Tyrian (video game)

Tyrian
Developer(s)	Eclipse Software
Publisher(s)	Epic MegaGames
Designer(s)	Jason Emery (programming) Daniel Cook (art) Robert Allen (project manager)
Composer(s)	Alexander Brandon
Platform(s)	PC (DOS, Windows)
Release	June 10, 1995[1]
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Story, arcade

Tyrian is a scrolling shooter computer game developed by Eclipse Software and published in 1995 by Epic MegaGames.

The game was officially released as freeware in 2004, and the graphics were made available under an open content license in April 2007.

Tyrian was programmed by Jason Emery, illustrated by Daniel Cook, and its music composed by Alexander Brandon and Andras Molnar.

Plot

The game is set in the year 20,031. You play the role of a skilled terraforming pilot named Trent Hawkins, who is employed to scout out habitable locations on newly terraformed planets. His latest assignment is the planet Tyrian, which is located near the territory of the Hazudra, who are a lizard-like race.

One day, Buce Quesillac, a Hazudra and Trent's best friend, is shot in the back by a hoverdrone which quickly disappears into the sky. Buce lives just long enough to tell Trent that the attack was the work of MicroSol, the giant corporation that controls the terraformation of Tyrian. They want Buce dead because of his knowledge of Gravitium, which is a special mineral, unique to Tyrian, able to control the force of gravity.

Microsol want to use Gravitium to power their warships, which could result in them becoming nearly unstoppable. They will stop at nothing to eliminate anyone who knows of its existence. Trent is the next person on their hit list, and Buce implores him to try to reach Savara, a free world. With that, Buce dies. Trent manages to secure a small fighter, and departs for Savara.

Gameplay

Tyrian is an arcade-style vertical scrolling shooter. It was developed chiefly as a homage to the works of Compile, particularly their Zanac series.

The player controls a space ship fitted with different weapons (front and back, linked to the same button, and up to two external pods with their own buttons) and other equipment. The game presents a variety of enemies (some flying, some fixed, some on rails) and bosses, with many occurrences of fixed and/or indestructible obstacles. Before the player's starship is destroyed it must take enough damage to exhaust several points of shields (which regenerate over time) and armor.

Tyrian's full game mode features a credit and equipment-buying system, and the shield/armor hit points which are similar to game mechanics in Raptor: Call of the Shadows, another PC game from the same period. The arcade mode has characteristics from coin-op arcade shooters, such as in-game powerups and extra lives.

Difficulty

There are three levels of difficulty to choose from: Easy, Medium, and Hard, as well as the hidden options of Impossible, Suicide, and Lord of the Game. Hard difficulty and above employ enemies with more health as well as fire more bullets per second. Certain hidden levels are only available at hard difficulty, which provide ample opportunities for unique powerups and upgrades. In certain levels, the Hard setting also prevents the player from seeing enemies outside a conical line-of-sight. Upon completion of the game, the player receives a password for one of the several hidden ships, as well as the options for replaying the game at a higher difficulty setting.

Full story mode

The main mode is the single player full story mode. This mode includes storyline-related messages in the shop at the start of the level and when certain enemies are destroyed. At certain points in the game, the player has a choice of levels.

The player begins with one standard weapon, which may be upgraded or replaced. Later weapons include multi-directional cannons, lightning guns, beam lasers, heavy missiles, and homing bombs. The player's craft accommodates a front and a rear gun; where front weapons are mostly limited to forward arcs, "rear" weapons often come with wider coverage including side and rear shots. Some rear weapons have two selectable fire modes, focusing either mostly forward or mostly sideways/rearward. Both types of weapons have eleven levels, making them upgradeable 10 times, although higher levels cost exponentially more.

The player can purchase up to two "sidekicks" which fly alongside the ship. Some of these can be fired independently of the main guns. Other upgrades include increased shields, more powerful generators to increase firing rate and shield recharge, more armour, and higher maneuverability.

Shops let the player build a strong ship on a budget with no penalty for failing and trying a different build. Any weapon can be upgraded in stores, even if not available for sale, and any item can be sold. However, the player cannot obtain sold items again without reaching another level which offers them. In many cases a single secret level in the whole game may contain a unique weapon or equipment.

Arcade mode

In arcade mode, the player picks up the front guns, rear guns, and sidekicks along the way, instead of purchasing them. Front weapons are upgraded by picking up purple bubbles from destroyed enemies. The number of purple orbs required increases exponentially to advance to higher power levels. Front and rear guns can also be upgraded to the next level by picking up powerup pods, which are found by destroying a specific enemy. The ship, shields, and generators are not upgradeable, although the player is given a medium attribute ship.

It is possible to switch between the single player and (1 person) arcade modes using a secret routine (not cheat codes). Since it is possible to find exotic weapons early in arcade mode; using this switch allows such weapons to be brought over to single player. Likewise, generator and shield upgrades from single player will result in a better ship for arcade mode.

