The Bard's Tale (DOS) - Let's Play 1001 Games - Episode 734
23💥 Fan of the channel? Help support the series ► https://www.patreon.com/GamingJay1001
💥 Follow me on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/GamingJay1001
💥 Check out the website ► http://letsplay1001.com/
💥 Check out the book ► http://www.amazon.com/1001-Video-Games-Must-Before/dp/0789320908
I'm Gaming Jay: Youtube gamer, let's player, fan of retro games, and determined optimist... Join me in this series while I try out EACH of the video games in the book 1001 VIDEO GAMES YOU MUST PLAY BEFORE YOU DIE, before I die. The game review for each game will focus on the question of whether you MUST play this game before you die. But to be honest, the game review parts are just for fun, and are not meant to be definitive, in depth reviews; this series is more about the YouTube gamer journey itself. From Mario games to the Halo series, from arcade games to Commodore 64, PC games to the NES and Sega Genesis, Playstation to the Xbox, let's play those classic retro games that we grew up with, have fond memories of, or heard of but never got a chance to try! And with that said, the game review for today is...
The Bard's Tale
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_(1985_video_game)
The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for the Apple II. It was produced by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts.[3] The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Apple IIGS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Macintosh, 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 Microsoft Windows, followed by the Xbox One release in 2019.
Michael Cranford developed the concept, design, and programming of The Bard's Tale and its successor game (The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight), with additional design by Brian Fargo (the founder of Interplay) and Roe Adams III. David Lowery designed the graphics, Lawrence Holland composed the music, and Joe Ybarra served as producer.[6] Cranford stated that most of the game design was based on his and Fargo's Dungeons & Dragons gaming experiences.[7] Cranford and Fargo tried to improve on previous games of the genre in many areas including graphics and sound, with Cranford pointing to the Apple version of Wizardry as an example of a game that fell short in his judgement.[7]
Cranford is a devout Christian. He included references to Jesus 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.[8] After a falling-out with Brian Fargo, he was not involved in The Bard's Tale III and decided to go back to college to study philosophy and theology instead.[8]
Cranford stated that they used a consultant during game development who suggested various ideas, including the city name Skara Brae, which was also used in Ultima IV—a surprise discovery after that game's release due to the consultant's work on Ultima IV as well.[7] Cranford noted that they did not use the other ideas as the similarities could have been problematic.[7]
Rebecca Heineman, who worked at Interplay at the time (then as Bill "Burger" Heineman), is credited in the game's manual for the "data compressing routines that allowed [Cranford] to pack so much graphics and animation", and according to herself also wrote development tools for the game such as a graphic editor and all ports to other platforms. Heineman became openly critical of Cranford in later years, saying in an interview that Cranford, after doing some last bugfixes, held the game's final version "hostage" to force Brian Fargo to sign a publishing contract that contained a clause by which the sequel game (The Destiny Knight) would be Cranford's alone.[9] Brian Fargo confirmed this, but still defended Cranford.[10]
Cranford in turn called Heineman's words "disparaging slant" and "fiction", noting that Heineman ("a storyteller with an agenda") at the time was (paraphrased) a loner who "sat isolated in a cubicle in the back corner of the room", wasn't involved in the company's business operations, nor deeply involved in The Bard's Tale, and therefore would not know all the details.[11][12] As far as he (Cranford) could remember the situation, Brian Fargo would not produce a written contract for the game until near the very end of the development, and then only under pressure from Cranford withholding the final product. When he finally did, the contract was not what Cranford thought they had verbally agreed on when he had started working on the project, nor something he felt he could or would have agreed to at the onset.[11][12] Although a compromise was found, Fargo asked Cranford to leave the company after The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight was finished.