We are excited to learn of yet another Ultimate game which was apparently in the works for the Commodore 64.
Following on from the successful conversion of Nightshade, Shahid Ahmad was offered the chance to convert both Knightlore and Alien 8 for Firebird Software.
Unfortunately though, things went sour with Ultimate after Shahid got himself an agent, and the agent tried to contact the Stampers. The Stampers at this point stopped all contact – something which Shahid has ever since regretted. A huge shame!
What is not known is if the conversion was offered to anyone else after that point, or if it just faded away due to not being able to find someone else up for the job. I guess we may learn in time!
Contributions: Vinny Mainolfi
Interesting that Shahid Ahmad also wrote Firebird’s “Chimera” (which *did* make it to the C64). Upon closer inspection that has an incredibly similar premise to “Alien 8”, i.e. both are isometric 3D room-based arcade adventures set on space stations and both feature similar-looking robots as the lead character!
Is this pure coincidence(?!) and did Chimera come out before or after the abandoned proposal to convert Alien 8 to the C64?
I think you are onto something Michael, and can’t believe I didn’t realize the same thing!
It could well be that Chimera was indeed an Alien 8 conversion that was abandoned, then redeveloped into Chimera. Hopefully we will hear from Shahid at some point to see if that may have been the case. It could also just be that it was a new development, just inspired by the Alien 8 game. We’ll see hopefully in time!