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111-522: Tass Times was released for the Atari ST , Amiga , Commodore 64 , Apple II , Apple IIGS , Mac , and IBM PC compatibles . It was the first commercial game for the II GS . The plot of the game involves the player getting sucked into Tonetown, a surreal alternate world seemingly based on a distillation of 1980s culture, with overtones of punk and new wave culture (such as pink hair, etc.). The word "Tass" in

222-477: A GEMDOS file system which became part of Atari TOS (for "The Operating System", colloquially known as the "Tramiel Operating System"). This gave the ST a fast, hierarchical file system , essential for hard drives , and provided programmers with function calls similar to MS-DOS . The Atari ST character set is based on codepage 437 . After six months of intensive effort following Tramiel's takeover, Atari announced

333-452: A "Construction Set" in its time. A compilation of all three classic The Bard's Tale games, entitled The Bard's Tale Trilogy , was released for DOS by Electronic Arts in 1990. According to programmer Rebecca Heineman , the name of the overall series was to be Tales of the Unknown , and the three games were to be entitled The Bard's Tale , The Archmage's Tale , and The Thief's Tale . This

444-466: A 16-bit bus, which reduces performance and cost. In another cost-reduction measure, Atari shipped the Falcon in an inexpensive case much like that of the ST and ST . Aftermarket upgrade kits allow it to be put in a desktop or rack-mount case, with the keyboard separate. Released in 1992, the Falcon was discontinued by Atari the following year. In Europe, C-Lab licensed the Falcon design from Atari and released

555-448: A couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and some out of work Rogues. You are there. You are the leader of this ragtag group of freedom fighters. Luckily you have a Bard with you to sing your glories, if you survive. For this is the stuff of legends. And so the story begins... In the game, the player forms a group of up to six characters. Game progress is made through advancing the characters so that they are powerful enough to defeat

666-541: A different career. Cranford said he later apologized to Fargo after learning that the attorney who had represented him had misrepresented several other cases to his clients and had apparently misled him into assuming the worst. Cranford, Fargo, and Heineman have all since stated that they hold no grudges against each other over something that occurred when they were in their early twenties. Cranford and Fargo remain friends. When Fargo, through his firm inXile Entertainment , started making The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep on

777-537: A door. Macworld criticizes Tonetown's difficulty, as well as its graphics, expressing that "The games's graphics, although imaginative and professionally constructed, sometimes lack detail and are relegated to a small part of the screen", and suggests that a zoom feature would remedy this. Macworld inducted Tass Times in Tonetown into its 1987 Game Hall of Fame in the Adventure Game category, ahead of runners-up

888-404: A few months later and were included in new machines and as an upgrade for older machines. Atari originally intended to include GEM's GDOS (Graphical Device Operating System), which allows programs to send GEM VDI ( Virtual Device Interface ) commands to drivers loaded by GDOS. This allows developers to send VDI instructions to other devices simply by pointing to it. However, GDOS was not ready at

999-413: A few tears". Talking to Snarl during the final sequence reveals that Gramps himself had created him, using the hoop device and the three original animal specimens, and that he had captured Gramps with the intention of continuing his work at any cost. It is also hinted that Tonetown itself may have been created entirely by Gramps' imagination, who then discovered a way to physically travel to it. The game

1110-551: A letter by Gilman Louie , head of Spectrum HoloByte . He stated that he had been warned by competitors that releasing a game like Falcon on the ST would fail because BBSs would widely disseminate it. Within 30 days of releasing the non- copy protected ST version, the game was available on BBSs with maps and code wheels . Because the ST market was smaller than that for the IBM PC, it was more vulnerable to piracy which, Louie said, seemed to be better organized and more widely accepted for

1221-716: A list price of US$ 999 (equivalent to about $ 2,800 in 2023) in the US, BYTE hailed it as the first computer to break the $ 1000 per megabyte price barrier. Compute! noted that the 1040ST is the first computer with one megabyte of RAM to sell for less than $ 2,500. A limited number of 1040STFs shipped with a single-sided floppy drive. Initial sales were strong, especially in Europe, where Atari sold 75% of its computers. West Germany became Atari's strongest market, with small business owners using them for desktop publishing and CAD. To address this growing market segment, Atari introduced

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1332-446: A little under one year. Atari had intended to release the 130ST with 128 KB of RAM and the 260ST with 256 KB. However, the ST initially shipped without TOS in ROM and required booting TOS from floppy, taking 206 KB RAM away from applications. The 260ST was launched in Europe on a limited basis. Early models have six ROM sockets for easy upgrades to TOS. New ROMs were released

1443-480: A loner who "sat isolated in a cubicle in the back corner of the room", wasn't involved in the company's business operations, nor deeply involved in The Bard's Tale , and therefore would not know all the details. As far as he (Cranford) could remember the situation, Brian Fargo would not produce a written contract for the game until near the very end of the development, and then only under pressure from Cranford withholding

1554-465: A low-cost desktop publishing package. A custom blitter coprocessor improved some graphics performance, but was not included in all models. Developers wanting to use it had to detect its presence in their programs. Properly written applications using the GEM API automatically make use of the blitter. In late 1989, Atari Corporation released the 520ST and 1040ST (also written STE), enhanced version of

