The goal in Tempest is to survive and score as many points as possible, by clearing the screen of enemies that appear on the playing field.

The player controls an articulating, claw-shaped ship at the near end of the field (referred to as a "blaster", or in some sources as the "Live Wire"), moving it left and right using a rotary knob.

Enemies first appear on the screen as swirling dots beyond the far end of the field, initially showing up one at a time, but coming faster and in greater numbers the more the game progresses.

Flippers, shaped like pairs of linked chevrons, attempt to catch the player's blaster and drag it to the far end of the field, costing a life if successful.

Fuseballs, white spheres with multiple tendrils, jump forward and back unpredictably along the edges of each lane, destroying the player's ship on contact.

Tankers, rhomboid in shape, slowly advance up the field in a particular lane, splitting into two Flippers upon destruction or reaching the player's ring.

Aside from the Fuseball and Pulsar, enemies can shoot destructible projectiles up the lane they reside in, which will destroy the player's ship if they impact.

The game was initially meant to be a first-person remake of Space Invaders,[3] but early versions had many problems, so a new design was used.

After this issue was discovered, Atari corrected the problem so that future machines were incapable of allowing the end score tricks.

[9] The original Tempest was included as part of Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1 for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Super NES.

The 2600 port was also released as part of the Atari Greatest Hits compilation for Nintendo DS and iOS devices.

[citation needed] Also in 2005, a port and graphical "remix" of the original Tempest was included as part of Retro Atari Classics for the Nintendo DS.

[citation needed] After the unfinished Atari 5200 prototype was found in 1999, its original programmer, Keithen Hayenga, resumed work on finishing the port.

[12] Chris Crawford wrote in 1982 that unlike Pac-Man, Tempest "intimidates many beginners because it appears to be unwinnable"; its smoothly increasing difficulty, however, encourages players to continue playing.

"[15] In 1996, Next Generation listed the arcade version as number 74 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting "it's very fast, it has abstract, color vector graphics that remain unequaled to this day, and its novel 'paddle' controller makes playing Tempest effortless.

[18] Shortly after the original game was released, an arcade owner named Duncan Brown hacked the level data and made an altered, harder version: Tempest Tubes.

It was eventually included with Tempest in the Hasbro compilation Atari Arcade Hits: Volume 1 for Microsoft Windows in 1999.