Re: Tempest Gameplay Question

>
>7) Level 81 (green circle) is the highest starting level. Most expert
>Tempest players agree that green is actually easier than the
>black/invisible levels that precede it. It is a bit faster, but it restores
>one of the most valuable visual clues in the game - the tell tale break in
>the outer edge caused by a pulsar (which is missing in the black/invisible
>levels). After level 96 (green figure eight/infinity), you are back to the
>green circle (97) and green square (98). Level 99 is the highest recorded
>by the game and consists of a never ending supply of random green shapes.
>Every time you finish the round or loose a life, you will end up with a
>different shape. To achieve a world record score, you will spend *most* of
>your time playing level 99 over and over again. If you can keep your rate
>of loss to roughly one life per two rounds (at 20K bonus), you can
>theoretically play forever. Tempest isn't a very good marathon game,
>however, as it only lets you build up five lives max at any one time. A
>30-second bladder break while playing level 99 will pretty much wipe you
>out. ;-)

Hey Eric,

Are the green levels truly faster than the black ones? I remember when I
first got there way back when:) that I was a little disappointed that the
green levels seemed to me to be no different than the black levels in terms
of speed. And since you were now able to see the figure again they were
actually a bit easier. I always wondered why the designers didn't save the
black figures for last since they are the hardest (and also the coolest
looking:)). I still play the game a lot (of course), and the greens still
to this day don't seem any faster than the blacks to me. Just curious
(from one long time player to another).

Hey, someday I'll have to come by and challenge you (or if you're ever in
the San Francisco area, feel free to stop by:))...

And another reason that Tempest is VERY difficult to have a marathon game
on is that in some situations, no matter your skill level, you will die. I
most hate it when you are going along just fine on the black or green
levels and then all of a sudden, a pulsar will just appear randomly in your
lane already it the "pulsed" state. Thus, you die instantly with
essentially no chance of getting out of it (Eric, is there a way out of
this situation that you know of?)

>
>8) The highest score recordable by the game is 999,999 (a horrible error on
>the part of the designers IMO...Clay, how about a fix? <g>). Starting at
>81, you get there pretty fast (mid way through the greens). With a bit of
>practice, you can end the game at exactly 999,999. Do that three times and
>no one will ever be able to beat your score on a single machine (w/o
>clearing the high score table).

And Eric forgot to mention another added difficulty here...when you get
real close, you not only have to be VERY careful not to overshoot 999,999,
but if your score is on an even number at that point, the only way to
change it to an odd number (to allow for 999,999) is to shoot a spike all
the way down. Each "piece" of a spike is worth 2 points with the exception
of the final "piece" which is worth 1 point.

I second his request to Clay for a fix...I know what my all time high score
is, but I want to be able to have evidence of it on my game to show the
rest of the world...:).

Also, it is a good idea to get in the habit of saving your superzappers for
the end of each figure. This isn't as important on the beginning levels,
but once you make it to the levels with multiple fuseballs, you really need
both zappers at the end or the fuseballs in particular can surround you
multiple times and take several lives before you know it. (I'm assuming
that you know about the second zapper per figure that takes out one enemy
only, but usually the one that is the most threatening to you at the time
you use it which is usually a fuseball bearing down on you at the end of a
figure).

Oh yeah...and another skill that separates the boys from the men on Tempest
IMHO is the ability to recognize the slightly different behavior of some of
the enemies depending upon the figure. For instance, the flippers on the
circle will travel up the tube staying in one lane for the whole trip. On
the square, the flippers will bounce around from lane to lane in a circular
direction. On the 4th figure (I call it the "peanut"), the flippers will
constantly change direction as the move up the tube, bouncing from lane to
lane and changing direction a couple of times before making to the end of
the tube. This behavior is the same for each figure no matter what color
level you make it to...i.e. the flippers will behave as described on the
blue circle (level 1), the red circle (level 17), the yellow circle (level
33), etc. The exception only comes when you get to level 99 where the
behavior, like the figure order, becomes random.
And I also believe that the pulsars change lanes at different speeds
depending upon the figure.

As you can probably tell, I play this game too much still...:)

Jonathan

Jonathan Koolpe
Staff Research Associate
University of California, San Francisco
Department of Microbiology & Immunology
Tel: (415) 476-9371 Fax: (415) 476-8201
mail to: jkoolpe@itsa.ucsf.edu

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Received on Wed Oct 11 12:41:28 2000