Dynamite Headdy
Dynamite Headdy
August 5, 1994
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Many of the levels are named after popular movies and other media titles:
• "Toys in the Hood" is named after Boyz in the Hood.
• "Clothes Encounters" is named after Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
• "Terminate Her Too" is named after Terminator 2.
• "Stair Wars" is named after the movie series Star Wars.
• "Spinderella" is named after Cinderella.
• "Fly Hard" is named after Die Hard.
• "Headdy Wonderland" is named after Alice in Wonderland.
• "The Rocket Tier" is named after The Rocketeer.
• "Illegal Weapon 3" is named after Lethal Weapon 3.
• "Far Trek" is named after the movie and TV series Star Trek.
• "The Escape" is named after The Great Escape.
• "Mad Dog and Headdy" is named after Mad Dog and Glory.
• "Mad Mechs" is named after Mad Max.
• "Heathernapped" is named after Kidnapped.
• "Towering Internal" is named after The Towering Inferno.
• "The Flying Game" is named after The Crying Game.
• "Twin Freaks" is named after the TV series Twin Peaks.
• "Fatal Contraption" is named after Fatal Attraction.
• "Finale Analysis" is named after Final Analysis.
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During the fight with the first Keymaster, Mad Dog, a 16-bit rendition of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker March" plays in the background.
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After defeating a boss in the international version, the player has to collect 13 continue icons in order to get a continue. In the Japanese version, however, only 10 continue icons are needed. In addition to this, the international version starts the player with no continues, while the Japanese version starts with two.
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According to a 1994 BEEP! Megadrive magazine interview with the game's producer/designer Koichi Kimura, he was asked where the idea for Dynamite Headdy came from? He responded:

"The biggest reason for making Dynamite Headdy was that our team wanted to create something original. 2 I’ve been a part of many game developments, but almost all of them were either based on pre-existing characters, or plans that were handed to me from above, which I then adapted and revised. I thought Dynamite Headdy would be a more fun and fulfilling development. Having worked in game dev for 5 years now, I thought it was high time to make something of my own creation. I knew that if I wanted to make my own game, I needed to make something that looked convincing from a commercial sales perspective, and I put a lot of effort into the initial design and conception of Dynamite Headdy along those lines."
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According to a 1994 BEEP! Megadrive magazine interview with the game's producer/designer Koichi Kimura, he stated in regards to Headdy's character design and attacking with his head:

"I had been thinking I wanted the character to use some part of his body when he attacked, and throwing his head was something new, and would make an impact on players. I made him a puppet because puppets are easy to deform and manipulate, whereas a living creature that detached it’s head would be weird, I thought."
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According to a 1994 BEEP! Megadrive magazine interview with the game's producer/designer Koichi Kimura, he was asked why many of the backgrounds use theater stage motifs (The spotlight, the curtains, rigging systems…). He responded:

"It’s just my personal taste. There’s a director named Terry Gilliam, who creates these fantastic, magical worlds that take place in the real world. He’ll do things like add an artificial sun to a normal, everyday scene. While I was designing Dynamite Headdy, I thought that kind of world would be cool, so we made a few mock-ups in that style. After seeing it in-game, I thought it looked great, so we doubled down and tried to make that a visual theme for the whole game. At this point in the development it might look really lame if we only went half-way with that aesthetic. There’s a bunch of other cool things we still plan to add, too."
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According to a 1994 BEEP! Megadrive magazine interview with the game's producer/designer Koichi Kimura, he was asked if he was influenced by his love for Western animation for the game. He responded:

"Yeah. Actually western animation was one of the things that influenced me to get into the game industry in the first place. I really admire the sensibility of Looney Toons, where you never know what’s going to happen next. Watching them inspires me to hone my own skills. The difference between games and animation, though, is that in animation the artist directs how the scene moves and unfolds, whereas in games, that control is given over to the players. But I think that’s actually a strength for gaming and could lead to even more interesting scenes, which is something I want to explore more."

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