1665-574: A new design with an integrated hard-drive enclosure. The final model of ST computer is the Falcon030. Like the TT, it is 68030-based, at 16 MHz, but with improved video modes and an on-board Motorola 56001 audio digital signal processor . Like the Atari STE , it supports sampling frequencies above 44.1 kHz; the sampling master clock is 98340 Hz (which can be divided by a number between 2 and 16 to get

1776-457: A particular encounter is won. Publisher Electronic Arts published a cluebook for the game in 1986 ( ISBN   1-55543-064-3 ) that added some original characters and background information to the game's setting. Written by T.L. Thompson, it purports to be an in-universe document that one Pellis, who seems to be an influential individual working against Mangar behind the scenes, entrusts to an unnamed friend who has just come of age: implicitly,

1887-470: A player still deemed a "tourist" before Tonetown apparel and hairstyles can ever be purchased. The port for IBM PC compatibles allows use of a computer mouse . At the time of release, PC mice were rare and the programmers had to code their own routines to read a serial mouse. Compute! stated that the Amiga version of Tass Times in Tonetown was a "fascinating new game" with "superb color graphics", calling

1998-590: A real-life settlement in prehistoric Orkney ) and the game's title, The Bard's Tale (from originally: Tale of the Scarlet Bard ), and that The Destiny Knight was never going to be called The Archmage's Tale . What was originally going to be The Bard's Tale IV became an unrelated game called Dragon Wars (1989) at a very late point in its development process, due to rights issues after developer Interplay parted ways with publisher Electronic Arts. The game's name and storyline were changed to disassociate it from

2109-709: A single double-sided one, to avoid alienating early adopters . Some software uses formats which allow the full disk to be read by double-sided drives but still lets single-sided drives access side A of the disk. Many magazine coverdisks (such as the first 30 issues of ST Format ) were designed this way, as were a few games. The music in Carrier Command and the intro sequence in Populous are not accessible to single-sided drives, for example. STs with double-sided drives can read disks formatted by MS-DOS , but IBM PC compatibles can not read Atari disks because of differences in

2220-678: A single resolution of 640 × 400 at 71.25 Hz. The attached monitor determines available resolutions, so each application either supports both types of monitors or only one. Most ST games require colour with productivity software favouring the monochrome. The Philips CM8833-II was a popular color monitor for the Atari ST. Atari initially used single-sided 3.5 inch floppy disk drives that could store up to 360 KB. Later drives were double-sided and stored 720 KB. Some commercial software, particularly games, shipped by default on single-sided disks, even supplying two 360 KB floppies instead of

2331-434: A small but harmonious country town called Skara Brae. Evil creatures oozed into Skara Brae and joined his shadow domain. Mangar froze the surrounding lands with a spell of Eternal Winter, totally isolating Skara Brae from any possible help. Then, one night, the town militiamen all disappeared. The future of Skara Brae hung in the balance. And who was left to resist? Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, junior Magic Users,

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2442-515: Is a fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for the Apple II . It was produced by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts . The game was ported to the Commodore 64 , Apple IIGS , ZX Spectrum , Amstrad CPC , Amiga , Atari ST , MS-DOS , Mac , and NES . It spawned The Bard's Tale series of games and books. The earliest editions of

2553-478: Is an example of the graphical text adventure genre. Somewhat like classical text adventures or the early Sierra games, players use text commands (e.g. "TAKE HOOPLET") to interact with the game, but like LucasArts adventure games (or the later Sierra games), they also use an intuitive GUI . The player viewed the world of the game through a small window at the top left of the screen in which their surroundings were displayed. Much like The Bard's Tale , this view

2664-449: Is based on CP/M-68K, a direct port of CP/M to the 68000. By 1985, CP/M was becoming increasingly outdated; it did not support subdirectories, for example. Digital Research was also in the process of building GEMDOS, a disk operating system for GEM, and debated whether a port of it could be completed in time for product delivery in June. The decision was eventually taken to port it, resulting in

2775-474: Is done while exploring maze -like dungeons , solving occasional puzzles and riddles, and finding or buying better weapons , armor , and other equipment. When beginning the game, the player may create up to six player characters , chosen from among the following classes : bard , hunter , monk , paladin , rogue , warrior , magician , and conjurer . The classes sorcerer and wizard are available to experienced conjurers and magicians. On some platforms,

2886-403: Is supported by the cover art of the original Bard's Tale release, which proclaimed the game as " Tales of the Unknown , Volume I." However, the immense popularity of the first game prompted Electronic Arts to re-brand the series under the more well-known name. Michael Cranford, however, stated that an Electronic Arts agent they worked with had come up with the city name ( Skara Brae , named after

2997-467: Is the first Atari with PCM audio; using a new chip, it added the ability to play back 8-bit (signed) samples at 6258 Hz, 12,517 Hz, 25,033 Hz, and even 50,066 Hz, via direct memory access (DMA). The channels are arranged as either a mono track or a track of LRLRLRLR... bytes. RAM is now much more simply upgradable via SIMMs . Two enhanced joystick ports were added (two normal joysticks can be plugged into each port with an adapter), with

