Bard's Tale (1985)
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The Bard's Tale (Tales of the Unknown: Volume I) is a computer fantasy role-playing game created by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was designed and programmed by Michael Cranford.
Based loosely on traditional Dungeons and Dragons gameplay and inspired by the Wizardry computer games, The Bard's Tale was noteworthy for its unprecendented 3D graphics and animated character portraits.
It was originally released for the Apple II, and was also ported to the Commodore 64, Apple IIgs, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Apple Macintosh, and NES platforms.
Story
The following text from the box cover summarizes the premise:Long ago, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark threatened a small but harmonious country town called Skara Brae. Evil creatures oozed into Skara Brae and joined his shadow domain. Mangar froze the surrounding lands with a spell of Eternal Winter, totally isolating Skara Brae from any possible help. Then, one night the town militiamen all disappeared.The future of Skara Brae hung in the balance. And who was left to resist? Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, junior Magic Users, a couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and some out of work Rogues.
You are there. You are the leader of this ragtag group of freedom fighters. Luckily you have a Bard with you to sing your glories, if you survive. For this is the stuff of legends. And so the story begins...
Aided by Garth the blacksmith, Roscoe the magic peddler, Kylearan the archmage — and under the watchful eye of the Review Board — your party of six characters set off through mazes of wine cellars, sewers, catacombs, castles and towers. You answered riddles, solved puzzles, and battled fearsome enemies — such as the Witch King Aildrek, the legions of Baron Harkyn, and the Mad God Tarjan — before your final confrontation with Mangar the Dark.
Gameplay
The Bard's Tale is a straightforward "dungeon crawl". The objective is to gain experience and advance characters' skills through random combat with enemies and monsters. This is done while exploring maze-like dungeons, solving occasional puzzles and riddles, and finding or buying better weapons and armour.
When beginning the game, the player may create up to six player characters, chosen from among the following classes: Bard, hunter, monk, paladin, rogue, warrior, magician, conjurer, sorcerer, or wizard. A typical well-balanced party might consist of a couple of fighters, a rogue, a bard, and a couple of magic users. On some platforms, the player could import previously created characters from Wizardry and Ultima III, which was somewhat revolutionary at the time.
The most important character was arguably the bard, whose magical songs functioned like long-lasting spells and affected the player's party in various ways—such as strengthening their armour, or increasing their attack speed, much like "buffs" in modern day MMORPGS. Each bard song triggered corresponding music while he played (some classical, some original).
With only a map of the town of Skara Brae included on the box, it was usually necessary for the player to use pencil and graph paper to make their own maps as they played through the game. In the first game, each of the 16 dungeon levels were a fixed 22 by 22 grid.
Magic users were allowed to change classes permamently; when a magic users mastered all four classes, they become an archmage.
Casting one of the 85 magic user spells consisted of typing a four-letter code found only in the printed game manual, which perhaps helped limit piracy and contributed to the commercial success of the game.
Sequels
The Bard's Tale was both a best-seller and a critical success, and produced three official sequels:
- The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight
- The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate
- The Bard's Tale Construction Set
In 2003, Brian Fargo (who created maps for the first two Bard's Tale games and directed the third) left Interplay Entertainment and began a new game development company named InXile Entertainment. In 2004 they released their first game, also titled The Bard's Tale — an irreverent console-style top-down action game which pokes fun at fantasy role-playing games such as the original Bard's Tale. Unfortunately, it was not a sequel to the classic Bard's Tale series — although a legal loophole allowed InXile to use the name, Electronic Arts still owns the original trademarks. InXile was not legally allowed to use any of the plot, characters or locations featured in the original trilogy.
Novels
A series of novels based on The Bard's Tale were published by Baen Books during the 1990s. Although the books had little in common with the storyline of the games, their existence is a testament to how influential the Bard's Tale brand had become. They include:
- Castle of Deception, by Mercedes Lackey and Josepha Sherman (1992, ISBN 0671721259)
- Fortress of Frost and Fire, by Mercedes Lackey and Ru Emerson (1993, ISBN 0671721623)
- The Chaos Gate, by Josepha Sherman (1994, ISBN 0671875973)
- Prison of Souls, by Mercedes Lackey and Mark Shepherd (1994, ISBN 0671721933)
- Thunder of the Captains, by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston (1996, ISBN 0671877313)
- Wrath of the Princes, by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston (1997, ISBN 0671877712)
- Escape from Roksamur, by Mark Shepherd (1997, ISBN 0671877976)
- Curse of the Black Heron, by Holly Lisle (1998, ISBN 0671878689)
Trivia
According to Bill Heineman (programmer of The Bard's Tale III) the name of the overall series was to be Tales of the Unknown, and the three games were to be entitled The Bard's Tale, The Archmage's Tale, and The Thief's Tale. However, the immense popularity of the first game prompted Electronic Arts to re-brand the series under the more well-known name, The Bard's Tale.Michael Cranford, the designer and programmer of the first two Bard's Tale games, was a devout Christian. He included references to Jesus Christ in The Bard's Tale, and all but one of the city names in The Bard's Tale II are taken from the New Testament. In fact, the reason he was not involved in The Bard's Tale III was because he decided to go back to university to study philosophy and theology. He went on to found a web site for Christian outreach called Sundoulos[link].
Lawrence Holland, who composed the music and programmed the music interface for The Bard's Tale, went on to create the renowned Star Wars: X-Wing series of games for LucasArts. He founded his own game company, Totally Games, in 1995.
Skara Brae is the name of a real historical settlement on the west coast of Orkney (off northern Scotland). The town name is also used in the popular Ultima series of computer games.
See also
External links
- [The Bard's Tale Compendium]
- [The Bard's Tale] at MobyGames
- [The Bard's Tale at GameBase64] - with links to the files and music for the Commodore 64
- [The Open Directory Project's entry for The Bard's Tale]
- [Bard's Tale Online]
- [Adventurers Guild] - Bard's Tale files and resources
- [Shifting Suns Studios], creators of The Devil Whiskey — a fan-made spiritual successor to the Bard's Tale games.
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