The Bard's Tale Construction Set

The Bard's Tale Construction Set is a computer game creation system that allows for the creation of dungeon crawl video games based on the Bard's Tale game engine. It was developed by Interplay Productions in 1991 and distributed by Electronic Arts. It was released for the Amiga and MS-DOS.

The Bard's Tale Construction Set
Developer(s)Interplay
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Producer(s)Thomas R. Decker
Programmer(s)Tim Cain
Greg Christensen
John Philip Britt
SeriesThe Bard's Tale
Platform(s)MS-DOS, Amiga
Release1991 (DOS)
1992 (Amiga)
Genre(s)Role-playing, game creation system
Mode(s)Single-player

Unlike other similar engines, it was not required to own The Bard's Tale Construction Set in order to play games which were created with it, while also allowing designers to add in their own custom title screen. This made it possible for anyone to share and distribute their own constructed games using the system, and a number of freeware and shareware titles were developed using the system and released.

Sample scenario

Included with the software was a sample scenario for the purpose of playing and learning from, entitled Star Light Festival.

Set in the small rundown village of Isil Thania, a band of adventurers has traveled from afar to witness the annual Star Light Festival in which an eerie light comes down from a star for one night only making the night into day.

While awaiting the Festival at the Rainbow Bar, a small twisted man leads the characters into the sewers (which feature the same maps found in the original Bard's Tale game), and from there the characters engages upon a quest that takes them from one location in the city to the next, eventually to find the secret truths behind the Star Cult and the town of Isil Thania.

Created games

Various companies created commercial games using the program. The Bard's Quest was a three-part game series created by Alex Ghadaksaz of VisionSoft (PC, 1994)[1] Flying Buffalo Inc. offered a game called The Buftale based on the company's offices and employees.[2]

Reception

Computer Gaming World's Scorpia criticized the small number of graphics and damage spells, but still recommended the program to those interested in designing their own computer role-playing games.[3] The game was reviewed in 1992 in Dragon No. 183 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars.[4]

Reviews

Developers

Feargus Urquhart served as a play tester for The Bard's Tale Construction Set, and went on to found the game companies Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment.

References
  1. "The Bard's Quest 1: Dungeons of the Unknown". Internet Archive. 1994. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  2. Loomis, Rick (May 1999). "Computer Programs for Sale". Flying Buffalo Quarterly. No. 79. p. 16.
  3. Scorpia (February 1992). "Scorpion's Tale". Computer Gaming World. p. 38. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
  4. Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia & Lesser, Kirk (July 1992). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (183): 57–62.
  5. "Amiga World Magazine (July 1993)". July 1993.
  6. http://amigareviews.classicgaming.gamespy.com/bardstac.htm#bardstaleconstructionsetaj
  7. "Bards Tale Construction Set review from Amiga Action 42 (Mar 1993) - Amiga Magazine Rack".
  8. http://amigareviews.classicgaming.gamespy.com/bardstac.htm#bardstaleconstructionsetcu
  9. https://archive.org/stream/amigaformatmagazine-045/Amiga_Format_Issue_045_1993_04_Future_Publishing_GB#page/n64/mode/2up
  10. "The Bard's Tale Construction Set review from Amiga Power 23 (Mar 1993) - Amiga Magazine Rack".
  11. "The Bard's Tale Construction Set review from Amiga Magazine 22 (Jul - Aug 1993) - Amiga Magazine Rack".
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