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Beer beer beer tiddly beer beer beer!

The Bard's Tale, the pinnacle of comedy among computer role playing games, bundled with the classic DOS-era dungeon crawlers: Bard's Tale 1,2,3, is available for Windows and Mac OS X on GOG.com, for only $9.99.

In a world, that's in a desperate need of a hero, one man chooses his own destiny. Yup, that sounds about the same as every other role playing game. Only this time, things go a little bit different. The Bard, a roguish vagabond who only cares for coin and cleavage, has no intention to perform acts of unmatchable heroism and prove that he's larger than life. Neither he has desire for fame and glory that would earn him a place in songs and sagas that would fuel the imagination of the generations to come. After all, he can always come up with songs and sagas praising him, while he enjoys a pint of beer and some female companionship at some cozy inn. Yup, whatever he does, he will be remembered as a great champion of the realm. What would you do in such unique position? Loot riches and woo maidens--it's the correct answer, my friend.

The Bard's Tale delivers solid cRPG gameplay, a vast fantasy realm to explore, tons of quests to perform, and hundreds of items to loot. By all means this is a fully-fledged role playing game, but that's not what it's famous for. Brilliant comedy is where this game truly shines among all other titles in this genre. With excellent writing and fantastic voicing done by Cary Elwes (of The Princess Bride fame) as the Bard, and a gaming voiceover veteran, Tony Jay as the Narrator. There's also an extra treat for the die-hard old-school computer RPG fans included with this release: the classic DOS-era hard-as-nails Bard's Tales 1, 2, and 3.

There are many cliche RPGs out there, but this is not one of them. As you embark on this adventure, you have no way to anticipate how will it end. One thing's certain though--there will be plenty of coin and cleavage coming your way if you get The Bard's Tale for only $9.99 on GOG.com!
The trailer looks hilarious and to have the classic Bard's Tale included! Thank you, GOG.
I've started playing this game again and it is hilarious! I love the part with the fire breathing rat. And the beer song.
Those who know me, know I love my turn-based combat in my rpgs. I remember playing BT1 on a pc way back when it came out, and the only thing I didn't like was having to type a 4-letter code for every magic spell I wanted to cast. Do the Apple II versions here use the same 4-letter magic system?

(On a curious note, I remember one of the best spells was Mangar's Mind Blade, which was coded as MIBL)
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ChaunceyK: Those who know me, know I love my turn-based combat in my rpgs. I remember playing BT1 on a pc way back when it came out, and the only thing I didn't like was having to type a 4-letter code for every magic spell I wanted to cast. Do the Apple II versions here use the same 4-letter magic system?

(On a curious note, I remember one of the best spells was Mangar's Mind Blade, which was coded as MIBL)
I've been playing ancient RPGs lately, and the four letter code is much better than like... 4 for rank 4 and 3 for.. fireball.
For games that let you cast any of 100 spells at any time, I'm not really sure a great way to do it.

So basically my view is: the four letter codes are good. They're memorable and short.

A modern implementation might have typeahead, but a scrollwheel or whatever wouldn't scale to the quantity of spells nicely.

Most modern games simply don't give you this many spells. Which is somewhat reasonable as a lot of them end up being leveled out of usefulness (who needs STFL when you have MIBL?)
Woot, Instabuy (when payday comes)
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tfishell: Oh, with inXile Entertainment onboard, that means we could get Wasteland + Wasteland 2, right?
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gameon: I think it is highly likely that we'll see those games on GOG.
For those that didn't participate in Kickstarter campaign - yes, Wasteland 2 DRM-free will be on GOG. Just as Project Eternity... That's because the gog.com fans were asking inXile and Obsidian for that option, because there is quite a crowd out there that loves gog more than steam... including me :)
I actually already own this as a budget version. Dunno if it still works on my current operating system, though. That said, while it did intrigue me, I never really got deeper than a few starting areas into the game. Somehow it just never held my attention.
Is this the same version that was released on Android?
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GodIsWithUs: Is this the same version that was released on Android?
I know nothing about Android version, but this is a PC port of a Xbox game.
Post edited January 30, 2013 by triock
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Ghorpm: I certainly don't want to rain on your parade but look closer: Audio and text: English Text only: French, German, Polish, Russian, Korean. You have to forget about Szyc and Fronczewski...
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G-Doc: GODS DAMN IT!

We're terribly sorry. We've been mislead. This is in fact English audio only version. The mistake was on our part (got a tad to enthusiastic, being fans of the Polish version of the game ourselves) and it's now been corrected both in the newspost and gamecard texts.
Is this a bug or there is missing "old style" font in Polish subtitles also? I tried the game with Polish subtitles in Win7 and Mac, and it is using ugly Arial (or similar) font... In English it is rendered with proper font...
I am asking, because on YouTube videos Polish version is using same font style as English version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwTqrHhWg9A
Grand release.
This is a game Ive wanted to play for years and years... I'm so beyond excited GOG, I was even debating on buying the version for my phone...

Thank you, so very much for this release. As soon as I can afford it I'm picking this up ^_^
Post edited January 30, 2013 by Starkrun
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jsjrodman: So basically my view is: the four letter codes are good. They're memorable and short.
While I appreciate your perspective (and I don't even disagree with you), you missed my question...

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ChaunceyK: Do the Apple II versions here use the same 4-letter magic system?
...I only played the PC versions back in the day. :-)
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jsjrodman: So basically my view is: the four letter codes are good. They're memorable and short.
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ChaunceyK: While I appreciate your perspective (and I don't even disagree with you), you missed my question...

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ChaunceyK: Do the Apple II versions here use the same 4-letter magic system?
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ChaunceyK: ...I only played the PC versions back in the day. :-)
it [url=http://www.lampefamily.us/jonathan/bards_tale/spells.php]seems.
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jsjrodman: So basically my view is: the four letter codes are good. They're memorable and short.
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ChaunceyK: While I appreciate your perspective (and I don't even disagree with you), you missed my question...

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ChaunceyK: Do the Apple II versions here use the same 4-letter magic system?
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ChaunceyK: ...I only played the PC versions back in the day. :-)
Implicitly, the answer is yes.

All the versions have the four letter codes. On the Atari ST, Amiga, and Mac, there were mouse-access methods as well that are inferior to the codes.

Edit: I should amend that, the Apple IIgs versions also have mouse-select for spells, (which this includes) but that covers only Bard's Tale 1 and 2. The version of 3 in this is the IIe/IIc version which were not mouse-enabled systems.
Post edited January 31, 2013 by jsjrodman