this on the Spectrum recently, and played it for a number of hours. I sometimes think that brute force is the only way through this game… And then I remember that there is no way through this game! LOL. I’ve never come close to beating it, and I’ve never seen anyone else do it either.

More: Spindizzy on Wikipedia
More: Spindizzy on World of Spectrum