Ultimate Play the Game

 Ultimate Play the Game was founded in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1982 by Tim and Chris Stamper. their close friend John Lathbury, and Tim's girlfriend (later wife) Carole Ward. Others from the Stamper family were also involved in the early administration and support of the business, which was initially located in a building next to the family-run newsagent. Chris and Tim both had experience in arcade game development. Chris was, according to one account, Konami's Gyruss. They claimed to be the "most proficient arcade design team in Britain" before they decided to quit their jobs and start Ashby Computers and Graphics. The first venture of ACG was creating arcade conversion kit and later ACG entered the home market to create games under the Ultimate Play the Game trademark. Blue Print was released by Ashby for Bally-Midway and Grasspin for Dingo. The Ultimate Play the Game's first release was Jetpac for the 16K Spectrum in May 1983. Tim Stamper stated that 16K machines were chosen because they're smaller and permit for faster development. They could develop two 16K games each month or one 48K game per month. Jetpac was a huge commercial success. It sold over 300,000. Spectrum versions alone. Jetpac, Pssst. Tranz Am. and Cookie were the only four games released on 16K ROMs to ZX Interface 2. ZX Interface 2. They were also republished on cassettes with distinct silver inlay cards, by Sinclair Research for inclusion in ZX Spectrum bundles.Ultimate's first 48K releases included Lunar Jetman - a sequel to Jetpac which was a sequel to Jetpac - as well as Atic Atac, both of which came out in late 1983. Both games were very well-liked by the media for gaming. CRASH magazine praised Ultimate's utilization of the additional memory Lunar Jetman provided. In 1984, came Sabre Wulf, the first of the Sabreman series and the first game released with a retail recommendation of PS9.95. The original price for Ultimate titles was only PS5.50. This was standard in Spectrum arcade-style games at the time. This was done in order to prevent pirates. This coincided with the launch of Ultimate of the exclusive "big box" packaging. The packaging was made available with all Spectrum releases except Gunfright. This was a successful strategy since Sabre Wulf went on to sell more than 350,000 copies on the Spectrum on its own. The game was released in late 1984. Sabreman Series' two subsequent installments came out. Underwurlde was soon followed by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was a major milestone in the computer-based home gaming market. It used a forced-perspective, isometric viewpoint called Filmation. The style was to be copied extensively in other games such as Batman and Head Over Heels by Ocean Software. Knight Lore and some of its Filmation sequels Alien 8 were actually completed before Sabre Wulf. However, Ultimate was concerned that it could be detrimental to Sabre Wulf's business, so it was put off until the end of 1984.