Ultimate Play the Game

 In the year 1982, Ultimate Play the Game was established in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, by Tim and Chris Stamper. [8] Their friend John Lathbury and Tim's girlfriend, Carole Ward, founded the business. The company was initially located in a home near the family-run newsstand. Both Tim and Chris had been employed in the field of arcade game development, and, as per one report, Konami's Gyruss, and claimed to be "the most knowledgeable arcade video game design team in Britain" before tiring of working for others and left to create Ashby Computers and Graphics. The company's first business being the creation of arcade conversion kits before expanding into the market of home computer software developing games under the Ultimate Play the Game name. Blue Print was released by Ashby for Bally-Midway and Grasspin for Dingo. The Ultimate Play the Game's initial release was Jetpac for the 16K Spectrum in May 1983. In a 1983 interview, Tim Stamper said that they decided to target 16K machines because their smaller size meant that development times were much less and that they could develop two 16K games in a month or one 48K game. Jetpac was a commercial success. The Spectrum version sold more than 300,000 copies, providing the company with a turnover of more than PS1 million. Jetpac, Pssst. Tranz Am. and Cookie were the only four games ever released on 16K ROM for the ZX Interface 2. They were also published on cassette, with distinctive silver inlay cards, produced by Sinclair Research for inclusion in ZX Spectrum bundles.Ultimate's first 48K releases were Lunar Jetman - a sequel to Jetpac as well as Atic Atac, both of which came out in the latter half of 1983. Both games were well-liked by the gaming press, CRASH magazine particularly applauding what Ultimate had managed to do with the extra memory Lunar Jetman made use of. [15] Sabre Wulf appeared in 1984. It was the first Sabreman title and the first release with a retail recommendation of PS9.95. The initial price for Ultimate titles was only PS5.50. This was common for Spectrum arcade-style games at the time. The reason for this was to stop the practice of piracy. This was also the time when Ultimate introduced the "big box" packaging. It was included in all subsequent Spectrum releases prior to Gunfright as well as other games for other platforms. The company believed that this would help justify the cost and also encourage players to not duplicate the game. This was a successful strategy since Sabre Wulf went on to sell more than 350,000 copies on the Spectrum all by itself. The sequel to the Sabreman series was released in 1984. Underwurlde came next, followed by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was a revolution in the home computer game market, utilizing a forced-perspective, isometric perspective which was later branded Filmation and the look of which was extensively replicated in various games, with notable examples of this being Batman and Head Over Heels from Ocean Software. Knight Lore along with some of its Filmation follow-up Alien 8, was actually made before Sabre Wulf but Ultimate decided that it could have a potentially adverse effect on sales of the comparatively primitive Sabre Wulf, so it was delayed until the latter half of 1984.