Tempest Arcade 1,000,000+ High Score
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- This is my current all-time high score game of 1,022,589 at default arcade settings.
The settings are shown at the end of the video: medium difficulty, bonus every 20k, 3 starting lives.
According to Twin Galaxies, this would currently be the #3 world record score.
I have modified my Tempest machine replacing the vector monitor and I currently have the Vector Labs multi-game ROM installed. These things don't effect game play at all, but that might make it more difficult to get it verified as a high score. This video is good enough proof for me though!
Brings back good memories from college. I played this so much I actually dreamed it. Spent a lot of coins initially to get good. Loved the invisible and green levels.
Carl and I were Tempest nemeses back in 1982 when the game was popular. We used to leapfrog each other's high scores wherever the games in town were strategically placed for maximum bragging rights. I was a good player, but Carl was amazing. His hand-eye was matched only by the most elite players I knew. There was no game he couldn't master with just a little effort, no score in Tempest I could put down that he wouldn't beat a week or two later.
With some practice we could both easily pass Level 65, but for what seemed like an eternity, passing Level 73 was a chore. We needed nine consecutive levels of solid play to get there, and we just weren't good enough yet. Then one day, I passed 73, played through it with the Skil-Step on my next quarter, and bagged a respectable 740K.
Three days later, Carl put 927K on the same machine. Without missing a beat, he blew through Level 81 like it was nothing.
Dejected but undeterred, I kept playing. And playing. And playing. Finally, about three weeks later I passed Level 81 and, using Skil-Step (and down to my last man in abject panic), I finally passed it. Two levels later I was at 932K. I'd finally beaten him. But I wasn't done yet.
On my next quarter, I rolled the score. I had thought to tack 9s on the high score first, but I really wanted to prove that I could roll the game, and since my 932K was already at the top, I took the calculated risk. And if I could get to Level 81 once, I could do it again. Besides, I figured the guys watching me would be reliable vouchers just in case I didn't make it back on the next game.
On my quarter after that, I tacked 999,xxx at the top. I don't remember what xxx was, but there was plenty of margin to beat it.
On my quarter after that, I failed to pass Level 81, and Skil-Step dropped me down to 73 again. I was done for the evening. But the endorphin buzz kept me awake for most of that night.
I found Carl in the arcade a couple of days later, and with his ego bruised but his dignity still intact, he graciously conceded the duel to me. While I'm certain he could have tacked straight 9s on the high score if he were determined, he was really the kind of guy who preferred to go two hours on a single quarter playing any of the "Big Four" Williams games (Joust, Robotron 2084, Defender, Stargate). He was content to let me have the one. Besides, Tempest ate quarters like elite athletes eats food. It wasn't cheap to master the game.
Fast-forward 35 years and I run into Carl at the local bike shop where he works to this day. We catch up, laugh off our duel, and discover that each of us now owns a Tempest video game (his an upright, mine a cocktail) in differing states of repair (mine is still broken). One day I'll fix it and have him (and the other elite players) over at my place for booze, food, games and music.
And we won't care who the better player is because, well, that wouldn't really be the point.
One-of-a-kind memories like these make life worth livin'
This is a cool game..all the sound effects and stuff it sounds awesome...I never really played it much, the game I loved most from the 80's was 'Robotron 2084' that also had awesome sound
Both of those were great but seriously hard.
Thanks!! Excellent video by a very skilled Tempest player. As a Tempest owner for decades, I have played 1000s of games over the years. In my prime I was able to reach the invisible grid levels on a single game often not dying once until I was in yellow levels. I think I was able to roll the score over million a couple of times, but took many back to back games to get over 1 million and reach the point where the game picked random grids. While in arcades in the 80s most high scores on machines were in between 600,000 - 700,000 which in the invisible levels. I guess the visible levels freaks out even skilled players who don't own the game. Over the years I have seen 999,.999 at the top of a few arcade cabs where the player intentionally stopped playing so not to role the score back to zero.
Thanks! Yeah, the invisible levels are still a challenge today. My reflexes aren't what they used to be, that's for sure! Twin Galaxies should add a high score category for people over 50 :)
Good god man, that's some amazing play, and impressed by the way you keep your nerve around those Fuseballs. Prefer seeing these to other videos that resort to using trainers because I can actually learn a thing or so and also just admire the skill involved.
Thanks!! You're seeing the result of many, many hours of my youth spent in arcades pumping quarters/tokens back in the day! The fuseballs have pretty predictable paths as long as the number of enemies remaining stay above a certain number, that is the key. Once the final enemies come into the tube, the fuseballs no longer go up and down the rails, they just come to the top and move to kill you.
