Bard's Tale trilogy re-release

[Humanity has risen!]

http://wireless.ign.com/articles/121/1218923p1.html

Buy The Bards Tale iOS, Get Old Games Free
A way to say thank you to the fans.
February 16, 2012
by Anthony Gallegos

Did you buy The Bard's Tale for iOS? Well, whether you buy it now or bought it before, you're going to get the classic Bard's Tale games for free.

Series creator and inXile CEO Brian Fargo hopes for the first update to launch next week. The update will include the 1987 The Bard's Tale. In subsequent updates, which Fargo estimates should roll out in four-week increments, players will get access to The Bard's Tale II and The Bard's Tale III.

This is the second time Fargo's appearing in the news this week, with this little thank you coming along on the heels of his announcement that he'll launch a Kickstarter for another Wasteland game.

 

[Metro]

The PC version included the old ones, too -- at least the first for sure.

 

[J_C]

This reminded me that I'd like to have a lot of oldschool RPGs on my Android phone. Or maybe there already are. I don't know. They would be perfect games for me on the go.

 

[Themadcow]

Goddamn. I was basically comfortable with my choice of Android until this announcement. Now I'm going to have to mug someone for their I-Phone just so I can smack down 4 groups of 99 Berzerkers on the go.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

there is a dos emulator for nintendo DS that I use to play bards tale :{>

it kinda sucks though, cos I doubt you will be given virtual graph paper, or a list of spell names :D

 

[Konjad]

it's useless on iphone, but it might shine on tablets. I mean you can run for example PST on a tablet 10" and play it on a touchscreen, which I imagine would make UI and gameplay even more enjoyable. Moreso with BG where there's quite a lot of combat and you often need to switch between characters. I don't own a tablet, but if I would I'd replay the first BG on it, porobably a few times.

 

[Captain Shrek]

Gonjad, what really happened to you dude? You used to be funny and a bit mature when I joined an year back. Now you are like a mentally challenged person with fetish for anime horses. How can DA2 affect somebody so much?

 

[ghostdog]

This reminded me that I'd like to have a lot of oldschool RPGs on my Android phone. Or maybe there already are. I don't know. They would be perfect games for me on the go.

Uh, dosbox works perfectly fine with android. As for Bard's tale I think the best port was the NES one, and there is also a NES emulator for android.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Brian said on Twitter that it's a straight up emulation of the Apple IIGS version.

 

[Topher]

I've never played these game and I just recently became an ipad owner, cool. More oldskool rpg's (or any decent games for that matter) are a major plus.

 

[Themadcow]

Probably the nicest looking version, alongside the (basically identical) Amiga version. Nice work Fargo! Having endured played it on my Android phone, I can fully endorse the need for a soft keyboard

 

[Infinitron]

Including the original trilogy.

https://twitter.com/BrianFargo

Brian Fargo ‏@BrianFargo
We are locked and loaded for Bard's Tale Android to go live 9/20. And yes we will be including the original trilogy!

Brian Fargo (@BrianFargo)

Bard's Tale supports most any Android device from late 2010 on and these below in particular. Google Play won't allow the app to be bought if it isn't compatible. Price is $5.95.​

​

• Samsung Galaxy S & Tab families​

• HTC One & Evo phone families​

• Google Nexus phones and tablets (excluding the Nexus One)​

• Asus Eee Pad Transformer family​

• Motorola Droid & friends​

• Amazon Kindle Fire​

• And many more…​

 

[Humanity has risen!]

It takes forever to use a touch screen even for classic games, no way I play this.

 

[Jasede]

Whoopee?

 

[Jaesun]

bamp

 

[MMXI]

The problem with The Bard's Tale series is that all the versions of the games have some sort of issue, especially if you want to import a party through all three. Humanity has risen! said that this iOS version is a straight up emulation of the Apple IIGS version, but unfortunately there is no Apple IIGS version of the third game. The Amiga and DOS versions of the third game are beyond messed up, though there is now a fan patch that largely fixes the DOS version. The Commodore 64 version is a good choice, despite the much inferior graphics, but as far as I'm aware the second game on this platform has a bug where traps don't actually do anything.

I kind of wish there was a proper "remake" of the trilogy with all the bugs fixed and the graphics of the Amiga/Apple IIGS versions. They may be extremely simple dungeon crawlers (they were even simplistic by mid-80s standards), but they can still be be quite fun to play today if you have enough patience.

 

[octavius]

Probably the nicest looking version,

The Apple versions are probably the most bug free as well. Especially BT3 suffered from serious bugs on the DOS and Amiga versions.
EDIT: MMXI says there is no Apple version of BT3. I guess that makes the C64 version the most bug free.

I kind of wish there was a proper "remake" of the trilogy with all the bugs fixed and the graphics of the Amiga/Apple IIGS versions. They may be extremely simple dungeon crawlers (they were even simplistic by mid-80s standards), but they can still be be quite fun to play today if you have enough patience.

Yeah, the basic combat and spell system is still fun, and BT2 in particular is fun if you like a mapping challenge. But the random encounter frequency needs to be toned down if I'm to play these games again.

 

[MMXI]

Probably the nicest looking version,

The Apple versions are probably the most bug free as well. Especially BT3 suffered from serious bugs on the DOS and Amiga versions.
EDIT: MMXI says there is no Apple version of BT3. I guess that makes the C64 version the most bug free.

