Two modes
lyrid is two products over one universe. You choose which one you are playing when you create your account, and that choice stays.
Exploration
Section titled “Exploration”The sky starts dark. You are given a ship, a home sector near an artist you already love, and fuel that runs out.
- Fog of war — stars appear as you discover them; unheard regions stay dark, with echoes hinting at what is nearby.
- Light is the currency, and the only way to earn it is to listen: a preview scan pays a little, a full landing pays properly, and something you have never heard pays more than a re-listen.
- Contracts and quests give the wandering a shape — a chain of notes leading through a scene, an expedition that is really a course in a genre’s history.
- Upgrades — engine, scanner, antenna, hold — decide how far you can travel and how much you can see from a distance.
The reward for playing well is a sky that is genuinely yours, lit only where you have actually been.
Creative
Section titled “Creative”The whole sky is open from the first minute. No fuel, no fog gating anything, no progression to grind through.
This is the mode for the daily instrument: look up an artist, read the card, compare two spectra, follow the influence currents, put a nebula on the radio, export a poster of a region. Everything the exploration mode unlocks over months is simply available.
Why the choice is permanent
Section titled “Why the choice is permanent”Because a discovery only means something once. A player who can flip to creative mode, look up the answer, and flip back has not explored anything — and knowing the escape hatch exists changes how the game feels even for someone who never uses it.
So the two modes are not difficulty settings; they are two different relationships with the same universe, and both are supported forever. Creative mode is not a reward for finishing exploration, and exploration is not a tutorial for creative.
What is shared
Section titled “What is shared”The universe itself: the layout, the artists, the similarity, the genre nebulae. Both modes read the same canonical sky, and both record your listening. Only what the interface does with that record differs.