3108-520: Is the only place where characters can advance in experience levels), various taverns and temples, and the dungeons. The latter are mazes of various kinds—cellars, sewers, catacombs, or fortresses—full of monsters and riddles, some guarded by magical statues that come to life to attack trespassing player parties. The Bard's Tale is a straightforward dungeon crawl . The objective is to gain experience and advance characters' skills through (mostly) random combat with enemies and monsters. This

3219-492: Is transported to the mysterious Tonetown world alongside Spot, discovering that "Spot", in this world, is not only sentient and capable of speech but is actually a celebrity resident named "Ennio the Legend". Ennio travels along with the player, providing commentary and advice as well alerting the player to danger. The player learns that Gramps' mysterious disappearance extends even into the Tonetown world, and may have been arranged by

3330-528: The Infocom text adventures released over the preceding year, in particular Bureaucracy and Stationfall . Macworld called Tass Times in Tonetown "something that seems a cross between Raw magazine, The Face , and the Bizarro World of DC Comics " and praised it as a fun game with a user-friendly interface. Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and

3441-581: The Mega STE , is an STE in a grey Atari TT case that had a switchable 16 MHz, dual-bus design (16-bit external, 32-bit internal), optional Motorola 68881 FPU , built-in 1.44 MB "HD" 3 1 ⁄ 2 -inch floppy disk drive, VME expansion slot, a network port (very similar to that used by Apple's LocalTalk ) and an optional built-in 3 1 ⁄ 2 " hard drive. It also shipped with TOS 2.00 (better support for hard drives, enhanced desktop interface, memory test, 1.44 MB floppy support, bug fixes). It

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3552-555: The Motorola 68000 's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals. The ST was sold with either Atari's color monitor or less expensive monochrome monitor . Color graphics modes are available only on the former while the highest-resolution mode requires the monochrome monitor. Some models can display the color modes on a TV. In Germany and some other markets, the ST gained a foothold for CAD and desktop publishing . With built-in MIDI ports, it

3663-566: The Motorola 68000 . The Atari ST design was completed in five months in 1984, concluding with it being shown at the January 1985 Consumer Electronics Show. A custom sound processor called AMY had been in development at Atari, Inc. and was considered for the new ST computer design. The chip needed more time to complete, so AMY was dropped in favor of a commodity Yamaha YM2149F variant of the General Instrument AY-3-8910 . Soon after

3774-459: 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. They include: While they are listed here in the order they were published, some books in the series connect more than others, such as Castle of Deception and The Chaos Gate , Prison of Souls and Escape from Roksamur , and Thunder of

3885-595: The 520ST at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 1985. InfoWorld assessed the prototypes shown at computer shows as follows: Pilot production models of the Atari machine are much slicker than the hand-built models shown at earlier computer fairs; it doesn't look like a typical Commodore 64-style, corner-cutting, low-cost Jack Tramiel product of the past. Atari unexpectedly displayed

3996-520: The 85 magic user spells consisted of typing a four-letter code found only in the printed game manual. However, when using a mouse (in the DOS, Amiga, and Macintosh versions), the full names of the spells would appear in a list to choose from. Combat is turn-based, described in text rather than shown graphically; there is no notion of moving characters around on a map during combat. Cash and experience points are distributed evenly to all surviving party members after

4107-453: The Amiga had almost none. After Atlanta COMDEX, The New York Times reported that "more than 100 software titles will be available for the [ST], most written by small software houses that desperately need work", and contrasted the "small, little-known companies" at Las Vegas with the larger ones like Electronic Arts and Activision , which planned Amiga applications. Trip Hawkins of Electronic Arts said, "I don't think Atari understands

4218-737: The Apple IIGS version "unquestionably the most graphically stunning product I have seen on any Apple computer". The ZX Spectrum version of The Bard's Tale , released in 1988, was favorably received. CRASH said that "the Skara Brae environment is so complex and involves so many different factors that it's hard not to get completely enthralled in your quest" and rated it at 86%. Sinclair User rated it at 89%, but noted that it would not appeal to general gameplayers, saying that " The Bard's Tale will enthrall diehard pixie fans [...] but there's too much text, and not enough graphics and animation, to convert

4329-480: The Atari 520ST in June 1985. In March 1987, the two companies settled the dispute out of court in a closed decision. The lead architect of the new computer project at Tramel Technology and Atari Corporation was ex-Commodore employee Shiraz Shivji , who previously worked on the Commodore 64 's development. Different CPUs were investigated, including the 32-bit National Semiconductor NS32000 , but engineers were disappointed with its performance, and they moved to

4440-403: The Atari buyout, Microsoft suggested to Tramiel that it could port Windows to the platform, but the delivery date was out by two years. Another possibility was Digital Research , which was working on a new GUI-based system then known as Crystal, soon to become GEM . Another option was to write a new operating system, but this was rejected as Atari management was unsure whether the company had

4551-502: The Bard's Tale series. In 2003, Brian Fargo (who created maps for the first two Bard's Tale games and directed the third) left Interplay Entertainment and began a new game development company named InXile Entertainment . In 2004, they released their first game, also titled The Bard's Tale , an unrelated, console-style, top-down, action RPG which pokes fun at traditional, fantasy, and role-playing game tropes as in those found throughout