There was an Apple II version, but no Apple IIGS version. The Apple II versions have the worst graphics of the lot (ignoring the ZX Spectrum version of the first game), and I believe for one of the games the Apple II version has messed up monster to monster graphics mappings (though I could be mistaken). All in all, the series is an absolute bitch to play through with one party without encountering severe bugs.

Your only platform choices are the Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga and DOS as those are the only ones that all three games came out for. You can rule out the Amiga (even though it has the best graphics by a mile) because the third game is severely crippled. You can rule out the Commodore 64 because of the trap bug in the second. Then you're left with the (fan patched) DOS versions and the Apple II versions, in which the DOS versions somehow shine. Unbelievable for an 80s video game series on this many platforms, and unfortunate too because the DOS versions have diabolical sound effects and inferior graphics (colour depth) compared to other versions.

Yeah, the basic combat and spell system is still fun, and BT2 in particular is fun if you like a mapping challenge. But the random encounter frequency needs to be toned down if I'm to play these games again.

Well, the trick is to turn the cycles down to something more appropriate. Chances are you are playing the games at a far higher number of cycles than originally intended. Oh, and the high random encounter rate in the third game is indeed one of the bugs present in the Amiga and DOS versions. It's much more bearable on the Commodore 64 or Apple II.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

So much for Burger Billy's godly porting skills.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, the basic combat and spell system is still fun, and BT2 in particular is fun if you like a mapping challenge. But the random encounter frequency needs to be toned down if I'm to play these games again.

Well, the trick is to turn the cycles down to something more appropriate. Chances are you are playing the games at a far higher number of cycles than originally intended.

Hmm...I replayed most of Bard's Tale 1 a couple of years back and did a test to see if the number of cycles had an effect on the duration of spells and the day and night cycles. It didn't. Random encounter frequency is of course more difficult to test, but I remember it was also quite insane also when I played it on the Amiga back in the days. My impression is that the cycles don't matter and from what I remember my Amiga party was higher level than the DOS party.

 

[MMXI]

Yeah, the basic combat and spell system is still fun, and BT2 in particular is fun if you like a mapping challenge. But the random encounter frequency needs to be toned down if I'm to play these games again.

Well, the trick is to turn the cycles down to something more appropriate. Chances are you are playing the games at a far higher number of cycles than originally intended.

Hmm...I replayed most of Bard's Tale 1 a couple of years back and did a test to see if the number of cycles had an effect on the duration of spells and the day and night cycles. It didn't. Random encounter frequency is of course more difficult to test, but I remember it was also quite insane also when I played it on the Amiga back in the days. My impression is that the cycles don't matter and from what I remember my Amiga party was higher level than the DOS party.

Hmm. Perhaps it was real-time in the second and third games then.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, the basic combat and spell system is still fun, and BT2 in particular is fun if you like a mapping challenge. But the random encounter frequency needs to be toned down if I'm to play these games again.

Well, the trick is to turn the cycles down to something more appropriate. Chances are you are playing the games at a far higher number of cycles than originally intended.

Hmm...I replayed most of Bard's Tale 1 a couple of years back and did a test to see if the number of cycles had an effect on the duration of spells and the day and night cycles. It didn't. Random encounter frequency is of course more difficult to test, but I remember it was also quite insane also when I played it on the Amiga back in the days. My impression is that the cycles don't matter and from what I remember my Amiga party was higher level than the DOS party.

Hmm. Perhaps it was real-time in the second and third game then.

No, the first one also was real time, but the cycles defintely didn't matter when it came to day and night cycles (each day and night cycle is abour 22 minutes each). And thinking more about it I think I did some half assed tests with random encounter frequency but not noticing any significant differences.

 

[MMXI]

No, the first one also was real time, but the cycles defintely didn't matter when it came to day and night cycles (each day and night cycle is abour 22 minutes each). And thinking more about it I think I did some half assed tests with random encounter frequency but not noticing any significant differences.

You mean there was an 80s video game that used a proper clock and not just CPU cycles to determine real-time events? That must be rare indeed! But anyway, I swear the later games were based off cycles and not a clock. I remember fucking around with the cycle speed in DOSBox for the third game, but I can't remember the exact results.

 

[octavius]

No, the first one also was real time, but the cycles defintely didn't matter when it came to day and night cycles (each day and night cycle is abour 22 minutes each). And thinking more about it I think I did some half assed tests with random encounter frequency but not noticing any significant differences.

You mean there was an 80s video game that used a proper clock and not just CPU cycles to determine real-time events? That must be rare indeed! But anyway, I swear the later games were based off cycles and not a clock. I remember fucking around with the cycle speed in DOSBox for the third game, but I can't remember the exact results.

I have no idea how BT1 is programmed. All I know is that I expected the length of the day and night cycles to correspond to the CPU cycles and being surprised that they didn't. And the random encounter frequency felt about the same as when playing the Amiga version.

If someone could run the same test on their machine to double check that would be nice.

For the third game the CPU cycles should not matter since encounters are checked when you move or turn.

 

[kazgar]

I'm going to use this thread to rage against the fact the inxile bards tale slows down to a fucken unplayable crawl on my 2 year old pc and there's no useful options to fix it, how the heck am I going to trust it on a android device.

phew, feel better now.

Might go get a emulator and play BT2.

 

[mondblut]

What about mapping? Drawing a manual map is kinda out of the question when you are playing on a phone while commuting or on a tablet while sitting in a pub.