Previous Next

The Bard's Tale is a classic fantasy role-playing game with all the magic, mystery, combat and cunning a mere mortal can devise.

The story is set in the once peaceful town of Skara Brae and tells how wicked and nasty people popped in, liked it and stayed! The town's mature menfolk were the first to protest at this invasion and were the first to die. The only hope for the return of peace to Skara Brae lies with the town's youth, a band of inexperienced young warriors, thieves, students of magic, etc, and yourself.

You get two disks: one double-sided, containing the program itself, the character data and the dungeon data, and you will also need a couple of blank disks to store your own characters.

The game is complex in the extreme, and features a full-scale scrolling maze-like view of the entire town, plus numerous underground labyrinths and dungeons to explore. Although you won't need a joystick to play, the keyboard commands are kept to an absolute minimum.

After loading the game, you're treated to a superbly animated introduction, a minstrel ensconced in a local hostelry swilling ale and strumming his lute, and the lyrics of his ballad appear to the movement of his lips!

When you are tired of this, you are placed at the start of the adventure, the Adventurer's Guild on main street. While here, you can choose up to six characters that will make up your party, either from a previous game, or freshly recruited.

Characters can be chosen from various races including Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, Orcs and Gnomes, all in the best Tolkien tradition. Next you select the caste of your character.

Warriors, paladins and hunters make up your main fighting force, whilst conjurers, magicians, sorcerers and wizards take care of the magical side of things. A bard might also come in useful, his songs help to heal the wounded and spur your warriors to greater effort. If all else fails, at least he'll be able to tell the story afterwards!

Having chosen your team, you're ready to leave the Adventurer's Guild, and explore the streets and buildings of Skara Brae. Your first stop should be Garth's Equipment Shoppe, just up the road. Here you can buy and sell armour and weapons and, for a fee, he'll tell you if an item has magical powers.

Other buildings you might care to visit are inns (don't let your bard drink too much) where, for a price, the innkeeper will talk. Temples are places of healing. Here, you can resurrect a dead colleague and heal your party's wounded - again, for a price!

Other landmarks on the map (supplied) are Mangar's Tower, Kylearan's Tower, numerous locked gates, guardian statues, and the city gates. Entrances to the dungeons are well hidden, as is the office of the Review Board where your efforts in combat are rewarded with extra powers.

As you wander the streets, don't be surprised if you are attacked. Numerous nasties roam the streets singly and in groups. Naturally, you get the option to fight or run, but you don't get combat experience by legging it! At night, the situation worsens, the chances of being attacked increase dramatically and the nasties tend to travel in larger numbers.

For those of you not familiar with the combat procedure in these games, you get the opportunity to choose who will fight with what and who will defend the party. Magic users can fight or cast spells, rogues can hide. Only the first three members of your party can attack the enemy, but you can re-arrange the marching order.

Once you have made your selections, the computer takes over. Your instructions are carried out until your opponents of your party are all dead! After successfully dispatching an opponent, his wealth is divided amongst your party, and each is awarded experience points. Thus you can acquire the wealth to equip your team, and the experience to advance your character's power.

The party's wealth (in the common currency, gold), can be pooled so a member can make an especially large purchase, like reviving a wounded companion in a temple, bribing an innkeeper, doing the laundry etc.

Before you can enter a dungeon, you will need to discover its entrance. There is no clue in the manual as to how many dungeons there are, but judging by the size of the two, there could be many! Dungeons are really nasty places, don't even think of entering one without some pretty powerful characters.

You will need light in a dungeon, a lamp or torch purchased from Garth, or a spell will do the trick. Traps are abundant in these dark places, but there are many objects to be collected, as well as some pretty powerful magic going down!

Visually, you could not wish for more. The large area in the upper left of the screen shows a view of whatever's in front of you: streets, buildings and enemies. To the right of this window is a text area. Instructions and information scrolls upwards here: the state of a battle, the details of a character, Garth's catalogue of weaponry, etc. The bottom of the screen is given over to current info on your party.

The name of each character is followed by his armament rating, his maximum and current 'hit power', physical condition and spell points etc. Pressing a key 1-6 will produce a character's dossier in the text area, displaying all his physical and psychic strengths, experience and wealth, and what he is carrying and using.

As you advance your character's personas, you will want to save them. This can only be done on a pre-formatted disc while in the Adventurer's Guild. The data is stored in coded form to prevent tampering, but an option at the start of each game allows you to copy character data from one disc to another, allowing you to 'back up' your characters.

Sound is limited to the songs of your bard when you instruct him to play; otherwise the game is played in silence, a welcome change from the raucous strains of many games.

The manual provides a wealth of information, lists of spells and character attributes as well as some handy (if cryptic) hints on gameplay.

The Bard's Tale is definitely a game for all those long winter evenings ahead.