Ultimate Play the Game

 Ultimate Play the Game was created in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1982 by Tim and Chris Stamper,[8] their friend John Lathbury, and Tim's girlfriend (later wife) Carole Ward. Others Stamper family members were involved in the initial operation and the support for Ultimate Play the Game, which was first located adjacent to a family-run newsagent. Chris and Tim were both employed in arcade games development, including Konami's Gyruss. Chris claimed to have been the "most experienced arcade videogame design team in Britain". After getting tired of working for other companies, he left to open Ashby Computers and Graphics. The company's first trade in the development of arcade conversion kits, and later expanding into the market for home computer software creating games under the Ultimate Play the Game name. Ashby released four arcade games: Blue Print for Bally-Midway, and Grasspin, Dingo and Saturn for Jaleco.Ultimate's initial release was Jetpac in May 1983 for the 16K Spectrum. Tim Stamper stated that 16K machines were chosen due to the fact that they're smaller and permit the development of games faster. He claimed they could develop two 16K games each month or one 48K game within a single month. Jetpac was a huge commercial success; the Spectrum version sold more than 300,000 copies , enabling the company with a revenue of excess of PS1 million.This was later followed by three other 16K releases, Pssst in June,Tranz Am, and Cookie which came out before Ultimate stepped up to the 48K Spectrum. Jetpac, Pssst, Tranz Am and Cookie were the only 10 games ever released in the 16K ROM format for use with ZX Interface 2. ZX Interface 2. The four games were released by Sinclair Research on cassette with distinctive silver inlay cards for inclusion in ZX Spectrum bundles. The games received very well by the gaming press. CRASH magazine was particularly amazed by what Ultimate did with the additional memory Lunar Jetman featured. [15] In 1984 came Sabre Wulf, the first game in the Sabreman series, and the first release with a recommended retail price of PS9.95. The cost of Ultimate games was previously just PS5.50, which was typical for Spectrum arcade-style games at the time This increase was to discourage from piracy, with the intention being that if customers paid more for games, they would be less inclined to share copies. This was also the time of the introduction of Ultimate of the exclusive "big box", packaging. The packaging was made available for every Spectrum releases , except for Gunfright. Sabre Wulf was able to sell over 350,000 copies on its own on the Spectrum. The sequel to the Sabreman series was released in 1984. Underwurlde followed quickly by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was a significant breakthrough in the gaming for home computers market. It featured a forced-perspective isometric camera, dubbed Filmation. This style would be widely copied in other games such as Batman and Head Over Heels by Ocean Software. Knight Lore as well as some of its Filmation sequels, like Alien 8, was actually made before Sabre Wulf but Ultimate decided that it could have a potentially adverse effect on sales of the more basic Sabre Wulf, so it was put off until late in 1984.