Ultimate Play the Game

 In 1982, Ultimate Play the Game was founded 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's headquarters were in a house close to the family-run newsstand. Chris and Tim had both worked on the development of arcade games including Konami's Gyruss. Chris claimed to have been the "most experienced arcade videogame design team in Britain". After tiring of working for various companies, he left to open Ashby Computers and Graphics. ACG's first trade was in arcade conversion kits. After that, ACG moved into the home software market , and produced games under the Ultimate Play the Game brand. Ashby launched four arcade games, Blue Print for Bally-Midway as well as Grasspin, Dingo and Saturn for Jaleco.Ultimate's first game was Jetpac in May 1983, for the 16K Spectrum. Tim Stamper stated that 16K machines were chosen because they're smaller, which allows for faster development. The company claimed that 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 alone sold over 300,000. This provided the young company with a turnover in excess of PS1 million.This was followed by three more 16K titles, Pssst in June, Tranz Am, and Cookie in the fall, and then Ultimate moved to the 48K Spectrum. Jetpac, Pssst. Tranz Am. and Cookie were the only four games ever released on 16K ROMs for the ZX Interface 2. 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 the gaming press. CRASH magazine praised Ultimate's utilization of the additional memory Lunar Jetman provided. The year 1984 saw Sabre Wulf, the first in the Sabreman series, and the first release with a retail recommendation of PS9.95. The Ultimate games had been previously priced at PS5.50. This was the standard for Spectrum arcade-style games of the time. The change was introduced to stop piracy. Customers aren't likely to copy copies when they had to pay more. This was also that Ultimate introduced the "big box" packaging. It was offered for subsequent Spectrum releases prior to Gunfright as well as other games for other platforms. The company believed that this would justify the higher price and make it easier for gamers to not duplicate the game. This strategy was successful, since Sabre Wulf sold over 350,000 copies during its first year on the Spectrum. The next instalment in the Sabreman series was released in 1984. Underwurlde was followed shortly by Knight Lore. Knight Lore was a revolution in the home computer game market. It featured a forced perspective isometric view branded Filmation which was the design which would be extensively copied in various games, with notable examples include 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 potentially have a negative impact on sales for the less than stellar Sabre Wulf, so it was delayed until the latter half of 1984.