Tyrian Easter Egg - Tanks Game for Tyrian

Another thing I have noticed: Take a look in the text of the "Planetary Emergency" data-cube that Transon Lohk gives you when he sends you back to Savara. In it, Emperor Milktoe, the ruler of Savara, mentions a 'crazed lunatic calling himself "Lord ZZT"', who is apparently rampaging across the planet in a heavily modified blimp. Apparently, this "Lord ZZT" is a reference to an old game called ZZT, whose existence I have just recently discovered. Also, there is a hidden secret ship in the game: At the menu screen, type NORTSHIPZ. Select any episode of Tyrian, and any difficulty. You will see "Super Arcade Mode: Nort-Ship Z". The Nort-Ship Z is a triangular ship with two smaller companion ships and two special weapons: The Astral Zone (Zica Laser blasts against a space backdrop), and the SDF Main Cannon (a super-powerful laser cannon). I prefer the SDF Main Cannon.

There's lots of those hidden crafts. Can't remember all of them, but one was SANDSTORM and then there was CARROT, I think. After finishing the game (worked with the one demo episode) with a hidden ship the game gives you the next secret message to type in the menu for another hidden ship. This works at least with the arcade mode where you can collect kinda bubbles to boost weapons, cause I remember causing massive amounts of damage with some special weapons. DESTRUCT is the last code the game gives for finishing the demo. Can't remember if this works with the full version.

I forgot about that 'Lord ZZT' thing... it's been a long time since I've played Tyrian, though. ZZT was Epic's very first game - in fact, back when the first version came out, they were called 'Potomac Computer Systems'. All of its graphics were ASCII characters, and the only sound was PC Speaker, so it was primitive even for when it came out (1991). Nonetheless, it achieved a quite respectable following, mostly due to the existence of a built-in editor to make your own games with programmable 'Objects'. (There was a small language for these Objects called 'ZZT-OOP', even though, of course, they had nothing to do with Object-Oriented Programming.) It was followed up with a lower-resolution clone with more features called Super ZZT, which promptly flopped. ZZT still has a following even now; you can find hundreds of games made for it at Z2: http://zzt.the-underdogs.org