The thing about fuseballs they don't teach you at the Tempest Academy is that if they're on the edge of the field and encroaching on your man, so long as you hold still, they won't kill you unless you're at the very end of the level when they stop dropping back. Otherwise, they'll only kill you on approach if your man is in the way.
TT4AD knows this too. Notice how close the fuseball gets to his man without ending him.
Spotted by the Dress Adds.
"Brings some."
Great gameplay.Bitd there was 2 guys at our arcade that could play from 1 to 99+ where after 99 any board comes up.They were awesome to watch play.
Thanks! I can only do the 99+ level rollover when the machine is set to "Easy" difficulty, not the standard arcade defaults. Good times!
At least you technically got “Turmoil” in a way!
Crazy how I loved this game at the 7-11 but never paid attention to how far I went. Now it seems I wasn't too bad since I remember these later stages from back then.
Been to 106, but yesterday at Replay couldn’t pass yellow. Been passed 81 on same machine, sometimes it seems like contacts need spraying. Great game
Protip - you can reshape the screen in post to square up and center your gameplays. Even on low end editors like Screenflow (which I use). I eschew high-level editors since most mid-level or screencap editors provide all the basics : timelines, asset libraries, superimposed text, sound management, transitions, FX, color and image correction, scaling-rotation & free-distort (and more), without all the extra UI clutter or added steps to do basic tasks. Pro-ware is nice if you're doing high-end projects with EDLs, muti-device source capture and export & motion graphics, but the low-end is surprisingly robust these days - and I've worked on AVIDs.
I never understood why if they were giving you level 81 which provides over 900,000 points - why they didn't add a decimal for 1m+ scores. Not easy (obviously) but certainly attainable when you're starting 100,000 points from it.
Thanks! I've recently switched to using DaVinci Resolve Studio for all my video editing and have been very happy with it. It handles H.265 content (from my Canon XF705) better than anything else right now. I'll definitely consider correcting for angle in future videos. This one I wanted to represent live recording as much as possible.
Regarding 1m+ high scores, yeah, it would be nice to have that extra digit, but those scores are really, really rare. I have been playing for over 35 years and have done it exactly once at arcade settings! I only know of a couple other scores that high ever. It probably wasn't worth the effort from a programming standpoint. Tempest's entire game code was 20K. Most 80s arcade high score tables were pretty limited and rolled over for advanced players.
COLEY FOLEY SAYS: U PLAY MUCH MORE LIKE COLEY FOLEY THAN THAT OTHER GUY... (MUCH MORE STATIONARY, CONTROLLED & SIMILAR PATTERNS.) NICE UPLOAD!
The pulsars look like they were on easy for light green. When I played it at my local hangout for light green they were flipping and buzzing even faster than this...or it sure seemed like it! You needed the sound up to hear them in their patterns ....this was a full intensity sensory” on” game for the day!
I can assure you this was on the medium difficulty setting. There is a "hard" setting where everything is even faster, so maybe your local arcade back in the day was especially greedy and had it set to hard!
I'm sure I'd struggle terribly to get past level 81 nowadays even on easy taking the ~46 jump to light green hack. Mad SkillZ on that gameplay!!!
Looked like medium setting to me.
I think the pulsars on "hard" shoot an extra bullet and pulse with a longer duty cycle. Maybe TT4AD can confirm, but I don't think the pulse is any faster than it is on medium.
well that took me back. i wonder if i still have the magic. is it, invisible, red, yellow, white, green?
Thanks! Close... it's blue, red, yellow, cyan, invisible, and green.
Didnt even clock the levels, pffft!
Great gameplay. Whats your record without continues.
later
-1
Thanks! I haven't tried a run like that in a long time, but I did record that I once (probably late 1980s) got 609,238 starting from level 1 playing to level 81. Back then, the machine would have been on "Easy" and bonus every 10k though so it's not like this score. On these easier settings, my high score is 1,248,935 at level 99+. I should try some of the marathon games again at default arcade settings as I think I'm now a better player than I was back then.
@@tentokensforadollar3492 yea try it on the standard arcade settings and start from level 1 with no bonus and try to top 999,999 . include a video of the invisible waves. then when finished play it again in "attract mode" and see how your fair when level 7 has fuseballs . I've done it many times but that was 30 yrs ago.
