Tyrant was a fast-paced, Flash-based online CCG and the sequel to the RTS War Metal, by Synapse Games.
It was available on Facebook, Kongregate, and, for a brief period, Armor Games.
Tyrant, like its predecessor, is set in the gritty sci-fi world of Acheron, several decades later. Most of the story thus far follows The Commander (the player character) and his erstwhile companion Katana, as they fight the Raider warlord Typhon Vex (along with other assorted foes) and deal with the fallout from his actions.
Tyrant was permanently closed on September 1, 2015.
A new game Tyrant Unleashed which is something of a reboot of the game. After the developer was bought by the Kongregate platform, the new game became ridden with micro-transactions and unregulated Bribing Your Way to Victory as the newest addition to the gameplay.
Tyrant contains examples of:
- A Commander Is You: You're represented by a wide variety of cards, each with it's own abilities.
- Alien Invasion: The Xeno came to Acheron for its mineral resources.
- Alien Kudzu: The Blight. Results in Meat Moss.
- The Alliance: Is formed briefly in the Terminus missions to defeat Typhon. The parties go their separate ways afterward.
- The player faction can be seen as a more permanent version of this.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: Right in the middle of the Phobos arc, the action shifts unexpectedly to Attalia and a new player character, the Righteous Vicar, following their own attempts to shut down a Nexus. Fortunately the two share a card pool.
- This happens again in the Awakening arc, as Attalia and the vicar prepare before they join the main cast.
- Anti-Air: Is a card ability.
- Anti-Armor: The Pierce ability.
- Asshole Victim: Halcyon, for several arcs he has been a jerk to the player and a hindrance in saving Acheron. In the Terminus arc, Halcyon gets dragged into the Nexus by the bloodthirsty, he pleads Daedalus for help, but he is no longer needed.
- Barrier Warrior: Any unit with the Protect skill. From the card artwork, Aegis◊ would appear to be this, but as it was released before the Protect skill was implemented, it's a healer instead.
- Beehive Barrier: Absorption Shield◊
- Blood Knight: Lord Silus◊, who pulls an I Fight for the Strongest Side! after you defeat him. Happens twice.
- Bloody Bowels of Hell: Tartarus is this. The Blight missions feel like you're descending into this.
- Boring, but Practical: Some cards from the early packs continue to be useful well into the game, let alone when the player first acquires them, despite the Powercreep.
- Also some cards that got upgrades and made them good now.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Tyrant's premium currency, War Bonds, can be used for the following bribery techniques:
- Get more non-premium currency (gold.) The exchange rate sucks, though.
- Buy specific cards from the "Vault," which one would otherwise have to rely on packs and luck to obtain.
- Spam-buy the latest pack. The Power Creep mentioned below ensures that this will put a pep in your Power Level.
- Buy premium-only promo cards. Most of these aren't so hot, but occasionally a really good one comes along... and the recent round of upgrades has made some older ones quite strong as well.
- Buy certain upgrades which can give your faction (guild) a significant edge in the "Conquest" play mode.
- Buy instant refills for "Energy," a substance needed to play the game's campaign mode and raids (It normally regenerates gradually.)
- There used also to be refills available for Stamina, an energy-like stuff needed for inter-faction play. However, that got WAY out of hand, so it was eventually discontinued.
- Card Battle Game: With unusual stack-based positional mechanics.
- Combat Tentacles: Many Bloodthirsty and Xeno.
- Comes Great Insanity: Typhon Vex is completely insane even as a human; after turning himself into an Eldritch Abomination, he's practically an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Crapsack World: To begin with, and it just gets worse and worse as time goes on.
- Death from Above: Is a card.
- Death World: Acheron totally counts. Tartarus is even more so as only the Bloodthristy can thrive in it.
- Defector from Decadence: Katana, Yurich, Attalia, Daedalus... the entirety of the player's forces, pretty much.
- Disc-One Nuke: The upgraded Pyro Rig card is becoming one of these. But not for much longer.
- Any new player can buy 1-2 of the lastest packs, where almost every card there is way better than what you're fighting. And it's easier than you think.
- Drill Tank: The card "Dozer Tank" was a PvP staple for quite some time, but has since been obsoleted by Power Creep.
- Evil Is Visceral: The Bloodthirsty. Expect frequent Body Horror.
- Face–Heel Turn: After Typhon has been driven back to Kytos, Lord Halcyon shows just how brutal and ruthless he really is...
- Fantastic Flora: Some of the Bloodthirsty are this.
- The Federation: "The Empire" is actually more like this trope to start out. However, under Lord Halcyon it actually does become The Empire.
- Fight Like a Card Player: The cards are all on our side of the fourth wall.
- Forgotten Superweapon: The Jotun.
- From Bad to Worse: Halcyon planned to use the Nexus to wipe out the Blight and Bloodthirsty. It didn't work, and the Blight just keeps on growing.
- Most of the campaign involves things getting progressively worse. Until the end of the Phobos arc where the player starts actually making a difference.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: While justification can be given for having Imperials, Raiders, and Righteous in your deck while playing campaign missions, there's nothing stopping the player from fighting Xenos and Bloodthirsty with Xenos and Bloodthirsty.
