Ultimate Play the Game

 In the year 1982, Ultimate Play the Game was founded in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, by Tim and Chris Stamper. [8] Their acquaintance John Lathbury and Tim's girlfriend, Carole Ward, founded the business. Other members of the Stamper family were involved in the initial running and support of the company and was initially located in a house that was located next to the family-owned newssagent. Tim and Chris both Tim and Chris had worked in the field of arcade game development, as well as, according to one article, Konami's Gyruss, and were credited as "the most experienced arcade video game design team in Britain" until they got tired working for others and departing to form Ashby Computers and Graphics. The first trading in arcade conversion kits, before moving into the home computer software market 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. In an interview with the company in 1983 Tim Stamper said that they decided to target 16K machines because their smaller size meant that development time was much shorter as they could make two 16K games in a month and one game that was 48K. Jetpac was a commercial hit. The Spectrum version sold over 300,000 copies, which provided the company with a revenue of over PS1 million. Jetpac, Pssst and Tranz Am were only four of 10 games that were ever released in 16K ROM format. The four games were released by Sinclair Research on cassette with distinctive silver inlay cards for inclusion in ZX Spectrum bundles. Both games were well-received by the media for gaming. CRASH magazine praised Ultimate's utilization of the additional memory Lunar Jetman supplied. 15 Sabre Wulf appeared in 1984. It was the first Sabreman game, and the first to be released with a retail recommendation of PS9.95. The Ultimate games were previously priced at PS5.50. This was the standard for Spectrum arcade-style titles of that time. The higher price was imposed to deter the practice of piracy. The players wouldn't be inclined to share their copies when they had to pay more. This coincided with the launch of the distinct Ultimate "big box" packaging (used with all the subsequent Spectrum releases until Gunfright and also with other games on other platforms), which the company believed could assist in justifying the increase and encourage players to purchase the game rather than copy it. This strategy worked in the end, as Sabre Wulf went on to sell over 350,000 copies on the Spectrum by itself. The next installment of the Sabreman series was released in 1984. Underwurlde was followed shortly by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was something of a revolution in the home computer game market, using a forced-perspective perspective known as Filmation that was the model which was widely copied in various games, with notable examples include Batman and Head Over Heels from Ocean Software. Knight Lore as well as some of its Filmation successors like Alien 8 Alien 8, was actually finished before Sabre Wulf but Ultimate decided that it could cause a negative impact on sales of the relatively primitive Sabre Wulf, so it was delayed until the latter half of 1984.