39-539: Jetman may refer to: Jetman, a character in a series of video games: Jetpac , 1983 Lunar Jetman , 1983 Solar Jetman: Hunt for the Golden Warpship , 1990 Jetpac Refuelled , 2007 Chōjin Sentai Jetman , the 1991 Super Sentai television series. Jetman, nickname for Swiss inventor and aviator Yves Rossy Topics referred to by
78-448: A Beatles -scale fandom" in the mid-1980s, and Next Generation named the brothers among the most influential people in the games industry in 1995. Develop recognised the brothers as Development Legends at their 2015 Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The 2015 Ultimate and Rare retrospective Rare Replay features a stamp collection game mechanic, in which the player receives stamps as awards that are used to unlock videos about
117-401: A college friend, John Lathbury. They followed the company's director when he started his own business, Zilec Electronics, which worked on arcade conversions . They worked on 12 arcade games, including Gyruss and Blue Print , and others whose names were kept secret and sold to other arcade manufacturers, including Konami and Sega . The job included international travel to Japan, where
156-521: A fervent fandom in the 1980s, were among the most influential developers of the 1990s, and were named "Development Legends" at the video game industry trade magazine Develop 's 2015 awards. Chris Stamper had a long-standing interest in electronics, and he built an oscilloscope in his youth. While at university, he built a kit computer with an 8-bit processor and taught himself how to program by creating traffic light signalling software. He attended Loughborough University of Technology with
195-558: A game compilation on the ZX Spectrum Vega . It spawned two direct sequels and a 2007 remake, Jetpac Refuelled , which was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service. The game world is presented in a horizontal wraparound and consists of three platforms which Jetman can manoeuvre onto. Jetman must assemble his rocket (which spawns in pieces scattered around the map), and then fill it with fuel before taking off to
234-693: A number of other games developed by Rare . The game is playable in Donkey Kong 64 , where it could be unlocked to play in Cranky Kong 's laboratory after obtaining 15 Banana Medals. Beating Cranky Kong's high score rewards the player with the Rareware Coin, which is necessary to beat the game. The game was retained in the April 2015 Virtual Console re-release of Donkey Kong 64 on the Wii U , despite
273-508: A part-time game". They only took two days off: two Christmas mornings. Tim Stamper referred to his custom-built Lamborghini as a token of his hard work. In the mid-1980s, following the success of their isometric Filmation game engine behind titles like Knight Lore , the Stampers founded a separate company: Rare Designs of the Future, later shortened to Rare. While Ultimate was built for
312-421: A rhythm-based platform game , in 2017, whose art and music recalled Rare's signature Donkey Kong Country -era style. The company is one of several new ventures planned by the Stampers. Tim Stamper broke with his reputation for secrecy around the same time by posting publicly on Twitter about Rare's canceled Project Dream . Bloomberg Businessweek described the brothers' software as having "something of
351-450: A successful game. Ultimate found success with games such as Jetpac (1983), Atic Atac (1983), Sabre Wulf (1984), and Knight Lore (1984), whose expansive experiences exceeded the scope of their contemporary arcade games. The brothers outsourced the programming of their games for other platforms to outside developers, for they preferred the work of making new games over re-programming old ones. The Stampers were reticent with
390-712: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Jetpac Jetpac is a shooter video game developed and published by Ultimate Play the Game and released for the ZX Spectrum and VIC-20 in 1983 and the BBC Micro in 1984. It is the first game to be released by Ultimate Play the Game , the company which later became Rare . The game follows Jetman as he must rebuild his rocket in order to explore different planets, while simultaneously defending against hostile aliens. It
429-600: The Interface 2 , allowing "instantaneous" loading of the game when the normal method of cassette loading took minutes. The game was also able to run on the 16K version of the Spectrum. The game sold over 300,000 copies and generated £1 million in revenue for Ultimate Play the Game, which enabled the Stamper brothers to gain a foothold in the early video gaming market. The game was critically acclaimed. Crash praised
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#1732787847828468-478: The Jetman series the most represented in the collection. Tim and Chris Stamper Brothers Tim and Chris Stamper are British entrepreneurs who founded the video game companies Ultimate Play the Game and Rare . They first worked together on arcade conversion kits, which were licensed to companies, but later became developers for the ZX Spectrum home computer in the early 1980s. Chris programmed
507-602: The British home microcomputer market, Rare was founded with an eye toward the burgeoning Japanese video game console market, having been apprised of Nintendo by their Japanese arcade industry contacts. Nintendo initially rebuffed the brothers' interest in 1983, which led Chris Stamper to study the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) hardware for six months. The brothers flew to Kyoto to present software samples to Nintendo executives. Nintendo purchased
