Bard's Tale

D
MS-DOS 0 subscribers

0 plays 1985 #RPG

The Bard's Tale is a 1985 fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts for the Apple II. Set in the fictional city of Skara Brae, which has been engulfed in eternal winter and overrun by monsters due to a spell cast by the evil wizard Mangar the Dark, the game tasks players with assembling and leading a party of up to six adventurers to navigate the city's streets, sewers, and multi-level dungeons to confront and defeat him. The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Apple IIGS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Mac, and NES. It spawned The Bard's Tale series of games and books. The earliest editions of the game used a series title of Tales of the Unknown, but this title was dropped for later ports of The Bard's Tale and subsequent games in the series.

In August 2018, a remastered version was released for Windows, followed by the Xbox One release in 2019.

From Wikipedia's article The Bard's Tale (1985 video game), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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Controls

This is a PC game: it uses the keyboard the way it did under MS-DOS, and the mouse where the game supports it. Click the game screen first so it gets your key presses.

Many DOS games start with a menu or ask a question first — read the screen and answer with the keyboard. Arrow keys, Enter, Space, Ctrl and Alt are the usual game keys.

Emulator help & troubleshooting

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  1. 1.0Wake me up when it's over0+ out of 100
  2. 1.5Wake me up when it's over+ thumbs-up40+ out of 100
  3. 2.0Could be better50+ out of 100
  4. 2.5Could be better+ thumbs-up60+ out of 100
  5. 3.0Good job68+ out of 100
  6. 3.5Good job+ thumbs-up75+ out of 100
  7. 4.0Great job!80+ out of 100
  8. 4.5Great job!+ thumbs-up85+ out of 100
  9. 5.0Outstanding!90+ out of 100

GamePro named the five whole-number faces; a thumbs-up adds half a point to the same caption. GamePro’s original rating-face design, adapted from Ryan Quintal’s 2018 vector recreation; cleanup for YouConsoles.

Bard’s Tale 1: Tales of the Unknown MS-DOS 38K plays • 1985
Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate MS-DOS 0 plays • 1986
Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight MS-DOS 0 plays • 1986
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The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I MS-DOS 45K plays • 1990
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Ultima VI: The False Prophet MS-DOS 0 plays • 1990
Lord of the Rings 2: The Two Towers MS-DOS 0 plays • 1991
Bard's Tale: Construction Set MS-DOS 0 plays • 1991
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Eye of the Beholder MS-DOS 140K plays • 1991
Might and Magic: Book I MS-DOS 39K plays • 1986
Dungeon Quest MS-DOS 0 plays • 1985
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar MS-DOS 0 plays • 1985
Phantasie MS-DOS 0 plays • 1985
Temple Of Apshai Trilogy MS-DOS 0 plays • 1985

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