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4662-611: The C-Lab Falcon Mk I, identical to Atari's Falcon except for slight modifications to the audio circuitry. The Mk II added an internal 500 MB SCSI hard disk; and the Mk X further added a desktop case. C-Lab Falcons were also imported to the US by some Atari dealers. As with the Atari 8-bit computers , software publishers attributed their reluctance to produce Atari ST products in part to—as Compute! reported in 1988—the belief in

4773-459: The Centronics printer port can be used for joystick input, and several games used available adaptors that used the printer socket, providing two additional 9-pin joystick ports. The ST supports a monochrome or colour monitor. The colour hardware supports two resolutions: 320 × 200 pixels, with 16 of 512 colours; and 640 × 200, with 4 of 512 colours. The monochrome monitor was less expensive and has

4884-477: The Commodore 64 version wondrous, Compute!'s Gazette in 1986 stated that while the game's plot and gameplay did not vary from the norm, "its depth of concept and brilliance of execution" did. Praising the complex magic system, the magazine concluded that "the greatest danger is not Mangar—it's the likelihood that you'll never be able to tear yourself away from this masterpiece of a game". Compute! in 1987 called

4995-723: The ST at Atlanta COMDEX in May. Similarities to the original Macintosh and Tramiel's role in its development resulted in it being nicknamed Jackintosh . Atari's rapid development of the ST amazed many, but others were skeptical, citing its "cheap" appearance, Atari's uncertain financial health, and poor relations between Tramiel-led Commodore and software developers. Atari ST print advertisements stated, "America, We Built It For You", and quoted Atari president Sam Tramiel: "We promised. We delivered. With pride, determination, and good old ATARI know how". But Jack Tramiel admitted that sales of its earlier 8-bit systems were "very, very slow", Atari

5106-513: The ST or Amiga, and the majority of software companies were hesitant to support another platform beyond the IBM PC , Apple, and Commodore 64 . Philippe Kahn of Borland said, "These days, if I were a consumer, I'd stick with companies [such as Apple and IBM] I know will be around ". At Las Vegas COMDEX in November 1985, the industry was surprised by more than 30 companies exhibiting ST software while

5217-473: The ST or the Amiga. John C. Dvorak wrote that the public saw both Commodore and Atari as selling "cheap disposable" game machines, in part because of their computers' sophisticated graphics. The original 520ST case design was created by Ira Velinsky, Atari's chief Industrial Designer. It is wedge-shaped, with bold angular lines and a series of grilles cut into the rear for airflow. The keyboard has soft tactile feedback and rhomboid-shaped function keys across

5328-525: The ST with improvements to the multimedia hardware and operating system. It features an increased color palette of 4,096 colors from the ST's 512 (though the maximum displayable palette without programming tricks is still limited to 16 in the lowest 320 × 200 resolution, and even fewer in higher resolutions), genlock support, and a blitter coprocessor (stylized as "BLiTTER") which can quickly move large blocks of data (particularly, graphics data) around in RAM. The STE

5439-544: The ST. After a meeting with Atari, one analyst said, "We've seen marketing strategies changed before our eyes". Tramiel's poor reputation influenced potential software developers. One said, "Dealing with Commodore is like dealing with Attila the Hun. I don't know if Tramiel will be following his old habits ... I don't see a lot of people rushing to get software on the machine." Large business-software companies like Lotus , Ashton-Tate , and Microsoft did not promise software for either

5550-468: The ST. He reported that the Amiga version sold in six weeks twice as much as the ST version in nine weeks, and that the Mac and PC versions had four times the sales. Computer Gaming World stated "This is certainly the clearest exposition ... we have seen to date" of why software companies produced less software for the ST than for other computers. The Bard%27s Tale (1985 video game) The Bard's Tale

5661-509: The ST1 at Comdex in 1986. Renamed to Mega, it includes a high-quality detached keyboard, a stronger case to support the weight of a monitor, and an internal bus expansion connector. An optional 20 MB hard drive can be placed below or above the main case. Initially equipped with 2 or 4 MB of RAM (a 1 MB version, the Mega 1, followed), the Mega machines can be combined with Atari's laser printer for

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5772-571: The SubGenius ). The ST was less expensive than most contemporaries, including the Macintosh Plus , and is faster than many. Largely as a result of its price and performance factor, the ST became fairly popular, especially in Europe where foreign-exchange rates amplified prices. The company's English advertising slogan of the era was "Power Without the Price". An Atari ST and terminal emulation software

5883-459: The actual sampling frequencies). It can play the STE sample frequencies (up to 50066 Hz) in 8 or 16 bit, mono or stereo, all by using the same DMA interface as the STE, with a few additions. It can both play back and record samples, with 8 mono channels and 4 stereo channels, allowing musicians to use it for recording to hard drive. Although the 68030 microprocessor can use 32-bit memory, the Falcon uses

5994-533: The added twist of the reality in which it is played. Get tass, stay tone-ly and find Gramps." Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version of Tass Times in Tonetown , calling it a "Challenging, unique game with [a] sense of humor." Macworld praises its gameplay, puzzles, and atmosphere, stating that "the game demands that you familiarize yourself with a vernacular and logic particular to Tonetown. ... Tass Times in Tonetown grows much tricker as you progress. What makes