546-652: The NES with R.C. Pro-Am in 1988. Chris later reflected that his British peers did not grasp the larger, international video game market, despite having what he considered to be the best talent. In the early 1990s, Rare invested in Silicon Graphics computers, which they used to prototype full computer-generated imagery rendering. Excited about this work, Nintendo purchased a quarter stake in Rare, which eventually expanded to 49%, and offered their cast of characters to
585-535: The Stampers left the company at the beginning of 2007. Tim Stamper's wife continued to work for the company. The brothers were inconspicuous in the public eye for the next decade. Chris Stamper purchased the Eydon Hall estate for £17m in 2004. A decade later, the brothers invested in FortuneFish, a new Nottingham-based mobile game studio started by Tim Stamper's son. FortuneFish released Kroko Bongo ,
624-569: The Stampers' Slalom , which sold half a million units, and made the Stampers into Nintendo's first Western third-party developer. As interest in Filmation and the Spectrum began to wane, the brothers sold part of Ultimate to U.S. Gold and began to focus on Rare, though the Stampers retained a majority stake in Ultimate. On the NES, Rare worked largely on licensed games and ports from other platforms for several publishers. The lucrative work
663-557: The brothers became acquainted with the Japanese game industry. During this time, Chris purchased, studied, and taught himself to program the new Z80 processor within two years. In 1982, the brothers started Ashby Computers and Graphics in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch with Lathbury and Tim's girlfriend, Carole Ward, whom he later married in 1985. They worked out of a four-room terraced house next door to
702-400: The brothers' family corner shop and ran on a shoestring budget for its first six months, in which they pooled their money to pay the bills. The company did not credit individuals on their releases, though they had individual roles in development: Chris and Lathbury programmed and Tim and Carole designed the graphics. Carole also served as the company's secretary. Ultimate Play the Game, as
741-589: The comic, photographs had to be processed manually on a photomechanical tone and then transferred to paper, being fully colorized in the late 1980s. Jetpac was followed by two sequels: Lunar Jetman (1983) and Solar Jetman (1990). The latter was not released for the ZX Spectrum, and a version for the Commodore 64 was finished but never released following disappointing sales of the original NES version. Since its release, Jetpac has been included in
780-425: The company expanded to several hundred employees. A group of employees left in 1997 to work for another Sony-focused studio, while another group left during production for the sequel to GoldenEye . Despite decent reviews, Rare's subsequent games did not appear to meet the high standards of their predecessors, and poor sales led to another staff exodus. After a two-year courtship, Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, and
819-506: The company through the mid-90s, while also serving as Rare's chairman and technical director. Tim, the managing director, continued to work on graphics for the company, including backgrounds in Donkey Kong Country . Their younger brother, Stephen, also worked as Rare's operations director. The Stampers encouraged competition between the company's development teams and were involved in the decision-making on every game, even when
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#1732787847828858-408: The company was publicly known, first licensed arcade cabinet conversion kits to companies before moving to the more profitable British home computer market. The brothers primarily developed for the ZX Spectrum , given Chris's expertise with its Z80 processor. Tim would later also develop the concepts behind new intellectual properties. The brothers each had a strong intuition for the elements of
897-655: The company. The Stampers chose Donkey Kong , and their resulting Donkey Kong Country (1994) was immensely successful and a best-seller on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . Rare's success continued with the Killer Instinct fighting game series and a series of games for Nintendo's Nintendo 64 console in the mid- to late-1990s, including Banjo-Kazooie , Blast Corps , Diddy Kong Racing , Jet Force Gemini , Donkey Kong 64 and GoldenEye 007 . The latter became
936-422: The definitive first-person shooter of the era for home consoles and led to a spiritual sequel, Perfect Dark . We feel that a 9-to-5 work ethic produces a 9-to-5-type of game. Chris Stamper to Bloomberg Businessweek in 1995 Internally at Rare, the Stamper brothers were demanding bosses who continued to work 15-hour days after transitioning into management roles. Chris Stamper continued to code for
975-404: The games, while Tim designed the graphics. They found success as Ultimate with games including Jetpac and Knight Lore . After reverse engineering the Nintendo Entertainment System and deciding to shift their focus to console development, the brothers founded Rare in the mid-1980s. They became Nintendo's first major Western developer, for whom they developed licensed games and ports . Over
1014-405: The graphics and presentation, citing that they were of "the highest standard" and added that it was "difficult to find any real faults" with the game. CVG similarly praised the graphics, stating that the presentation was "superb" and the gameplay was considered addictive. In a retrospective review, Chris Wilkins of Eurogamer noted that the colourful graphics and sound effects were advanced for
