Tyrian game modes

Start New Game opens the original mode screen, image for image. The title screen also hides a side-modes screen and a few secret codes.

Starting a game

Start New Game asks for the mode, then the episode (or the battle, for Timed Battle), then the difficulty. Esc goes back one screen. The mode list is:

• 1 Player Full Game
• 1 Player Arcade
• 1 Player Endless Mode
• 1 Player Timed Battle
• 2 Player Arcade
• 2 Player Endless Mode
• Modem/Network Game (greyed out: network play is not available)

Other ways in: M on the title screen opens the side-modes screen, 2 starts two-player Endless directly, and a few typed codes start special games (see title-screen codes).

Full Game (campaign)

The story campaign. You start with the episode's cash (10,000 to 30,000 credits), fly a level, then land in the shop to upgrade, read data cubes, save and pick the next destination. If your ship is destroyed you get a Game Over screen and replay the level with the ship, weapons and money you had when you entered it. When an episode ends the campaign moves on to the next one. See Episodes and Shop and energy.

Arcade

No shop and no cash: you start in a Stalker and power up by collecting items during the levels. Between levels a short Game Menu offers Start Level, Options and Quit.

Two players

2 Player Arcade puts two ships on the same screen: the Silver Ship and the Dragonwing. The difficulty is one level higher than the one you pick. Player 2 plays with their own keys or the second gamepad. Move the two ships together to link them: the in-game help explains that player 1 detaches by holding a sidekick button and moving up, and player 2 by moving without firing; while linked, player 2 aims a rotating cannon. Two-player Endless is also available.

Timed Battle

A mode added by Tyrian 2000. You choose a battle (Deliani, Space Station or Savara), play it against the clock, then return to the title screen. Its scores have their own pages in the High Scores screen.

Endless Arcade

New in the Enhanced Edition, listed as 1 Player Endless Mode and 2 Player Endless Mode in the mode list. Levels follow one another as escalating waves, and the wave number is shown in game.

• You start with 3 lives.
• Combos: chaining kills raises your score (Setup → Gameplay → Combo, on by default).
• The run is saved at each new wave. If the game stops abruptly, the next start offers to resume it (Enter) or start over (Esc).
• At game over you enter your name if you made the top 10, see a summary, then the leaderboard: Enter or R starts a new run at once.
• Leaving a level ends the run. The Endless leaderboard is the last page of the High Scores screen.

Side modes screen

Press M on the title screen. Pick a mode with Left/Right on the Mode row, tick mutators, then press Enter.

The Destruct mini-game, an artillery duel hidden in the original game (see below), also has an entry there.

Mutators

Mutators are optional rules that change a run, for example Fast Enemies (1.5x enemy speed), Glass Cannon (2x damage dealt and taken) or Mirror Mode (scripted enemy spawns are mirrored), and they can be combined. They are set on the side-modes screen or in Setup → Gameplay → Mutators, where they apply to every game, story included, and are saved.

Super Arcade and Super Tyrian

Super Arcade games put you in one of nine special ships, with its own weapons and specials, one difficulty level higher than the one you choose. Each one is started by typing its code on the title screen (letters only, no Enter), then choosing the episode and difficulty.

The first weapon (red) is the one you start with. “Ship N” is the item-table ship you fly, which sets your twiddles.

• Two specials: the change fire key (Enter) swaps between them, and both sidekick keys fire the special.
• Weapon capsules come in five colours. A capsule of the weapon you already have powers it up; another colour switches you to its weapon and still counts toward your next power level.
• The ship also keeps the twiddles of its item-table ship.

Super Tyrian, started by typing ENGAGE, flies the Stalker 21.126 with the Atomic RailGun on the hidden Lord of Game difficulty (Suicide if Scroll Lock is held). Every ship then has the 21 Super Tyrian twiddles. All the codes are listed on Tyrian secret codes and cheats.

Bonus games in the campaign

Two shops ask “Do you have the special ship?”: at the end of episode 1 and at the end of episode 4. Their Next Level menu lists Soh Jin, shown as Bonus Game on the map, and Skip It. Pick Soh Jin to play the bonus game, or Skip It to end the episode.

• Zinglon's Ale (episode 1) and Zinglon's Squadrons (episode 4) are Galaga-style stages flown in the Stalker 21.126 with an Atomic RailGun. You get an extra life at 10,000 points, at 20,000, then every 25,000 more.
• If you finish episode 4 flying The Stalker 21.126, the shop offers Time War instead of Zinglon's Squadrons. Its data cubes call it Zinglon's Revenge. It uses the same equipment but is not a Galaga-style stage.
• In all three, the Super Tyrian twiddles apply.

Zinglon's Ale and Zinglon's Squadrons have no end: they stop when your lives run out, and you then return to the same shop with the equipment and money you had before. Time War can be finished: the episode then closes on a special ending, with your own equipment back. Lose it, or quit it, and you return to the shop as well.

Destruct

An artillery duel for one or two players, hidden in the original. Type DESTRUCT on the title screen or use the side-modes screen. It has five modes: 5-Card War, Traditional, Heli Assault, Heli Defense and Outgunned. Controls are on the Controls page.

Replays and demos

The title screen plays the five original demos after 30 seconds without input, and the Demo entry plays them in turn. You can record your own runs and watch them from the Replays screen; see function keys.