Tempest
Tempest is a 1981 arcade game by Atari Inc., designed and programmed by Dave Theurer. It takes place on a three-dimensional surface, sometimes wrapped into a tube, which is viewed from one end and is divided into a dozen or more segments or lanes. The player controls a claw-shaped spaceship (named Blaster) that crawls along the near edge of the playfield, moving from segment to segment.
Tempest was one of[vague] the first games to use Atari's Color-QuadraScanvector display technology. It was also the first game to allow the player to choose their starting level[citation needed] (a system Atari dubbed "SkillStep"). This feature increases the maximum starting level depending on the player's performance in the previous game, essentially allowing the player to continue. Tempest was one of[vague] the first video games to sport a progressive level design in which the levels themselves varied rather than giving the player the same layout with increasing difficulty levels.[citation needed]
Photo Credit: Adam Mayer