6105-663: The chipset. Tramiel countered by suing Amiga Corp. on August 13, 1984, seeking damages and an injunction to bar Amiga (and effectively Commodore) from producing anything with its technology. The lawsuit left the Amiga team in limbo during mid-1984. Commodore eventually moved forward, with plans to improve the chipset and develop an operating system . Commodore announced the Amiga 1000 with the Lorraine chipset in July 1985, but it wasn't available in quantity until 1986. The delay gave Atari time to deliver

6216-504: The concept, design, and programming of The Bard's Tale and its successor game ( The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight ), with additional design by Brian Fargo (the founder of Interplay) and Roe Adams III. David Lowery designed the graphics, Lawrence Holland composed the music, and Joe Ybarra served as producer. Cranford stated that most of the game design was based on his and Fargo's Dungeons & Dragons gaming experiences. Cranford and Fargo tried to improve on previous games of

6327-522: The console and home computer departments, in July. As executives and engineers left Commodore to join Tramel Technology, Commodore responded by filing lawsuits against four former engineers for infringement of trade secrets . The Tramiels did not purchase the employee contracts with the assets of Atari, Inc. and re-hired approximately 100 of the 900 former employees. Tramel Technology soon changed its name to Atari Corporation . Amid rumors that Tramiel

6438-477: The cute but destructive "blobpet" and dangerous monsters. The blobpet also makes an appearance in the animated intro exclusive to the Apple II, Commodore 64, and PC ports. Gramps is eventually revealed to be Snarl's prisoner, held captive in an island office tower. After rescuing him, the player brings the group to a final confrontation with Snarl at his mansion, with Snarl possessing the Tonetown world's iteration of

6549-436: The dungeons and solve the puzzles until, one step short of actually confronting Mangar, they find that crucial items were stolen by the party's Rogue when he had abandoned them. Soriac prepares a spell that will allow Isli to escape and give the journal to Pellis, but is also thought to rent from the fabric of time everything they have accomplished, and will consume Isli as well as it burn itself out. Michael Cranford developed

6660-418: The emulated versions offered by inXile). After reaching an impasse in development, Olde Sküül and inXile agreed to transfer the project to Krome Studios . Krome Studios and inXile released the remastered edition on August 14, 2018, as part of the remastered The Bard's Trilogy . The Remastered Edition essentially re-wrote the original games, keeping only the storyline and gameplay design but little if any of

6771-479: The entire ST computer line in 1993, shifting the company's focus to the Jaguar video game console. The Atari ST was born from the rivalry between home computer makers Atari, Inc. and Commodore International . Jay Miner , one of the designers of the custom chips in the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit computers , tried to convince Atari management to create a new chipset for a video game console and computer. When his idea

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6882-440: The existence of a "higher-than-normal amount of software piracy". That year, WordPerfect threatened to discontinue the Atari ST version of its word processor because the company discovered that pirate bulletin board systems (BBSs) were distributing it, causing ST-Log to warn that "we had better put a stop to piracy now ... it can have harmful effects on the longevity and health of your computer". In 1989, magazines published

6993-445: The final product. When he finally did, the contract was not what Cranford thought they had verbally agreed on when he had started working on the project, nor something he felt he could or would have agreed to at the onset. Although a compromise was found, Fargo asked Cranford to leave the company after The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight was finished. The experience contributed to Cranford walking away from game development to pursue

7104-547: The football for Charlie Brown , you can believe Jack Tramiel"; another said that because of its experience with Tramiel, "our interest in Atari is zero, zilch". Neither Atari nor Commodore could persuade large chains like ComputerLand or BusinessLand to sell its products. Observers criticized Atari's erratic discussion of its stated plans for the new computer, as it shifted between using mass merchandisers , specialty computer stores, and both. When asked at COMDEX, Atari executives could not name any computer stores that would carry

7215-489: The game so challenging is also what makes it unique: the novelty of Tonetown, its mores, and its inhabitants. These same qualities make many clues difficult to decipher." Macworld compares Tass Times in Tonetown's gameplay to other adventure games, including Déjà Vu , Uninvited , and Mindshadow . Macworld notes that Tonetown lacks an 'operate' command as Déjà Vu and Uninvited do, instead requiring context-sensitive verbs for actions, i.e typing "unlock" to unlock

7326-512: The game used a series title of Tales of the Unknown , but this title was dropped for later ports of The Bard's Tale and subsequent games in the series. In August 2018, a remastered version was released for Windows , followed by the Xbox One release in 2019. The following text from the box cover summarizes the premise: Long ago, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark threatened

7437-487: The game were unsolvable without the use of bard songs. Each bard song triggered corresponding music while he played (some classical, some original). Magic users were allowed to change classes permanently. The game manual describes a magic user who has mastered all spells from all four classes as "an Archmage, the most powerful being in the world of The Bard's Tale." However, Archmage status had no effect on gameplay other than simply having all spells available. Casting one of

7548-405: The game's final version "hostage" to force Brian Fargo to sign a publishing contract that contained a clause by which the sequel game ( The Destiny Knight ) would be Cranford's alone. Brian Fargo confirmed this, but still defended Cranford. Cranford in turn called Heineman's words "disparaging slant" and "fiction", noting that Heineman ("a storyteller with an agenda") at the time was (paraphrased)

