The Bard's Tale (1985 video game)

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The Bard's Tale
Developer(s)	Interplay Productions
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts & Ariolasoft (Europe)
Designer(s)	Michael Cranford
Platform(s)	Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, NES, ZX Spectrum, NEC PC-9801
Release date(s)	1985 - 1991
Genre(s)	RPG
Mode(s)	Single-player
Media	Cassette, Floppy disk, Cartridge
Input methods	Keyboard, Joystick

The Bard's Tale (Tales of the Unknown: Volume I) is a fantasy computer role-playing game created by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts.^[1] 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 unprecedented 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, MS-DOS, Apple Macintosh, and NES platforms.

Contents 1 Story 2 Gameplay 3 Critical reception 4 Sequels 5 Novels 6 Designers 7 Notes 8 External links

[edit] 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...

The introduction depicts a bard sitting in a tavern. Between occasional sips from his mug, he strums a lute and sings:

The song I sing

Will tell the tale

of a cold and wintery day;

Of castle walls

And torchlit halls

And a price men had to pay.

When evil fled

And brave men bled

The Dark One came to stay,

Till men of old

For blood and gold

Had rescued Skara Brae.

[edit] Gameplay

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The Bard's Tale is a straightforward "dungeon crawl". The objective is to gain experience and advance characters' skills through (mostly) 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 armor. Combat is round-based and abstract, described in text rather than shown graphically; there is no notion of moving characters around on a map during combat. The second and third games of the series do have a concept of distance between the player's party and its enemies, so that close-range weapons are not usable until the distance has been suitably reduced; however the only movement available to the party is an abstract "advancing". Cash and experience points are distributed evenly to all surviving party members after a particular encounter is won.

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, and conjurer. The classes sorcerer and wizard were available to experienced conjurers and magicians. 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/or 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. A number of obligatory puzzles in the game were unsolvable without the use of bard songs. 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 players to use pencil and graph paper to make their own maps as they played through the game. In the first two games, each dungeon level was set on a fixed 22 by 22 grid.

Magic users were allowed to change classes permanently. The game manual describes a magic user who has mastered all spells from all four classes as "an Archmage, the most powerful being in the world of The Bard's Tale." However, Archmage status had no effect on gameplay other than simply having all spells available.

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. However, when using a mouse (at least in the IBM/DOS compatible version) the full names of the spells would appear in a list to choose from.

[edit] Critical reception

The ZX Spectrum version of The Bard's Tale, released in 1988,^[2] was very well received. CRASH said that "the Skara Brae environment is so complex and involves so many different factors that it's hard not to get completely enthralled in your quest" and rated it at 86%.^[3] Sinclair User rated it at 89%, but noted that it would not appeal to general gameplayers, saying that "The Bard's Tale will enthrall diehard pixie fans [...] but there's too much text, and not enough graphics and animation, to convert the uncommitted."^[4] Your Sinclair were similarly positive about the game, rating it 9/10.^[5]

[edit] 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

A compilation of all three The Bard's Tale games, entitled The Bard's Tale Trilogy, was released for DOS by Electronic Arts in 1990.

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.'^{[citation needed]}'

A later Interplay game, Dragon Wars, used an upgraded Bard's Tale software engine, and many fans^{[citation needed]} thought of it as a fourth Bard's Tale game in spirit, if not in name.

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. 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.

In 1999, fans of the Bard's Tale series banded together to create the game Devil Whiskey. It is not a continuation of the Bard's Tale storyline; however, it is clearly inspired by it and features a similar interface and setting. The last version of Devil Whiskey was released as a demo in 2005.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] 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:

1. Castle of Deception, by Mercedes Lackey and Josepha Sherman (1992, ISBN 0-671-72125-9)
2. Fortress of Frost and Fire, by Mercedes Lackey and Ru Emerson (1993, ISBN 0-671-72162-3)
3. Prison of Souls, by Mercedes Lackey and Mark Shepherd (1994, ISBN 0-671-72193-3)
4. The Chaos Gate, by Josepha Sherman (1994, ISBN 0-671-87597-3)
5. Thunder of the Captains, by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston (1996, ISBN 0-671-87731-3)
6. Wrath of the Princes, by Holly Lisle and Aaron Allston (1997, ISBN 0-671-87771-2)
7. Escape from Roksamur, by Mark Shepherd (1997, ISBN 0-671-87797-6)
8. Curse of the Black Heron, by Holly Lisle (1998, ISBN 0-671-87868-9)

While they are listed here in the order they were published, some books in the series connect together more than others, such as Castle of Deception and The Chaos Gate, Prison of Souls and Escape from Roksamur, and Thunder of the Captains and Wrath of the Princes.

[edit] Designers

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.

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 later founded his own game company, Totally Games.

[edit] Notes

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

[edit] External links

• The Bard's Tale at MobyGames
• The Bard's Tale at GameBase64, with links to the files and music for the Commodore 64
• Bard's Tale at World of Spectrum
• The Bard's Tale (1985 video game) at the Open Directory Project
• The Bard's Tale fan page on Facebook
• The Bard's Tale Compendium

v • d • e The Bard's Tale video games Games The Bard's Tale (1985) · The Bard's Tale II · The Bard's Tale III · Construction Set · The Bard's Tale (2004) People Brian Fargo · Rebecca Heineman · Michael Cranford Companies Interplay Entertainment · inXile Entertainment