Starting on level 1 at Medium with no bonus, I would never make it to the green. It usually takes me a few games at arcade settings (with bonus at 20k) to get to 81. This video was all about showing an arcade setting game scoring over a million points. That is extremely rare and I've only seen a couple videos on UA-cam coming close to that. If you know of some, please let me know. Like I said in previous comments, I have only done it once (this video), and I had to play dozens of games to do it and practice quite a bit leading up to it to get back into "game shape". The green levels at arcade settings are extremely difficult.
How do you display that screen that shows the settings? I don't know what my game is set on.
If you open the coin door, there is a small switch near the top on the hinge side that will show those settings. Once in that mode, you can use the slam switch to cycle through a bunch of diagnostics screens which can also be pretty useful. Flipping the switch back will get you into normal gameplay again.
i just a week ago got this game i remember in the early 80s i played it once but i never forgot it so i recently got this game and i have been trying to figure out what is going on in this game what is the goal how do i not get killed it is a hard game to figure out
There is a decent wiki page on Tempest, but in general, like almost all 80s arcade games, the only goal was to get the highest score and not die. Start on the easiest (blue) levels to learn the game. Try to shoot the flippers before they reach the top or you'll have to time your shots to kill them. Each enemy has a specific pattern and behavior. Every 16 levels with the tube color change, the enemies get harder, but they still always follow specific rules. A big key to the game is learning the enemies and their various rules. The KLOV has a nice page on Tempest which includes all the manuals as well: www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10065
Good luck!!
@@tentokensforadollar3492 i only played this one time in 1981 but i never did forget tempest and all these years later 40 years wow but i recently got it but now i find it intense and hard to figure out but thats the game thanks for the info i will check it out tempest rules
You didn't use your super zapper in that last level. :-(
Oh, I know, it bugs me every time I watch it! I could have easily cleared that level if I had used it right there when I died. It works best to use it near the end of the level, so it's always a tough call, but I definitely should have used it there!
@@tentokensforadollar3492 I consider myself a pretty decent player, and I learned some things watching your video. You seem to have a good understanding about when the fuse balls are going to get you, and when they are just testing you. I hope to have my Tempest machine running again soon, and I plan to integrate some of your playing style with my own.
The worst part about playing 2 player in an arcade was when it was my turn to play again I would be wondering if I had already used my super zapper on the current level.
I just watched JMK's video. My style is closer to his, but your style looks less "chaotic". I'm definitely going to give it a try.
Thanks! Yeah, knowing when the fuse balls are going to go back down the tube and when they are going to stay at the top is very important at these higher levels. Basically, until the very end of every level, they will continue to go down the tube in a predicable pattern. That is why I like to save my super zapper until the very end of each level. If you use it a little too early, it's easy to get caught when the fuse balls stay on the top rim. FWIW, that is exactly what happened to me on level 90 around the 7:30 mark. In case you didn't know, you can track the number of enemies yet to be killed by looking at the red dots in the middle of the tube.
Anyone remember how to get the 40 free credits?
I do! Check out this video of mine where I demonstrate the 40 credit cheat and the level select cheat: ua-cam.com/video/iSMIRKSztPQ/v-deo.html
@@tentokensforadollar3492 awesome, guys at work said that I was full of shit. Now I have proof! Thanks 😊
@@tentokensforadollar3492 I remember riding my bike to the arcade with two quarters in my pocket, hoping I could get the free 40 and play all day!
Watching your video i see your reflexes are not that fast and your play style is almost impossible at your settings. I like to know who you really made it to level 81 - u must have had the game set to start on any level and not the standard way to start at level 9. I also notice you don't ride the spikes - a must if your not moving the spinner fast otherwise the enemy would always land on you especially in spots where no spikes are at in the pathway. SO, base on that info i know you had it set for easy mode. Its easy to edit the video to show settings after the game play. you should have showed the settings before played.
So, you are claiming my video is fake because my play style isn't like yours? I can assure you the game was set on standard arcade settings of Medium and bonus every 20k. If you really want to prove it to yourself, find a Tempest machine, or even play on an emulator, and check out the differences between Easy/Medium/Hard. Not only is the gameplay speed different, the maximum number of enemies on the tube are different (by 1 for each setting). Pause the video and count the maximum enemies and you'll see that it was on Medium.
You absolutely do not need to ride the spikes to kill the flippers on the top of the tube. You just need to have more precise shooting and shoot exactly when they are about to flip on you. (BTW, check out the comment below from 007coleyfoley - he says he also plays more in my style). Riding spikes is very dangerous at the higher levels because the pulsars are moving and pulsing so fast it's not a good strategy.
Thank you for watching!