7659-423: The game, and is used to complete the game at almost its very end. Hapless players can leave the book behind only to realize it is needed for game completion right when they are on the verge of completing it. Other scenarios include many possible instances of saving the game in situations in which death can never be avoided in time, such as in a location too far away from the shopping boutiques, so that Snarl will kill

7770-422: The game, the player must assimilate into Tonetown's culture, using guitar picks as currency and partaking in its party scene, its "tass" music, including the popular band The Daglets, and such delicacies as "GloBurgers". The player encounters technology unique to Tonetown such as the "zagtone" (a device that plays variable notes depending on what object it is struck against), as well as bizarre creatures including

7881-503: The genre in many areas including graphics and sound, with Cranford pointing to the Apple version of Wizardry as an example of a game that fell short in his judgement. Cranford is a devout Christian. He included references to Jesus in The Bard's Tale , and all but one of the city names in The Bard's Tale II are taken from the New Testament . After a falling-out with Brian Fargo, he

7992-426: The hoop device. While Ennio holds Snarl at bay, Gramps activates the hoop and the player throws Snarl through it. The player enters the hoop and is returned to the "normal" world just outside Gramps' cabin, discovering that Snarl's arrival into the normal world has transformed him into three separate creatures - which the game's narrator describes as "a cute little pig, a darling raccoon, and a little crocodile shedding

8103-458: The increasingly dangerous foes and monsters in the dungeons, obtaining certain items relevant to solving the overall quest, and obtaining information. The fictional town of Skara Brae consists of 30x30 map tiles containing either buildings or streets (plus gates and magical guardian statues blocking certain streets). Access to one tower in the northeastern and southwestern city corner each is blocked by locked gates. The main city gates, which open to

8214-435: The keyboard. An "FM" variant includes an RF modulator allowing a television to be used instead of a monitor. The trailing "F" and "FM" were often dropped in common usage. In BYTE magazine's March 1986 cover photo of the system, the name plate reads 1040ST but in the headline and article it's simply "1040ST". The 1040ST is one of the earliest personal computers shipped with a base RAM configuration of 1 MB. With

8325-405: The layout of data on track 0. Atari upgraded the basic design in 1986 with the 1040STF, stylized as 1040ST : essentially a 520ST with twice the RAM and with the power supply and a double-sided floppy drive built-in instead of external. This adds to the size of the machine, but reduces cable clutter. The joystick and mouse ports, formerly on the right side of the machine, are in a recess underneath

8436-479: The new connectors placed in more easily accessed locations on the side of the case. The enhanced joystick ports were re-used in the Atari Jaguar console and are compatible. The STE models initially had software and hardware conflicts resulting in some applications and video games written for the ST line being unstable or even completely unusable, primarily caused by programming direct hardware calls which bypassed

8547-480: The operating system. Furthermore, even having a joystick plugged in would sometimes cause strange behavior with a few applications (such as the WYSIWYG word-processor application 1st Word Plus ). Sleepwalker was the only STE-only game from a major publisher, but there were STe enhancements in games such as Another World , Zool and The Chaos Engine , as well as exclusives from smaller companies. The last STE machine,

8658-492: The original Bard's Tale . It was not a proper sequel to the classic series, nor was it connected in any respect apart from the title and location: the story takes place on the Orkney Mainland , where the ruins of real-world Skara Brae lie. Although a legal loophole allowed InXile to use the Bard's Tale name, and the company had evidently planned to incorporate more elements of the original games, Electronic Arts still owned

8769-413: The original trademarks for the Bard's Tale series itself, and InXile was not legally allowed to use any of the plot, characters, or locations featured in the original trilogy in their 2004 game. In May 2015, Fargo announced that he was planning to develop and a sequel funded through crowdfunding on Kickstarter , The Bard's Tale IV . The game, which was released in 2018, continues the storyline of

8880-461: The original game code. Graphics, sound, and user interface were updated to modern standards, various bugs were fixed, and a unified authoritative gameplay was devised when it turned out that there were significant differences not only between parts I, II, and III of the original trilogy (such as the number of characters in the party or spells being available at different levels, or not available at all, in different installments), but also between ports of

8991-471: The original game's 30th anniversary, Cranford was invited to join the project and did contribute, while Heineman offered to create a 'remastered' edition of the original three games for modern operating systems (see below). Computer Gaming World ' s Scorpia in 1985 described Bard's Tale as "not to be missed!" In 1993 she criticized the game's starting difficulty and single save location, but stated that it had "many points of interest, particularly in

9102-541: The original trilogy but has significantly changed gameplay. The Mage's Tale was published by InXile in 2017 as a spinoff game using virtual reality technology. It was developed concurrently with The Bard's Tale IV . During the Kickstarter campaign to create a proper fourth installment to the series, inXile partnered with Rebecca Heineman and her company Olde Sküül to remaster the original trilogy for modern personal computers running mac OS and Windows (instead of

9213-553: The other ideas as the similarities could have been problematic. Rebecca Heineman , who worked at Interplay at the time (then as Bill "Burger" Heineman), is credited in the game's manual for the "data compressing routines that allowed [Cranford] to pack so much graphics and animation", and according to herself also wrote development tools for the game such as a graphic editor and all ports to other platforms. Heineman became openly critical of Cranford in later years, saying in an interview that Cranford, after doing some last bugfixes, held

