Nice and colorful to look at, but a over-sized logo cuts the game area to an almost silly size. The game is a side way scrolling SEU, and in typical old school fashion too.
Quite possibly the logo is only here for the sake of the preview, and is removed in the full game. Graphically the game is quite good for its age, featuring some nice bas-relief shading. Main sprites look good too.
Unfortunately, apart from some credits, we don’t have much on the game at all, and don’t know how complete it ever became. The coder was Ultimax of INXS , though sadly we have learnt that he passed away in 2021.
Strange name… and that is because (thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni – who has a much sharper brain than I) it is in fact the developer’s handle “Ultimax” written backwards.
If anyone knows more about the title and its history with Ultimax, please do get in touch.
Contributions: TRB, Fabrizio Bartoloni, Professor Chaos
Supporting content
Available downloads
- Preview_Xamitlu.zip (zip)
Gallery
Update history
- 10/09/24 – Details about the developer passing away in 2021.
- 09/09/24 – Note about the name.
- 29/01/14 – Added fixed credits
Sadly, Johann Stoeten is no more: https://8bitlegends.com/2021/12/13/r-i-p-johan-h-stroeten-a-k-a-ultimax-the-east-agents/
That’s really sad to hear. Thanks for letting me know Professor Chaos – will update the page now quickly.
“Strange name… small sized game…” <– it's the demoscene handle of its author spelled backwards :)
I never saw that and can’t believe I missed it!! :D I’ll update the page now, thanks Fabrizio!
Oh, I thought this is quite obvious. ^^ So I never mentioned it specifically.
But in case you don’t know where the name Ultimax comes from. It derives from the Commodore MAX Machine, also called VC-10 and also called Ultimax. This was a short lived computer and was sold in small quantities only. But the name Ultimax lives on in the C64 as it is fully compatible with the MAX Machine. To deliver the compatibilty the C64 has a special memory configuration that is called Ultimax mode.
Please see here for more about the Max Machine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAX_Machine
That’s the scary thing, it *should* have been when the credits were established! :D
Looking at the first part after the intro of the demo “Fairy Males” by Benni Bärenstark of INXS a game preview by Ultimax of INXS named “Xamitlu” is mentioned in the lower scroll.
Thanks trb! So it looks like Ultimax was the coder. Gamebase also now have credits, so i’ve added these!