Tempest (arcade game)
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| Tempest | |
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| Developer(s) | Atari |
| Publisher(s) | Atari |
| Designer(s) | Dave Theurer |
| Release date(s) | 1980 |
| Genre(s) | Fixed shooter |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Platform(s) | Arcade |
| Input | Rotary controller, 2 buttons |
| Arcade cabinet | Standard, cabaret, and table |
| Arcade display | Vertical orientation, Vector (color), size: 19 inch |
Tempest is an arcade game by Atari, originally designed and programmed by David Theurer. Released in 1980, it was fairly popular and had several ports and sequels. The game is also notable for being the first video game with a selectable level of difficulty, in this case determined by the initial starting level. The game is a tube shooter, a type of shoot 'em up where the environment is fixed, but is shown from a three-dimensional perspective.
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[edit] Gameplay
In each of the first sixteen stages of the game, the player controls the back-and-forth motion of a yellow claw-shaped spaceship at the near end of a geometrically simplified wireframe tunnel or field. This play area is entirely constructed of deep blue straight line segments, creating a striking illusion of depth. These tunnels (or fields) have sixteen shapes which will appear in repeating sequence: some loop onto each other and close (hence the effect of a tunnel), while others do not (field). Not surprisingly, the first stage is a simple closed oval shape.
In each stage, the player is perched at the near end of the tunnel/field (on its circumference, as it were, in the case of a closed shape) while enemies (represented initially by red dots) gather at the far end of the tunnel. They will, in groups, then attach onto the "surfaces" of the tunnel, revealing their "species", and begin heading toward the player.
The player has two ways to get rid of these meanies and advance to the next level: the ordinary gun, which can produce a limited stream of bullets, and another weapon called the Superzapper. This "smart bomb" can only be used twice per level (but is recharged automatically upon advancing): the first firing destroys all enemies which have already entered the tunnel, while the second destroys a random enemy, usually the one closest to the player. As is usual for this type of game, a limited number of player's bullets may be in play at any moment. Hence, the player must develop strategies for optimizing his/her firepower. Additionally, if the Superzapper is not fired until the last of the enemies has entered the tunnel, using this weapon will immediately destroy all opposition, and the player will advance. The animation for this process of advancement is one of the highlights of the Tempest experience and is best experienced directly.
Tempest's menagerie of meanies is varied and highly sophisticated. It consists of the following (note that the colors indicated below change at higher levels):
- Flippers are red bowtie-shaped enemies. They progress toward the player slowly at first, occasionally flipping (in full rotation animation) back and forth between the tunnel sides or field segments. They are the first species of enemy to appear in Tempest. An important characteristic of these creatures is their vulnerability to fire while in the process of flipping, which takes longer depending upon the amount of rotation required from segment to segment. Flippers may flip while traveling towards the player, but once they arrive at the near end, they remain there until shot, or until the player is captured by direct contact. Flippers are also quite docile (and easy targets) in early gameplay, but quickly get more aggressive.
- Tankers are purple diamonds that travel directly towards the player at a steady pace, firing as they go. Once they are shot or reach the player's end, they immediately "deploy" into a matched pair of a pre-determined enemy (excepting Spikers). They first appear at the third level, as Flipper Tankers. The most dangerous species of enemy in Tempest is then, of course, the Fuseball Tanker, but this variety is not encountered until a very high level of play is achieved.
- Spikers are green spirals. They roll in a straight line toward the player along an invisible center line of each geometric playfield segment, generating visible green Spikes. They're then confined to their spikes and do not reach the near end, and actually use the spike as armor, because spikers may also move away from the player. Spikes can be shortened and destroyed by shooting them, even while advancing from level to level, but if the player is impaled on any remnant while in the process of advancing, a life is lost. Spikers first appear in the fourth stage. It is also worth noting that an undestroyed "protected" spiker must reverse direction, leave the far end of the playfield, and re-emerge as a different enemy (usually a tanker), before advancement can take place. Beginning players who first encounter Tempest and play the early stages are presented with the explicit warning: "AVOID SPIKES". At stages 4, 5, and 65 through 68, the player's velocity is low enough that it is possible to whittle down a full-length spike (firing continuously) while advancing out of the stage. At later stages, the player's velocity increases so that the maximum length of spike that the player can thus whittle down decreases greatly, such that by stage 12 and again by stage 76, the maximum length of spike that one can whittle down all the way is 8 shots worth; spikes of greater length will only be partially whittled down, and the player must dodge or be impaled. This is easy to observe after an impalement or two.
