Do you like shmup (aka shoot’em’up or STG) games? Well, you most probably have heard of Tyrian, an epic shmup from the nineties! If not, Tyrian is a great shmup for you to start from, especially since the libre version, OpenTyrian, has an N900 port!

Truly an epic game, Tyrian has tons of content. It features a full campaign, with purchasable weapons and a plot (not half bad one); and the arcade mode which plays more like a regular shmup. All that in 4 episodes with many levels.  For the adventurous, there’s a good load of secret content, from levels, to even minigames and new difficulty levels.

Forgiving easy difficulties and hardcore modes, such as SuperTyrian, will keep both a newbie and a pro interested.

The game plays without a problem on my N900, but, of course, playing with the keyboard is rather hard. Fortunately, playing with the stylus is sane, although not as controllable (you’ll still want to keep the keyboard out for the sidekicks). Oh, and a small detail you’ll need to know, to save press Ctrl-Fn A after you’ve typed in the savename.

To get the game, activate Extras-devel and type

sudo gainroot; apt-get install opentyrian

at your X Terminal. Remember to turn Extras-devel off when you’re done installing the package.

The package also needs the datafiles, which are not included. Either drop them into /home/user/.opentyrian/tyrian21 from your PC installation or just type these commands from your X Terminal:

mkdir /home/user/.opentyrian/
cd /home/user/.opentyrian/
wget http://camanis.net/tyrian/tyrian21.zip
unzip tyrian21.zip
rm tyrian21.zip

And you’re done! Into your journey to Savara!