More finds from the dig. This time the animation sequence of an unused flying saucer thingy.

Predictably, attempting to assemble Tempest with these unused player ships enabled completely hangs the assembly and link process on my emulated PDP-11. I definitely want to see if I can get a version of the game running with these unused claw designs!

For reference, here is what David Theurer/Atari eventually settled on. A simple iconic design that only requires a handful of vector commands to draw.

The final group of unused player ships is something else again. Definitely not a claw, but has claw-like properties!

This second group is much more recognizably #tempest. They have a lot of detail that was later dropped though.

I think these are all in the same family. They kind of look like stages in an animation, but they don't at all resemble the player's ship that was used eventually. They are obviously much more complex articles than the final product!