The player controls a claw-shaped blaster, shooting at enemies and obstacles, scoring points, and surviving multiple levels.

After Minter designed an audio visualizer for the Nuon, VM Labs asked him to refocus his efforts on Tempest, which was challenging due to the limited power of the console's hardware.

[10][14][15][16] He helped with software design and wrote the built-in VLM-2 audio visualizer for the Nuon DVD technology, then codenamed "Project X".

[18] The game was produced by Joe Sousa, who worked on Atari Jaguar titles such as Cybermorph and Kasumi Ninja.

[11][19] The soundtrack features nineteen songs, twelve of which are remixed tracks from Tempest 2000, while the remaining music are original compositions by André Meyer, Ian "T(NT)" Goddard, and James Grunke.

[1][5][11] Minter said it was difficult taking advantage of the Nuon's hardware due to its underpowered architecture, forcing him to limit the game program to less than four kilobytes of RAM.

[25][26][27][28] More details were announced during its E3 2000 showcase, revealing that Hasbro Interactive would publish the title as part of a multi-game deal with VM Labs.

[35][36] It was omitted from the Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story compilation due to Nuon being "a bridge too far" to emulate, according to Digital Eclipse editorial director Chris Kohler.

[43] Chris Johnston of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) highlighted its evolution of the series' gameplay, sense of humor, and difficulty.

[42] MyAtari magazine deemed it a must-have title for Nuon, commending the "jaw-dropping" visuals, techno soundtrack, and frenetic action.

[44] German website neXGam celebrated its impressive graphical department, soundscapes, and numerous levels, but criticized the lack of two-player versus and cooperative modes.

[2] The game's blurry visual effects were also criticized by several reviewers, including EGM, Syzygy, and Tips & Tricks.