9324-613: The player (party). It is the journal of Lord Garrick, viscount of Skara Brae's sister city Hamelon. Trapped in Skara Brae by Mangar's spell, Lord Garrick and his party of servants and associates (including Corfid op Orfin the Bard, Ghaklah the Magician, Isli the Paladin, Soriac the Archmage, and the otherwise unnamed "last of the great sage-sorcerors") take it upon themselves to rid Skara Brae of Mangar's influence. The journal narrates how they navigate

9435-428: The player can import previously created characters from Wizardry and/or Ultima III , which was somewhat revolutionary at the time of the game's release. Of particular innovation to the genre was the bard, whose magical songs functioned like long-lasting spells and affected the player's party in various ways—such as strengthening their armor, or increasing their attack speed . A number of obligatory puzzles in

9546-528: The puzzles, and is definitely a game worth getting". The game was reviewed in 1986 in Dragon #116 by Hartley and Pattie Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers rated the game well, concluding that "Bard's Tale, a game of high adventure ... is one we recommend for your software library." The game was revisited in Dragon #120. In a subsequent column, the reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. Calling

9657-520: The required expertise. Digital Research was fully committed to the Intel platform, so a team from Atari was sent to the Digital Research headquarters to work with the "Monterey Team", which comprised a mixture of Atari and Digital Research engineers. Atari's Leonard Tramiel oversaw "Project Jason" (also known as The Operating System) for the ST series, named for designer and developer Jason Loveman. GEM

9768-554: The right to add a keyboard and market the complete computer, designated the 1850XLD. After leaving Commodore International in January 1984, Jack Tramiel formed Tramel (without an "i") Technology, Ltd. with his sons and other ex-Commodore employees and, in April, began planning a new computer. Interested in Atari's overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network, Tramiel negotiated with Warner in May and June 1984. He secured funding and bought Atari's consumer division, which included

9879-441: The same game. Some content was added, including female character portraits and (inconsequential) references to the Bard's Tale IV storyline. The remastered edition of the original trilogy was released for Xbox One on August 13, 2019. This followed the acquisition of inXile Entertainment by Microsoft . The collection supports Xbox Play Anywhere . A series of novels based on The Bard's Tale were published by Baen Books during

9990-623: The software business. I'm still skeptical about its resources and its credibility." Although Michael Berlyn of Infocom promised that his company would quickly publish all of its games for the new computer, he doubted many others would soon do so. Spinnaker and Lifetree were more positive, both promising to release ST software. Spinnaker said that "Atari has a vastly improved attitude toward software developers. They are eager to give us technical support and machines". Lifetree said, "We are giving Atari high priority". Some, such as Software Publishing Corporation , were unsure of whether to develop for

10101-420: The story "unusual". Hartley and Pattie Lesser similarly commented on the game in their "The Role of Computers" column in Dragon #116 (1986), stating "This one is truly bizarre". Computer Gaming World ' s Charles Ardai agreed, stating that the "strange story" did not interest him. Roy Wagner reviewed the game for Computer Gaming World , and stated that "This game is a relatively easy adventure with

10212-472: The successor to the company's 8-bit home computers . The initial model, the Atari 520ST , had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available in July. It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface , using a version of Digital Research 's GEM interface / operating system from February 1985. The Atari 1040ST , released in 1986 with 1 MB of memory,

10323-503: The time the ST started shipping and was included in software packages and with later ST machines. Later versions of GDOS support vector fonts . A limited set of GEM fonts were included in the ROMs, including the ST's standard 8x8 pixel graphical character set. It contains four characters which can be placed together in a square, forming the face of J. R. "Bob" Dobbs (the figurehead of the Church of

10434-475: The title refers to an adjective used within the parallel world of Tonetown. Its basic meaning is somewhat akin to "cool" or "hip". Game designer Michael Berlyn gives the following source for the word: Muffy and I were employed there [at Harvard], teaching creative writing. And the motto of Harvard is 'Veritas,' which means 'truth.' We took to saying 'very tass' to mean, 'very true,' or 'too true.' Our students picked it up and started applying it to something that

10545-435: The top. It is an all-in-one unit, similar to earlier home computers like the Commodore 64 , but with a larger keyboard with cursor keys and a numeric keypad. The original has an external floppy drive (SF354) and AC adapter . Starting with the 1040ST, the floppy drive and power supply are integrated into the base unit. The ports on the 520ST remained largely unchanged over its history. Because of its bi-directional design,

10656-439: The uncommitted." Your Sinclair were similarly positive about the game, rating it 9/10. Macworld reviewed the Macintosh version of The Bard's Tale , praising the music and gameplay, calling it a "Nice combination of problem solving, combat, and exploration", but criticizing the monochrome graphics and repetitive gameplay, the latter largely directed towards frequent combat. The Commodore 64 version of The Bard's Tale

10767-468: The villainous Franklin Snarl. Snarl, a surreal combination of a pig , a raccoon and (most obviously) a crocodile , is a ruthless business magnate. He is also a murderously hostile Tonetown nativist , openly violent to most "tourists" (foreigners) he encounters. His negative effects on the local culture had begun to attract media attention against him, culminating in the disappearance of Gramps. To progress in

