Category:The Bard's Tale

The Bard's Tale
Developer(s)	Interplay
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Year introduced	1985
Genre(s)	Role-Playing

The Bard's Tale is a series of turn-based role-playing games heavily based on Wizardry.

Original series

The games share an almost identical character creation, interface, and combat mode with Wizardry. Notable differences are: (1) the introduction of the bard class, with a "bard song" ability; (2) the surface is an actual city to be explored, instead of a simple menu screen (it becomes an extensive world in later titles); (3) there is more than one dungeon.

In the original series, characters could be transfered from one title to the next, including Dragon Wars and Centauri Alliance. The former was supposed to be "The Bard's Tale IV", but the title was changed late during the production.

Platform	Bard's Tale 1	Bard's Tale 2	Bard's Tale 3	Dragon Wars	Centauri Alliance	Notes (limits and defects)
C64	1985	1986	1987	1989	1990	8-bit graphics; bugs
Apple II	1985	1987	1988	1990	1990	8-bit graphics; bugs
MS-DOS	1985	1988	1990	1989	N/A	Encounter rate is too high
Amiga	1987	1988	1991	1990	N/A	-
PC-9801	?	?	?	?	N/A	Japanese language only

Incomplete releases
Platform	Bard's Tale 1	Bard's Tale 2	Dragon Wars	Notes (limits and defects)
Atari ST	1987	N/A	N/A	-
CPC	1988	N/A	N/A	8-bit graphics
ZX	1988	N/A	N/A	8-bit graphics
Apple IIgs	?	?	?	-
NES	1990	1992	1991	Games reduced to fit in cartridge
X68000	N/A	N/A	1991	-

Other titles

Maze Master is the precursor of the series, developed by the same author in 1983; it clearly shows the influence of Wizardry. For more information, see here.
Centauri Alliance is also known as "Bard's Tale in Space". It is a science-fiction role-playing game, but characters can be imported from the fantasy titles.
The Bard's Tale Construction Set is a program to create dungeons; it also includes a playable scenario titled Star Light Festival.
The Bard's Tale (2004) features a completely different gameplay from the rest of the series.
The Mage's Tale is a game developed for virtual reality headset.
The Bard's Tale IV started development after a 25-years-long pause in the series.