Ultimate Play the Game

 aUltimate Play the Game, a Leicestershire-based game, was launched in Ashby-de-la-Zouch by Tim Stamper and Chris Stamper in 1982.[8] They were close to John Lathbury and Tim’s girlfriend (later wife), Carole Ward. Others Stamper family members were also involved in the beginning of the running and supporting of Ultimate Play the Game, which was first located adjacent to a family-run newsagent. Both Tim and Chris had worked in arcade game development including, according to one report, Konami's Gyruss, and claimed to be "the most experienced arcade video game design team in Britain" until tiring of working for others , and leaving to start Ashby Computers and Graphics. This resulted in ACG's first trading in arcade conversion kits. The company then began moving into the home computer software market creating 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 very first release was Jetpac for the 16K Spectrum in May 1983. In an interview in 1983, Tim Stamper said that they specifically targeted machines with 16K resolutions as their smaller size meant that development time was much shorter and that they could develop two games with 16K resolution in one month or one 48K game. Jetpac was a huge commercial success. It sold more than 300,000. Spectrum versions alone. Jetpac, Pssst. Tranz Am. and Cookie were the only four games released on 16K ROMs for ZX Interface 2. ZX Interface 2. The games were also republished on cassettes, sporting distinctive silver inlay cards, by Sinclair Research for inclusion in ZX Spectrum bundles.Ultimate's first 48K releases included Lunar Jetman - a sequel to Jetpac and Atic Atac both of which were released in the late summer of 1983. Both games were very well-liked by the gaming press. CRASH magazine praised Ultimate's use of the memory Lunar Jetman offered. [15The game Sabre Wulf was released in 1984, the first installment of the Sabreman series, and was priced at a suggested retail cost (PS9.95). The Ultimate games had previously been sold at PS5.50. This was the norm for Spectrum arcade-style games of the time. The price increase was made in order to prevent copying. Customers wouldn't be inclined to copy copies with a higher cost. This was also the time of the introduction of the unique Ultimate "big box" packaging (used with all further Spectrum releases up to Gunfright as well as with different releases for other platforms), which the company felt might also be a way to justify the cost increase and encourage users to purchase the game instead of copying it. This strategy worked since Sabre Wulf sold over 350,000 copies in its debut year on the Spectrum. It was followed by the release in the latter half of 1984 of the next two installments in the Sabreman series, Underwurlde quickly and then Knight Lore. Knight Lore which was a forced-perspective isometric viewpoint , also known as Filmation and was a major leap forward in the home-game market. The other games that followed the same path, including Batman and Head Over Heels, both made by Ocean Software. Knight Lore and some of its Filmation sequel Alien 8 were actually completed before Sabre Wulf. However, Ultimate believed that it might negatively impact Sabre Wulf's sales, so it was delayed until the latter part of 1984.