- Fuseballs are multicolored spark enemies with power to instantly disintegrate the player on contact. They move very quickly up and down, but only slowly across, the playfield. Their motion on the playfield is restricted, however: Since they are "fuses", they can only move along the visible lines of the playfield, or "drift" (only laterally) from line to line, interrupting their progress towards the player. Fuseballs are vulnerable to return fire only when so drifting, but become invulnerable to bullet fire once the near end is reached, because they do not flip between segments. Their point value is displayed when hit. Only a superzap can eliminate a marauding fuseball at the player's end, but always does. Fuseballs first appear in the eleventh stage. While they're the most attractive meanie, they're the most daunting.
- Finally, Pulsars are sophisticated "electrified" flippers, in the form of pulsating zig-zags. As they individually flip among the playfield segments, their collective voltage rises and falls at a constant tempo. At maximum voltage pulsars are able to briefly electrify an entire playfield segment, but only if it isn't in the process of flipping. If the player's ship is touching such a "live" segment at that instant, it is blown apart. This makes it unwise for the player to remain stationary for any length of time, pounding away at spike remnants, for example. Pulsars first emerge in stage 17, which is the first level of the second wave of tunnel shapes. On a Tempest machine adjusted to a high difficulty setting, they fire shots at this stage, but on a machine adjusted to a low or medium difficulty setting, they fire no shots until stage 60.
All Tempest's troublemakers except fuseballs may shoot at the player, but these shots are destroyed by return fire.
[edit] Levels
There are 16 distinct level or shapes in Tempest:
- oval
- rectangle
- plus
- bowtie
- cross
- triangle
- clover
- V
- steps
- U
- flat (bowling alley)
- heart
- star
- W
- fan
- infinity (figure 8 on its side)
After completing all 16 shapes the levels repeat but with a different color set:
- 1-16: blue
- 17-32: red
- 33-48: yellow
- 49-64: cyan
- 65-80: invisible
- 81-96: green
- 97-up: green with random shapes chosen after level 100
[edit] Trivia
Tempest 's design sported three main innovations for the time:
- Color vector graphics. All previous vector games were black and white. ie: Asteroids, Lunar Lander, Space Wars, etc.
- Progressive level design - Arcade shooter games of the time typically consisted of just one level, repeated over and over with an increasingly difficult challenge. Tempest consisted of 16 levels comprised of different shapes and enemies, which, once completed, would be repeated in a different colour and in more difficult form.
- The continue - Tempest was the first to allow players to resume playing on a higher initial level once they had lost all their lives, instead of having to start from the beginning again, a feature that has become standard in later arcade games.
The game makes a cameo at the end of Rush's video for the song Subdivisions.
Tempest appears in the sci-fi comedy film Night of the Comet and also Fast Times at Ridgemont High during the opening credits.
The game was initially meant to be a 3D remake of Space Invaders, but such early versions had many problems, so a new design was used. Theurer says that the design came from a dream where monsters crawled out of a hole in the ground.
It is #10 on the KLOV's list of most popular games, tied with Centipede.
There were a total of three different cabinets used for this game. The most common is a standard upright-style cabinet with colorful side art in the basic shape of a triangle over a rectangle. A less flashy and more traditionally-shaped cabaret-style cabinet with optional side art and a cocktail-style table cabinet were also released.
[edit] Ports and sequels
An official port has been released for the Atari ST. Prototypes exist for the Atari 2600 and 5200. While the Atari 2600 version suffered in both graphics and playability, the 5200 version showed more promise. There was an edit of the original arcade game called Tempest Tubes, which changes the levels to make them harder. An official port (bearing the Atari logo) was released by Superior Software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron in 1985. A PC port of the game was released for Microsoft Windows 3.x as part of the Microsoft Arcade package.
The game had two sequels, Tempest 2000, for Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, and Sony PlayStation (the latter under the name Tempest X3), and Tempest 3000 for Nuon enhanced DVD players.
In 2005, the original Tempest was included as part of Atari Anthology for the Xbox and PlayStation 2.
Also in 2005, a port and graphical "remix" of the original Tempest was included as part of Retro Atari Classics for the Nintendo DS. This version deviates significantly from the basic rules and experience of the original game.
Tempest is scheduled for release via Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 in 2007.
An unofficial sequel by Jeff Minter to Tempest 2000 and Tempest 3000 for Xbox Live Arcade is Space Giraffe.
 Atari ST port |