Two player

In the two player (arcade mode only), the players control two different ships, known as the "Dragonhead" and "Dragonwing". Both players can combine their ships into one, forming the "Steel Dragon", with the first player controlling the combined ship, and the second player controlling a turret. Tyrian enables the two players to be connected via modem.

The Dragonhead has front gun powerups (with more variety than the Dragonwing's rear gun pickups), has better maneuverability, and a smaller profile making it easier to dodge enemy fire. It also controls the "special" powerup weapons such as the Soul of Zinglon or Repulsor.

The Dragonwing is larger and slower but more heavily armored. It picks up the rear up powerups (although unlike the equivalent single player rear gun, the Dragonwing fires it mostly forward instead of the side or rear), and also controls the sidekick weapons. The Dragonwing has a unique "charge-up" ability for its main gun, where if the player decides not to fire for a short period of time, the power of their blast accumulates. There are five charge levels for each weapon, and collecting the spherical purple powerups gives the Dragonwing the ability to charge-up faster.

Timed battle

In this mode, available in Tyrian 2000 only, the player chooses from three levels to play in (Deliani, Space station and Savara). The game automatically starts and the player is given a set time to complete the level, while collecting power-ups, fighting off enemies and killing the boss. When the level is complete, the score is calculated depending on time, life, destruction and killed enemies.

Super arcade

The game also features 7 (9 in Tyrian 2000) hidden "super arcade" modes with specialized ships, requiring the user to type in certain codewords which are shown after beating the game. (The first code is given by beating the regular game, and each consecutive code is given after beating the mode which comes before it.)

Super Tyrian

This mode, which is enabled by typing "engage" at the title screen, disables all cheat codes and command parameters and sets the difficulty to Lord of Game (or Suicide if the Scroll Lock key is held down). The player possesses a Stalker 21.126 ship, along with a small shield and only one weapon, the Atomic Rail Gun. No other weapons are available; however the ship is able to generate many different weapons when the player performs particular sequences of movements and weapon-firing. The "headlight effect" is always turned on in Super Tyrian, which can obscure objects that are not within a 90-degree field of view in front of the player's ship.

Mini-games

Destruct is a minigame concealed inside Tyrian, reminiscent of Scorched Earth, with human-vs-human and human-vs-computer modes of play. It can be played by typing destruct at the main menu screen.

In the Zinglon's Ale mini-game, players must try to gather as much ale as possible, while dodging wave after wave of bouncing enemies, and clearing the screen of enemies fully before advancing to the next level. If not cleared, the game continues infinitely while growing ever harder.

Zinglon's Squadrons is a mini-game similar to Galaxian or Galaga. Large formations of ships fly down to attack. Individual ships in the groups break off to fly down in various ways. Players must destroy the whole fleet to advance to the next fleet; basically, they must shoot everything possible. Players must shoot all the small enemies to advance to the next level.

In the mini-game Zinglon's Revenge a giant ship projects a horizontal field of energy. Small enemies fall down from above and bounce around the edges of the screen and against the energy field. Touching the field or one of the small enemies means almost certain instant death. Players must shoot all the small enemies to advance to the next level.

Development

Tyrian was developed by a credited total of 11 people, with "three main drivers" — Alexander Brandon (composer and writer), Jason Emery (programmer and level designer), and Daniel Cook (artist and interface designer). For the aforementioned developers, Tyrian was their first commercial video game.^[2][3]

The origins of Tyrian began as an experiment in 1991, with a young Jason Emery showing his friend Alexander Brandon the preliminary workings of a scrolling background. The two continued developing, and eventually decided the work could be shown to a game company. Brandon wrote a proposal document and sent it to the two leading shareware game publishers of the time, Epic MegaGames and Apogee. However, the game lacked any sound or music, and the graphics were "definitely not professional". As such, "neither got overly excited", but both showed interest.

The two developers thought they would never find a publisher. However, after a long wait, Robert Allen—head of Safari Software—considered Tyrian to fit perfectly with their company, which handled smaller scale projects. Robert Allen had word from Cliff Bleszinski that Tyrian was very similar to Zanac, thinking that it should be followed up.

Robert Allen gave leads to sound coders and artists, the first being Bruce Hsu who created interface graphics and character faces. Artist Daniel Cook was hired after composer Alexander Brandon showed interest in his artwork, which was—unbeknown to Cook—"sent around" by a friend. After he was sent a short list of levels, Cook created sample artwork on an Amiga 1200. It was met with praise by the other developers, who asked him to "make some more!". The artwork was completed in a 4-month period.^[2][4]

After work began on graphics, the popularity of Tyrian rose at Epic MegaGames. Arturo Sinclair from Storm Front Studios joined to create rendered artwork for planets and character faces. The developers wanted a "simple and fun" interface, and changed it at least three times before deciding on a final design. At this point, Tyrian was almost complete; with the "Loudness" sound system, near-completed sound effects, and a marketing plan head by Mark Rein. At this time, Tim Sweeney approached the team and informed them Tyrian was to be published as a full-fledged Epic MegaGames product. It was later released in 1995.