1053-401: The intent of earning degrees in electronics and physics, but left the university in 1981 to pursue computer programming full-time. Chris worked with arcade machine electronics, resolving software bugs and converting Space Invaders into Galaxian machines. He persuaded his brother Tim to join him. The brothers worked as game designers at the arcade game company Associated Leisure with
1092-410: The next planet, where the procedure is broadly repeated with alternate procedures. In addition, the player has to defend themselves from the planet's aliens, and for bonus points collect valuable resources which occasionally fall from above. After the first level, the rocket stays assembled and just requires refuelling. However, every four levels, the rocket resets (giving the player an extra life) and
1131-497: The next two decades, Rare enjoyed a close relationship with Nintendo and developed multiple major titles for the company, including Donkey Kong Country and GoldenEye 007 . Microsoft acquired Rare in 2002, and the brothers left the company in 2007. After spending several years out of the public eye, the brothers are currently planning new ventures. The Stampers are taciturn toward the press and known for their work ethic and promotion of inter-team competition at Rare. They enjoyed
1170-475: The other would concentrate on other aspects such as sound or graphics. While developing Jetpac , the Stamper brothers closely studied the burgeoning Japanese gaming market and had started to practice developing games for their then-upcoming console, the Famicom , later predicting that the ZX Spectrum had a limited lifespan. Jetpac was one of the few Spectrum games also available in a ROM format for use with
1209-443: The press and only rarely gave interviews. They explained that this was both to protect their own time and due to their preference to let their games speak for themselves. Their brand benefitted from this mystique of secrecy, but their reclusiveness was the subject of derision from other UK developers who otherwise greatly respected their work. The Stampers were known for working 18-hour days and believed that part-time work "resulted in
Jetman - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-454: The property being technically owned by Microsoft. An enhanced remake of Jetpac , entitled Jetpac Refuelled , was released on the Xbox Live Arcade in March 2007. Microsoft's E3 2015 press conference unveiled the compilation title Rare Replay , which has a selection of thirty games from Rare's lifetime game library, including the original Jetpac and its two sequels and remake, making
1287-405: The replacement has to be built before it can be refuelled for takeoff. Each new model has a new design with a higher number written on it, although the core gameplay remains unchanged. The enemies change forms each level (cycling back to the first after eight levels) and each alien has a different pattern of movement which means they can be dealt with in a different manner. Ultimate Play the Game
1326-408: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Jetman . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jetman&oldid=809839380 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1365-490: The time, but what truly made for a "faultless" experience was its simple gameplay. ZX Computing praised the game's playability and replay value, stating that Jetpac was "a very well put together piece of software". The game was number one in the first Spectrum sales chart published by CVG . The ZX Spectrum version was voted number 73 in the Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time in 1993 and
1404-549: Was founded by brothers Tim and Chris Stamper , along with Tim's wife, Carol, from their headquarters in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1982. They began producing multiple video games for the ZX Spectrum throughout the early 1980s. The company were known for their reluctance to reveal details about their operations and then-upcoming projects. Little was known about their development process except that they used to work in "separate teams"; one team would work on development whilst
1443-523: Was largely not innovative, but helped the Stampers learn the console's technology. After reverse engineering the hardware, Chris Stamper's proficiency led him to develop a handheld NES console prototype prior to the release of Nintendo's portable Game Boy . Chris thought that Rare's rural setting—the company was based in a farmhouse in Twycross —was relaxed and refreshing for the game development mindset. The company earned its first million-selling hit for
1482-533: Was voted the 14th best game of all time by the readers of Retro Gamer for an article that was scheduled to be in a special Your Sinclair tribute issue. The game won the title "Game of the Year" at the 1983 Golden Joystick Awards . After the game's release, Jetpac was parodied in a long-running Crash comic strip named Lunar Jetman . The strip, designed by John Richardson, lasted from July 1984 to October 1991 and gained popular reception from readers. To develop
1521-475: Was written by Ultimate co-founder Chris Stamper with graphics designed by his brother, Tim Stamper. Reviewers praised Jetpac ' s presentation and gameplay, and it won "Game of the Year" at the Golden Joystick Awards in 1983. Jetpac has since been included as an unlockable minigame in 1999's Donkey Kong 64 and as part of the 2015 compilation Rare Replay . It was later included in
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