- A God Am I: Typhon, after he fuses with Tartarus' core.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: When Typhon returns, the Commander rallies the Imperials, the Righteous, and the Raiders to fight Typhon.
- Guns Akimbo: Not an uncommon trait in the card artwork for infantry or mecha.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: Several minor characters.
- Healing Factor: The ability Refresh.
- Hellgate: The Nexes note .
- High Priest: The Oracle, on the evil / Well-Intentioned Extremist side. Later, the Patriarch, who apparently leads a good version of the Omniscient Council of Vagueness.
- Humongous Mecha: Plenty - just from raids alone, there's the Xeno Walker, the Imperial Purger, the, Jotun and the Sentinels. Many cards are also huge mechs.
- Instant-Win Condition: Destroying the commander, regardless of the other cards he has. Also in PvP, getting your opponent to surrender.
- Item Crafting: There was a simple craft system in place for nearly a year which allowed crafting of five exclusive cards and a couple other items; however, it has since been phased out, and the cards moved to another section of the in-game store.
- Since then, card upgrades have been implemented, to hopefully give some older cards which succumbed to Power Creep a new lease on life.
- It's the Only Way to Be Sure: The Sovereigns use a derelict space station's ion cannon to destroy the Wasteland's nexus and wipe it clean of the Blight.
- Keystone Army: With the Instant-Win Condition, the commanders, and thus you, need to be defeated to win a battle. In missions and conquest, it takes a few blows until they go down.
- Kill Sat: The Phobos space-station is also one of these. There's a card, too, but it's a very lame common.
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: Most of the guns shown in the art are this.
- Knight Templar: Many of the Righteous, especially the villains from the Purity missions. Some of the Imperials and Raiders too.
- Light Is Not Good: The Righteous. Well, most of them.
- Meaningful Name: The name of the world note - in Greek myth, "Acheron" is the river of pain.
- Metagame: PvP mayhem forms a major component of the game, and the amount of deck possibilities to use can boggle the mind. In addition, getting your hands on a number of cards in a regular player's cardpool requires actually participating in the PvP element of the game in some form: the Arena, Tournaments, or in player-made Factions.
- Mook Maker: The Summon ability can place a new card on the field every turn.
- Mordor: There doesn't seem to be very much land that isn't rock, desert, wasteland, swamp, or some rather bleak-looking islands.
- More Dakka: Quite a few vehicles seem to be fitted with as many guns as their frames can support, reaching Warhammer 40,000 levels at times.
- The Mothership: The Xeno have one. It's not that impressive in gameplay, though. Also the Worldship from the recent expansion of the same name.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Righteous believed the Sentinels are the only hope for stopping the Bloodthirsty. After destroying the Pantheons and seeing just what the world outside has become, you may stop for a moment and wonder if they were right.
- Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in the Future
- Pinball Protagonist: The player really has no say in the events of the game, and if anything is Katana's sidekick.
- Power Creep: Oh, yes. So very much. Each expansion is more powerful than the last, with no apparent end in sight.
- Powered Armor: All over.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: When you log in for the first time, you are given a choice of Cyrus or Whisper as your starting commander. Both have 6 HP and no special abilities; the only difference is that one is a man and the other a woman.
- Regenerating Health: Refresh, Legion, Regen and Supply.
- Random Number God: Oh, for Phred's sake! It can get pretty ridiculous. Any ability targeting an arbitrary enemy or ally has its target selected at random, and several other skills activate or not is based on a coinflip every turn.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Yurich, Daedalus, the Patriarch.
- Scenery Gorn: Visitors to the Bloodthirsty's turf, especially Tartarus, should expect lots and lots of literal scenery Gorn.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: How Typhon is finally defeated. The Nexes (see above) are destroyed or sealed, and he is trapped in Tartarus, hopefully forever.
- Sealed Good in a Can: The Sentinels were supposed to be this, but given the overzealous tendencies of the Righteous...
- Status Buff: Protect
- Straight for the Commander: Some cards have a skill called fear, which means it ignores the opposing assault and attacking the commander directly. Some of the top decks use this, and works because every battle pits 2 keystone armies.
- Tank Goodness / Walking Tank: Lots.
- The Theocracy: The Righteous.
- Time Skip: A gap of several months between the Homeworld and Phobos arcs, and also between the Terminus and Occupation arcs.
- The Vicar: For some missions the player assumes the role of the Vicar; in the Righteous it's apparently a military rank.
- The Virus: Also the Bloodthirsty.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Octane helps the player out up through the Enclave arc, then vanishes afterwards. He finally shows up again to fight the Xenos once more in the Worldship arc.
- Womb Level: Tartarus Core.
- The Worf Barrage:
- End of Homeworld missions: The Nexus opens, blows up and destroys everything in sight... but the Blight immediately grows back and the Nexus is still intact.
- The hubristically named Giga Bomb turns out to be this.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Daedalus pulls this on Halcyon when the latter gets smeared by the Bloodthristy. But Halcyon was a huge Jerkass who only made everything worse, so who cares?
