Tempest Multigame (thing)

The Tempest Multigame is an affordable arcade upgrade kit that will add several new features to your original Atari Tempest machine. This kit was created and is sold by Clay Cowgill at www.multigame.com.

What the Tempest Multigame does is upgrades your Tempest game to be a multi-game that includes all three official versions of Tempest, along with two prototype versions (Vortex and Aliens), one hack (Tempest Tubes), and a vector version of Breakout that isn't available anywhere else. The games are selected from a menu on boot up. All the normal Tempest versions share the same high score table, the prototypes don't have high scores, and Breakout maintains a seperate table for its scoring. Holding down player 2 start and fire while turning the machine on will clear all high scores.

What this kit basically does is takes all the software ever written for the Tempest platform and gathers it together in a single kit, along with a way for the game to select which software to run.

The Tempest Multigame kit works by replacing two key components on your original Tempest game board. The original 6502A processor is removed, and a daughter card with extra components is put in its place. Your old CPU goes onto the daughter card, or you might as well use a new 6502A, since they are only $5 anyway. Then a second daughter card is plugged into the sockets that previously contained the games EPROMs. Then you simply have to solder down three wires, and you are in business.

Tempest Multigame kits are currently priced at $129 USD and are available at www.multigame.com. I am kind of sceptical about this particular kits usefullness, although Tempest Tubes and Breakout are fun, the other versions add nothing but basically identical versions on the same game (or unfinished ones in the case of the prototypes). This is currently the only upgrade path available for Tempest, but it is rumored that a cartridge based game kit is on the horizon for this hardware, we shall have to wait and see.