The data cubes found in the game's Full Mode contain various references to its parent publishers, including One Must Fall 2097, Jazz Jackrabbit, Pretzel Pete (Tyrian 2000). The Pretzel Pete Truck and its weapon is a reference to the Pretzel Pete video game.

Versions and re-releases

Tyrian

Version 1.0 of the game was originally released as shareware, consisting of episode 1 of the game. Version 1.1 was the first published as registered version, consists of first 3 episodes and included various bugfixes. The registered version also included the ship editor, which was later available as separate download. Version 2.0 added the additional Episode 4 (An End to Fate) and several new game modes, like the two-player mode. Version 2.01/2.1 fixed some keyboard bug and included the Christmas mode, triggered by starting the game in December

Tyrian 2000 (3.0)

Tyrian 2000
Developer(s)	Eclipse Productions
Publisher(s)	Stealth Media Group, Inc. (XSIV Games) Symmetry Entertainment (XSIV Games)
Platform(s)	DOS
Release	1999 2004 (freeware)
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Story, arcade

In 1999, Tyrian was re-released as Tyrian 2000, which includes an additional fifth episode and bug fixes.

Additional ships include Phoenix II, Storm, Red Dragon, Pretzel Pete Truck (from the Pretzel Pete video game published by XSIV Games). Datacube TRANSMISSION SOURCE: Epic MegaGames game and was renamed to TRANSMISSION SOURCE: XSIV Games with Pretzel Pete game ad (however, other references to Epic MegaGames titles remain).

Although it claims Windows compatibility, this is achieved using a .PIF file, not by building a native Windows application.

Game Boy releases

World Tree Games originally developed versions for the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance were in development. After the then-current publisher Symmetry Entertainment closed down, the European publisher Stealth Productions, Inc. (Stealth Media Group, Inc.) obtained the publication rights, but the game was cancelled.

Both Game Boy versions were eventually released in compiled format in 2007 as freeware by World Tree Games.^[5]

In the Game Boy Color version, the Full Game incorporates a shorter stories (from Episodes 1-4) than the original DOS game, but planet Ixmucane core always gets destroyed at the end, and the levels were redesigned. The rear weapon from the DOS game is not available. The player can carry 2 Sidekick weapons at once, but only 1 is usable at a time. New game modes and items can be unlocked by purchasing Extras using credits obtained by completing a stage.

The Game Boy Advance version incorporates graphics from the DOS game, but the level layout and game play are based on the Game Boy Color game. Two Sidekick weapons can be fired at the same time. Super Arcade and audio are not included. New to this game is Challenge mode, where additional levels are unlocked by completing existing Challenge levels.

OpenTyrian

OpenTyrian
Developer(s)	Carl W. Reinke (Mindless), Yuri K. Schlesner (yuriks), Casey A. McCann (syntaxglitch)
Publisher(s)	The OpenTyrian Development Team
Designer(s)	Alexander Brandon
Platform(s)	Amiga, Android, BlackBerry 10 OS, BlackBerry PlayBook OS, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, GameCube, Gizmondo, GP2X, Linux, Mac OS X, Maemo Platform, Pandora, PSP, Symbian OS, Wii, Windows, Zune HD (Windows CE 6.0)
Release	2007
Genre(s)	Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)	Story, arcade

In February 2007 the Pascal (and x86 assembly) source code for Tyrian was licensed for a small group of developers to re-write it in C, in a project named OpenTyrian, licensed under the GNU General Public License. There are no plans of releasing the original source code. Jason Emery released in 2007 Tyrian and its assets as freeware, along with some Game Boy and Game Boy Advance versions.^[5] Following that announcement, in April 2007 Daniel Cook announced the free availability of his Tyrian artwork (not including the later work for the Game Boy Color edition and for Tyrian 2000) under generic liberal terms of the open content Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.^[6][7] Since then the community development happened on a bitbucket repository with many ports for many mobile and desktop computing platforms.^[8]

Audio

The music of Tyrian was created by Alexander Brandon with additional music by Andras Molnar, and is in the LDS (Loudness Sound System) format. The Tyrian 2000 CD includes 25 of the tracks in red book audio format. The red book tracks are omitted from the freeware version due to the download size. The tracks "ZANAC3" and "ZANAC5" are reproductions of two songs from the MSX/NES game Zanac.

Alexander Brandon released the music of Tyrian for free in August 2010.^[9]

Reception

Tyrian scored 87% in PC Gamer (one percent below their Editor's Choice award). A reviewer for Next Generation complimented the use of a shop system for acquiring powerups, the ability to save games at any time, and the inclusion of a storyline to provide a reason behind "killing everything you see." He scored the game four out of five stars.^[10] Computer Gaming World nominated Tyrian as "Action Game of the Year". The original developers Jason Emery and Alexander Brandon considered Tyrian's reception "far more" than their expectations.

References

External links

• Official website, repository, World Tree Games via Internet Archive
• OpenTyrian on bitbucket.org
• Freeware Tyrian page, based on DOSBox
• Tyrian Soundtrack
• Tyrian at MobyGames
  • Tyrian 2000 at MobyGames
• Tyrian 2000 can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive