Tyrian

About the game

Tyrian is the vertical shoot-em-up rebuilt with an economy. Pilot Trent Hawkins flees the mining world Tyrian with a murdered friend's warning — the Microsol corporation kills for a mineral called gravitium — and funds his one-man war at shopfronts between missions, buying front and rear cannons, sidekick drones, generators, shields and hulls in nearly limitless combinations. Half the game is the arcade; the other half is the loadout spreadsheet, and both halves are excellent.

The screen itself keeps up a running conversation: data cubes scattered through levels deliver news dispatches, corporate propaganda and jokes that flesh out a surprisingly funny universe. Difficulty scales from breezy to bullet-hell, secret levels hide everywhere, and a two-player mode straps both pilots into one combined super-ship. The sprite work and soundtrack are among DOS gaming's most polished.

Published by Epic MegaGames, Tyrian earned cult-legend status and was later released free by its creators — the archive lists DOS, Windows and Linux availability — securing its place as the PC's definitive vertical shooter.

Technical notes

Hand-pixelled VGA sprite engine with parallax starfields and a between-mission economy layer; later releases brought it to Windows and Linux, as the archive documents.