VYRON

Pilot's Manual

First Flight

Everything here is learnable in a single run. Position, timing and target priority are the whole game — stay moving, keep the swarm from boxing you in, and read what each enemy is about to do before it does it.

The rest of this manual is what the ship's database would tell you, if you asked it nicely.

> Vyra online. Systems nominal. Good hunting, Vyrion.

Controls — Mac

Fly with the mouse or the keyboard, whichever suits you. Every binding below can be remapped in Settings, and full game controller support is built in.

Mouse
Steer the ship
Steer by keyboard
Click / L.Shift
Fire — hold it down
Tab / scroll
Switch active weapon
S
Unleash the Vyric Surge
Esc
Pause

Controls — iPhone

Touch and drag anywhere to fly. Your guns run themselves on iPhone, so both hands are free for the part that matters — not being where the bullets are.

Drag
Steer the ship
Automatic
Weapons fire on their own
Bolt
Unleash the Vyric Surge
Pause
Stop the clock
Haptics
Every hit, felt

The Armory

Five weapon systems, each with a distinct tactical role. The right tool matters far more than the biggest one — and you can switch mid-battle, so switch.

Basic Cannon

100% Standard plasma projectiles. The yardstick every other weapon is measured against, and never the wrong answer.

Multi-Fire

120% Parallel bullets across a wider front. Trades precision for coverage — ideal when the screen fills up.

Rapid Laser

130% An instant beam with no travel time, so fast movers can't outrun it. It builds heat — ease off before it locks you out.

Chain Lightning

80% Arcs from one target to the next. Weakest on paper, devastating against a cluster — let them group up, then let go.

Smart Missile

200% Heavy ordnance with splash damage. Your answer to armour, and to anything that refuses to die on schedule.

Upgrades

Credits earned on every run feed the next unlock. There is always another gun to try and another upgrade to chase:

The Vyric Surge

Your ultimate. It charges as you fight and holds until you call on it — then hunts the screen clean and buys you the moment you needed.

Charging
Every kill fills the bar. Roughly fifty of them to fill it.
Release
Fire it when the bar is full — it launches and seeks the nearest threat.
Duration
Fifteen seconds of open season.
Behaviour
Homes target to target and bounces off the screen edges.
The catch
Kills made during a surge don't charge the next one. Charge only builds between them — so spend it when it counts, not when it's convenient.

Charge. Release. Dominate.

Power-Ups & Coins

Enemies drop more than wreckage. Everything below is worth breaking formation for — most of it, anyway.

Health
Patches the hull — or pays out in score if you're already whole
Shield
A protective barrier, twenty seconds of breathing room
Weapon
Cycles you to the next weapon in the rack
Score
Straight points, no strings
Drone
Deploys a combat drone to fight alongside you
Vesta Core
A serious credit payout. Kill five Vesta and the flame yields one.
Side Gun+
An extra gun for a minute
Power+
Maximum weapon power for thirty seconds

Kill Streaks

Destroy three of the same enemy type in a row and they'll drop a credit bonus. The tougher the enemy, the bigger the payout — so hunting one species deliberately pays better than clearing whatever's nearest.

Upgrade Tokens

Dropped at random once you're past the opening levels. Five tokens buy one free upgrade in the shop, and they keep between runs — so a bad run is never a wasted one.

Ship Evolution

Eight hulls, each with its own silhouette, colours and character — from the Vanguard you start in to the Colossus you earn. Credits from the campaign carry you up the ladder one hull at a time, and every step looks and feels like a promotion.

The Gatekeepers

Seven multi-phase encounters stand between you and the far end of the campaign. Each one is a gate: beat it or stay where you are. Each one has a tell, and each tell has an answer.

Level 10
Sentinel — rotating shields. Find the gaps.
Level 20
Warden — a siege ring. Destroy the weapon pods.
Level 30
Harbinger — teleports, and never arrives alone.
Level 40+
Hydra — three heads, and it enrages as it's wounded.
Level 60+
Architect — builds barriers around you mid-fight.
Level 80+
Dreadnought — an ultimate warship. Overwhelming fire.
Level 100
Overlord — the final reckoning.

Sovereign mini-bosses arrive far more often, freezing progress every few levels until they're put down. Deal with them first — nothing else advances while they're alive.

The Nemesis

One enemy remembers you. It returns across a campaign, and it is not the same ship each time — it studies how you fight and comes back built to beat it.

First meeting
Basic attacks. It breaks off at half health — and it isn't running.
The return
Shields tuned against the weapon you used last time.
The hunter
It predicts your movement, and it carries an escape pod.
Final reckoning
Full power, everything it has learned, and no way out for either of you.

It reads your weapon choice, your dodge patterns and the corners of the screen you retreat to. It wears the damage you did to it. Change how you fly, or it will have already worked out where you're going.

> It's watching.

The Swarm

Not one enemy but hundreds, flocking as a single organism around a core. You cannot shoot the middle of it until you've thinned the outside.

How to break it
Sustained fire strips its particles; the core is only exposed once enough of them are gone. Chain Lightning tears through the cluster, heavy missiles finish the core.
Variants
Some slow you with ice, some leave fire behind, some jam your weapons outright, some darken the screen and drag you in, and some poison the space they die in.
The gift
Every third swarm you destroy leaves a golden swarm behind that turns on its own kind and fights for you.

Bonus Rounds

Breaks in the campaign with their own rules and their own rewards. They arrive on a rhythm you'll learn to feel coming — clear one well and you return to the fight better armed than you left it.

Enemy Swarm
The collective, undiluted
Blockade
Get through what's in the way
Asteroid Field
No enemies. Just physics, and no excuses.
Armed Force
Everything shoots back
Crucible
A trial with the rules against you
Tunnel Rush
Precision flying at speed
Wormhole
Rare. Disorientating. Lucrative.
Gravity Chaos
Everything you know about movement, suspended
Mirror Battle
You, against you
Mothership
One enormous target, deep in the campaign

Clear enough of the right things and the Arcade opens — a separate run of challenge rounds, unlocked by achievement rather than by level, and played on its own terms.

Combat Doctrine

Performance

iPhone: Settings → Frame Rate offers 30 / 60 / AUTO. 30 runs coolest; AUTO balances smoothness against temperature on long sessions.
Mac: Settings → Resolution sets the window size; Display settings control detail level.

Know Your Enemy

Every hostile you meet is catalogued — behaviour, strengths, weaknesses and the way to put it down.

Open the enemy database →