What are the "lost" Ultimate arcade games?

[Firefox]

I think that is a dot matrix color print of the loading screen

No, I don't think so. If you look carefully there's the graph-paper grid lines, the "pixels" look like somebody's got a felt-tip pen and just dibbed the nib into the squares, and the logo's been done on a separate sheet, cut out, and stuck on with yellowing sellotape.

[druellan]

I think that is a dot matrix color print of the loading screen

No, I don't think so. If you look carefully there's the graph-paper grid lines, the "pixels" look like somebody's got a felt-tip pen and just dibbed the nib into the squares, and the logo's been done on a separate sheet, cut out, and stuck on with yellowing sellotape.

Yeah, you're right! The dots look like hand made.

[djnzx48]

And they were always a bit mysterious people, not willing to talk much about their work.

Indeed. And still. Tim Stamper appeared on Twitter for just a few months back in 2015, then mysteriously went quiet. It was an interesting few months, though:

Perhaps it would be a good idea to archive this account somehow? Twitter are going to delete all inactive accounts in a little over a week's time.

[djnzx48]

There's a form here to submit accounts for archiving, but it's intended for the accounts of deceased people. Would it be appropriate to submit Tim Stamper's account?

[PeterJ]

A really interesting read [mention]Rev_Stuart_Campbell[/mention]

Thank you

[Joefish]

It very much looks like Atic Atac 3D at that stage...

Interesting the note with that picture says:

“New Game” became #KnightLore
Wonder what happens if I pull the chain?
Still working on #AticAtac at the time

So it looks like Knight Lore started out as trying to do an isometric version of Atic Atac. Remember that Atic Atac attempted a line-drawn 3D look to its rooms - at least, around the walls. This sketch looks more like something from Fairlight, with the steps at the back, but I notice that the room is otherwise empty. And even with that staircase, there's nothing really to go 'behind' (like in Quazatron). Even that block at the front is sloped to match the isometric floor line, so again a sprite wouldn't need to be drawn 'behind' it. The table and chairs at the bottom is the only hint of obstacles to come. I guess the full layered and masked graphics evolved from there, realising they'd still need to order and mask the sprites of any characters that move around in that space, and maybe even allow you to jump onto the tables, if you could jump up the stairs.

[toot_toot]

I don’t know why, but it always felt like Knight Lore was supposed to be a 3D Atic Atac but with the speed limitations of the Spectrum, it was turned more into a slower paced exploration game. The Filmation 2 games like Gunfright and Nightshade seemed to capture more of the faster pace of Atic Atac and I’m surprised they didn’t use the engine to make a 3D sequel to Atic Atac - or at least make Nightshade more of a sequel seeing as it has a similar structure of a handful of major baddies that must be defeated over the smaller ones. And to be honest, I didn’t really liked the slower 3D games like Knight Lore, Oentagram or Alien 8!

That’s why I can’t wait for the 3D remake of Atic Atac on the Next!

[Jennifer]

I know I'm really late to the party, but I've been investigating Tim and Chris Stamper's early arcade work for the West Elmira Computers Museum, and my search took me to this forum.

I haven't managed to find anything concrete yet to add to the list of their developed games, but I did manage to find that Chris Stamper did conversion work for arcade conversion kits (for playing popular arcade games on hardware for which they weren't originally designed) for Associated Leisure in 1979 and then for Zilec from 1980 until the formation of Ultimate Play the Game in 1983.

Because of this, the Commodore User article might not be entirely inaccurate in that it's entirely possible that the Stamper Brothers did work on Gyruss, but in converting it from one hardware system to another when it was published by Zilec, rather than creating the game itself.

Due to the fact that the Stamper Brothers made a conversion of The Pit for the Galaxian hardware (thanks to y'all for figuring that one out), it might be worth checking data in Galaxian conversions to see if the Stampers could be found there (Galaxian was created in 1979, so it's possible that the Stamper Brothers did conversion work for this hardware for Associated Leisure as well).

[Einar Saukas]

Is anyone willing to collect these images (the highest resolution available) please? I will gladly add everything to ZXDB as "original artwork".

This content deserves to be preserved!

[Rorthron]

Is anyone willing to collect these images (the highest resolution available) please? I will gladly add everything to ZXDB as "original artwork".

This content deserves to be preserved!

Was this ever done?

[PeterJ]

[mention]Einar Saukas[/mention], [mention]Rorthron[/mention] has sent me the 15 files via email and I have uploaded them via Pavel's form. The drawings are amazing!

[mention]pavero[/mention] could these go on our archive.org storage as they are quite large. Many thanks

[Einar Saukas]

Thank you!

[pavero]

Solved, I hope.

[PeterJ]

[mention]Rorthron[/mention],

The artwork is showing in the latest update:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/9 ... night_Lore

[Rorthron]

@Rorthron,

The artwork is showing in the latest update:

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/9 ... night_Lore

Thanks. (Also under Alien8.)

[MarkRJones1970]

Does anyone have any idea what ZOG is? It was mentioned earlier in the thread and Tim Stamper himself mentioned it in reply to my tweet about some design documents In February: