The Bard's Tale - retrospective

Hexprone

Hexprone

Thou hast lost an eighth!
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With the revival of The Bard's Tale on the horizon, Techraptor has run a retrospective on the first game in the series. There's a lot I didn't know, starting with the fact that Brian Fargo wasn't its main creator.

The Bard’s Tale stands out among it’s peers … because of it’s simplicity as a dungeon crawler. Much of the credit for this goes to Michael Cranford, the designer and writer of the original game, Tales of the Unknown: The Bard’s Tale.

Cranford was never an official employee of Interplay. “He was an independent contractor,” recalled former colleague Becky Heinemann. “He was able to do this since he was an old high school buddy of Brian Fargo."

After the success of the first game, Cranford would continue to work with Interplay on The Bard’s Tale II: The Destiny Knight before leaving game design completely. Cranford stated that “I was pretty burnt out on D&D game programming … and wanted to pursue studies in philosophy and theology. I also thought I didn’t need Interplay at that point and had a falling out with Brian Fargo.”

Fargo, for his part, would continue on with Interplay, while having Heinemann direct The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate.

The Bard’s Tale franchise would spawn three games from 1985-1988, with Dragon Wars being a re-worked title that was planned to be The Bard’s Tale IV, before Interplay decided not to pursue a publishing deal with Electronic Arts. All titles, with the exception of the 2004 Bard’s Tale, are currently still owned by Electronic Arts.
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Joined
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I had the original BT on Commodore 64. Was extremely difficult. I remember a way to cheese though... you could go to a certain room where there were like 20 undead and use the Bard's interment to blast them and kill nearly all of them in one go.

Can't remember much more than that other than there was a lot of trudging back and forth to heal up.
 
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I think you're referring to the room in Harkyn's Castle containing 396 beserkers (in four groups of 99). This was a very common level-up exploit among my friends which made life much easier when trying to reach the higher levels required to conquer the likes of Kylearan's Tower.

Also, my own little Bard's Tale testimonial was here for others who may not have read it. It seems reasonably relevant at this point in time. Feel free to add your own stories of adventure! http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27411
 
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Awesome games, mainly the first two. The third I never really liked as much. The Bard's Tale II must have sucked up at least two entire summers of my youth. Good times!

As old as these are I still think they have great atmosphere with protection\direction spells and the bard tunes. I also liked how you can only save back in town, this way it was stressful trying to get out of the dungeon. You had to plan to head back when you were wounded and at about 25% magic power left (It was recharged by the sun) and hope to make it. Most players today wouldn't like that but I thought it made the suspense much greater.
 
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I would LOVE that, Saxon! I hope they retain some of that challenging gameplay for the remake. =)
 
I was thinking of trying to replay them...just not sure which version to play.
 
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