developed by Eclipse Software
Tyrian first published as shareware by Epic MegaGames, September 11, 1995, for DOS, $35.
Tyrian 2000 first published by XSIV Games (Stealth Media Group), November 18, 1999, for DOS, $19.99.
[original site]
GOG package ~24MB. Actual game ~13MB.

Played to completion in 6.5 hours, 4/28/15–4/30/15.

Fourth of the seven GOG freebies when I signed up on April 8, 2012. Was added to the GOG catalogue December 14, 2010. The game had been declared freeware by its authors on August 17, 2004.

You’d be shocked at how much text was just here that isn’t here anymore!

I don’t actually have a lot to say about Tyrian.

I do have a lot to say about shareware, the shareware era, my attitude to games at the time and now. But trying to use the obligation to say something about this as an opportunity to instead talk about that is turning out to be one of those hot ideas that doesn’t pay off. It’s tedious to explain myself when there’s no actual vroom behind my thoughts urging me to get them out. These are old thoughts and remain asleep even as I try to yank them into service, so what’s the point? It seems like disrespect to the past self who thought they were interesting to steal his pride and use it with so little feeling. He’ll be back and eager to talk at some point. I leave his thoughts to him.

You know, my head is pretty cloudy and unessayistic a lot of the time, which makes this site sort of burdensome insofar as my ambition is to do some kind of justice to how interesting I think I am. It can’t be done! It cahhhn’t be done. So that’s where a lot of the underinspired heave-ho writing comes in. Even if I do ultimately get some points across, it’s not worth the haul. Some of the time I genuinely have the strength to just toss them across effortlessly, or the acuity to skip them across like clever stones. So why subject myself to hard labor when I’m out of sorts?

Tyrian is a show-off game from an era of showing off. (There, that’s already better than all the grind I deleted.) It’s supposed to be great because it’s so exactly like things you never thought you’d be able to have, but now you do: it’s an arcade game you can play at home!

It does indeed have that going for it. But like so much shareware, it doesn’t know what to do with that, other than pile it on indiscriminately. It’s like the mega-ice-cream-mountain special of vertical shooters. You know, the if-you-can-finish-it-it’s-free-and-you-get-your-photo-on-the-wall-over-the-register. It has all the taste and distinction of those things: 20 scoops and 4 bananas and all 10 sauces and all 12 toppings and an American flag and sparklers and the teenage waitstaff will sing the song when they deliver it.

That kind of narrow excess was typical of shareware days, and gave those games a special quality, of previously unimaginable luxury: we have everything now, finally. From here out, we’re living large! PC games in 1994 were living a nouveau-riche fantasy, diving in their Scrooge McDuck treasure horde of luscious pixels. We waited a long time for this shit, always having to envy those stupid arcade machines. Well, look at me now! Look! Look at me now! (Quoth Tyrian.)

Shareware is sort of an Uncle Moneybags gesture to begin with. Here you go kid: the first part of the game’s on me. Knock yourself out.

Unfortunately for the shareware model, that’s all I ever needed, as a teenager. And it still is. For the most part I just enjoy seeing what things are like. “Wow, look what it’s like!” can be a perfectly complete and fulfilling way of enjoying a game. So why would I ever pony up for Episode Two: More of the Same?

I’m happy to go to the grocery store and just eat what’s on the toothpick. That’ll do me. I’ve had some great free sample experiences. The first five minutes of Tyrian were, and still are, full of decadent charm.

Then for some reason I played for 6 more hours.

(Part of what I drafted and deleted was my admitting that I very well might have played Tyrian to my satisfaction, i.e. played those first five minutes, back in 1995. In fact it seems likely. But I can’t confirm it with a specific memory.)

By halfway through the game, you acquire so much space bullion (or whatever) that you can afford absolutely any weapons you want, which can be combined into an array of guns so overwhelmingly powerful that just holding down fire fills the screen with bullets and obliterates your enemies instantly. For the most part, a little side-to-side motion is all that’s necessary to keep everything under control. It felt more like I was dusting than fighting for my life. Dusting and watching animated explosions. That’s pleasant enough, and certainly a fine way to bask in the decadence of how amazing one’s 486 with VGA is. But so much rolling decadence can be monotonous. Jamestown was short, and the dramatic progression of each level was gleamingly polished. Where this really is The Overkill Sundae Matterhorn Special in every aspect. The levels aren’t drama-less, and there’s definitely plenty of variety over the course of the whole game, but they all feel padded and padded and padded. Yep, more. Yep, more. That’s the selling point.

There is an avalanche of wacky amateur sci-fi text to read in this game, crammed to bursting into the gaps between levels, but man oh man, I just couldn’t. Not another bite, sorry. Fine, so my picture isn’t going above the register. I still played all the way to the end, dammit.

I will give Tyrian this: none of the enemies are Giger-Freudian or otherwise overtly gross. Given the tendencies of this genre, that shows admirable restraint. (I have no problem with a final boss that looks like a big nose.)

[Tyrian 2000 is just Tyrian (1995) released by a new publisher in 1999 with a few extra levels added on at the end, plus a triumphal picture of a banana.]

Jason Emery: programming, level design
Alexander Brandon: writing, music, design
Daniel Cook: art, design
Robert Allen: producer

And about seven more.