10878-507: The west, are blocked by snow and remain impassable throughout the game. One street seems to lead south endlessly, by actually teleporting the party back to its beginning upon reaching the portion where the city walls would be. Certain buildings within the city are special, such as the Adventurer's Guild, Garth's Equipment Shoppe, the Review Board (which is unmarked and must be found first, and

10989-494: Was among the first members of the Computer Gaming World Hall of Fame, honoring those games rated highly over time by readers. In 1990 the game received the seventh-highest number of votes in a survey of readers' "All-Time Favorites". In 1996, the magazine named The Bard's Tale the 89th best game ever. The Bard's Tale was very successful, becoming the best-selling computer RPG of the 1980s at 407,000 copies. It

11100-426: Was cool. So very tass turned into very hip or cool. The game's narrative begins with the player character inside a cabin belonging to "Gramps", a relative and inventor who has gone missing. While searching the cabin, the player activates one of Gramps' latest inventions: a device that resembles an electronically powered hoop. Gramps' pet dog, Spot, jumps through the active hoop and disappears. The player follows him and

11211-452: Was given a 'Sizzler' award and rated at 94% by Zzap!64 magazine, in the 1986 Christmas Special edition. Reviewer Sean Masterson called it "the best RPG on the Commodore". In 1993, Commodore Force ranked the game at number 13 on its list of the top 100 Commodore 64 games. When reviewing its sequel in 1988, Ahoy!'s AmigaUser described The Bard's Tale as "the all-time classic". With a score of 7.49 out of 10, that year The Bard's Tale

11322-455: Was marketed as more affordable than a TT but more powerful than an ordinary ST. In 1990, Atari released the high-end workstation-oriented Atari TT030, based on a 32 MHz Motorola 68030 processor. The "TT" name ("Thirty-two/Thirty-two") continued the nomenclature because the 68030 chip has 32-bit buses both internally and externally. Originally planned with a 68020 CPU, the TT has improved graphics and more powerful support chips. The case has

11433-413: Was much cheaper than a Digital VT220 terminal, commonly needed by offices with central computers. By late 1985, the 520ST added an RF modulator for TV display. Computer Gaming World stated that Tramiel's poor pre-Atari reputation would likely make computer stores reluctant to deal with the company, hurting its distribution of the ST. One retailer said, "If you can believe Lucy when she holds

11544-401: Was negotiating to buy Atari, Amiga Corp. entered discussions with Commodore. This led to Commodore wanting to purchase Amiga Corporation outright, which Commodore believed would cancel any outstanding contracts, including Atari's. Instead of Amiga Corp. delivering Lorraine to Atari, Commodore delivered a check of $ 500,000 on Amiga's behalf, in effect returning the funds Atari invested in Amiga for

11655-537: Was not involved in The Bard's Tale III and decided to go back to college to study philosophy and theology instead. Cranford stated that they used a consultant during game development who suggested various ideas, including the city name Skara Brae , which was also used in Ultima IV —a surprise discovery after that game's release due to the consultant's work on Ultima IV as well. Cranford noted that they did not use

11766-401: Was out of cash, and employees feared that he would shut the company down. In early 1985, the 520ST shipped to the press, developers, and user groups , and in early July 1985 for general retail sales. It saved the company. By November, Atari stated that more than 50,000 520STs had been sold, "with U.S. sales alone well into five figures". The machine had gone from concept to store shelves in

11877-491: Was popular for music sequencing and as a controller of musical instruments among amateur and professional musicians. The Atari ST's primary competitor was the Amiga from Commodore . The 520ST and 1040ST were followed by the Mega series, the STE, and the portable STacy . In the early 1990s, Atari released three final evolutions of the ST with significant technical differences from the original models: TT030 (1990), Mega STE (1991), and Falcon (1992). Atari discontinued

11988-431: Was rejected, he left Atari to form a small think tank called Hi-Toro in 1982 and began designing the new "Lorraine" chipset. Hi-Toro, by then renamed Amiga, ran out of capital to complete Lorraine's development, and Atari, now owned by Warner Communications , paid Amiga to continue its work. In return, Atari received exclusive use of the Lorraine design for one year as a video game console. After that time, Atari had

12099-410: Was static (or mostly so); it was not animated , though it was context-sensitive (players could click on objects in this window rather than typing their names). Like many text adventures of this era, Tass Times had its share of possible unwinnable situations in which players can discover themselves trapped. The most infamous of these is Gramps' lab book, which is found in his cabin at the start of

12210-626: Was the first home computer with a cost per kilobyte of RAM under US$ 1/KB. After Jack Tramiel purchased the assets of the Atari, Inc. consumer division in 1984 to create Atari Corporation, the 520ST was designed in five months by a small team led by Shiraz Shivji . Alongside the Macintosh , Amiga , Apple IIGS and Acorn Archimedes , the ST is part of a mid-1980s generation of computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256  KB or more of RAM, and mouse -controlled graphical user interfaces. "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", referring to

12321-485: Was the first non- Wizardry computer role-playing game to challenge the Ultima series' sales, especially to Commodore 64 users who could not play Wizardry (a Commodore version did not appear until 1987, with inferior graphics to that of The Bard's Tale ). By 1993, The Bard's Tale series had sold over a million copies. The Bard's Tale was both a best-seller and a critical success, and produced two official sequels and

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