You have three controls: a fire button (the left [CTRL] key if youre playing Tempest on MAME), a superzapper button (the [Alt] key the left one if yours is a US keyboard with two [Alt] keys, rather than a non-US keyboard with [Alt] and [AltGr]), and a knob (simulated with the left and right arrow keys). The knob moves your player around the top of the playfield (which is a plain on levels 11, 27, 43 etc., but is otherwise a trough or tube); fire does what youd expect; superzap kills all nasties when first pressed, but if used a second time only kills what the program judges to be the most dangerous nasty, and thereafter doesnt work until you move to the next level. Hint: to fire continuously, hold the fire button/key down this saves considerable wear on your hardware (which otherwise may not be so hardwearing)...
As shown below, there are 16 playfield shapes, and they are organised in waves of 16 of the same colour. (N.B. these are the shapes from the classic version of the machine there is at least one hacked version with different, harder, shapes.) Thus, level 1 is a blue circle; level 17 is a red circle; level 33 is a yellow circle; and so on. When you start a game, you can start on the last odd-numbered level you finished (in wave 1; the rule is different in higher waves), or level 9, whichever is the higher; unless the machine is set to free play, in which case you can start on level 81 if you so choose! (Practice on the lower levels first!)
Note 1: the fifth wave has invisible playfields! Lanes only become
visible when the player is standing in them, when pulsed by a pulsar, when lit
by the rainbow of an extra life or of a superzapper discharge, or when there is
a spike through them (revealing the presence of the lane, but not the lane itself).
Note 2: level 96, the end of the sixth wave, is the last unique level. If you reach level 97, you'll find it to be level 81 again...
Note 3: level 98 is the last one which follows the pattern; all following levels are numbered 99, and are of random shapes.
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