Abandonware DOS title

The Bard's Tale

The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown was developed by Interplay Productions and published by Electronic Arts for DOS and other systems. The game takes place in the fictional city of Skara Brae, which is overrun by monsters and under the control of the evil wizard Mangar the Dark. Your goal as the player is to assemble a party of adventurers to defeat Mangar and save the city. The Bard's Tale was a first-person, turn-based dungeon crawler where players explored dungeons, recruited adventurers, and engaged in combat. The game was heavily influenced by earlier RPGs like Wizardry and Dungeons & Dragons.
The Bard's Tale screenshot
bardstale1-splash.jpg - DOS
bardstale1-2.jpg - DOS
bardstale1-3.jpg - DOS
bardstale1-4.jpg - DOS
bardstale1-5.jpg - DOS
bardstale1-6.jpg - DOS
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single-player
abandonware
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Platforms
DOS
Rating
4.04 / 5.00 (143 votes)

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The Bard's Tale abandonware downloads

Do you have trouble running this game on Windows? Read this guide.

Main executable game file: bardtal1/bard.exe.

DOS games can't run on Windows. You need a DOS emulator like DOSbox or D-Fend Reloaded. Follow these instructions to play DOS games on Windows 10 or later systems.

The Bard's Tale review

Computer Gamer (1987): "Apart from that, my only grumble with the game is that it does require a lot of perseverance at the start. New characters die just that little bit too easily and it is no matter to develop a party. That said though, the Bard's Tale is an excellent role playing game and will keep you quiet for months. If you do manage to defeat Mangar, then there is the thoroughly enjoyable prospect of more games in the series to follow. Highly recommended."

Retro gamer collector's corner:

A series of novels based on The Bard's Tale were published by Baen Books during the 1990s. Although the books had little in common with the storyline of the games, their existence is a testament to how influential the Bard's Tale brand had become.

The above text is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This text is based on this Wikipedia article.

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More information on The Bard's Tale

Status: abandonware
Input: keyboard, mouse
Distributed on: 3,5 floppy disk, 5,25 floppy disk
Also published for: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, NES, ZX Spectrum
Abandonware DOS views: 30592
Series: The Bard's Tale is part of the the bards tale series.
Awards won by The Bard's Tale:

Comments

  • DudeistMonk 20/01/2019 00:20
    For the saving problem:
    Save your party under a completely different name each time.
    Delete the previous party name.
    Leave the game.
    When you restart the game, it should have saved.
    Works for me. ;-)
  • Kevin 07/09/2018 22:41
    Loved this game when it came out!
    I am experiencing an issue however. The game loads, runs and plays fine but im having an issue with my saved party.
    When I return to the game and add character/party all items and gold are missing from all 6 characters.
    Which has brought my game to a crashing halt. Couldnt find any answers in faq's so hopefully find a solution here
  • AbandonwareDOS 14/05/2017 09:11
    Thanks for the wonderful review Lord Bucket! Abandonware DOS needs those.
  • LordBucket 13/05/2017 11:57
    Bard's Tale 1 was a "pretty good but kind of flawed" game. If you want a classic first person dungeon crawler, it was among the best. Several dungeons, a town with night and day, a couple interesting puzzles and a four-school magic system that allowed you to progress through various classes to learn all the different spells. But the game has a few flaws. The early game is hard. You will die. A lot. Expect that the first set of characters you create will serve only to collect gold and gear and then die, so that their stuff can be passed on to your next party. Fortunately you can keep dead characters and later ressurect them, but by the time you're able to, your replacement party will probably be so much better that there's no point. You might have to do this a couple times, transferring the stray survivors from party to party to slowly build up to the point that you can keep a party alive into the middle part of the game. Next problem, the first entire dungeon is completely horribly difficult and drops terrible gear. Unless you're willing to spend days or weeks doing that above routine of letting people die and passing on their stuff...save yourself a bunch of headache by skipping to the second dungeon to get decent gear drops. The password is Tarjan. At that point, the game is good and fun for a long time. And then it kind of fails again towards the end, when you start fighting monsters in with insta-kill abilities. No matter how high level you are, no matter how many hit points you have and how much armor...oh, you fight THAT monster? You die, period. Fortunately you can ressurect in battle, so it's not a complete deal breaker, but it is frustrating. Also, be aware that late game monsters have a permanent level drain abvility. However...it's not as bad as it sounds, since you keep your hit pints and spell points when level-drained, so in some case you might actually choose to delberately have your characters drained so they can re-gain those those and become even stronger.

    If you like the genre, again, this is one of the best. Just be aware that it does have some strong flaws. Also, this was by far the best of the Bard's Tale series. Don't waste your time with the others, this was the best of them.
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