| The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Interplay Productions |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Designer(s) | Bill Heineman, Bruce Schlickbernd, Michael A. Stackpole |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64, DOS, NEC PC-9801 |
| Release date(s) | 1988 (C64 & Apple II), 1990, 1991 |
| Genre(s) | Role-playing video game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | N/A |
The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate is a computer fantasy role-playing game created by Interplay Productions in 1988. It is the second sequel to The Bard's Tale. It was designed by "Burger" Bill Heineman (now known as Rebecca Heineman), Bruce Schlickbernd, and Michael A. Stackpole. The game was released for the Amiga, Apple II (64k), Apple IIGS, Commodore 64 and DOS.[1]
Contents |
The player receive a letter from a dying man who informs them that, during a celebration of your defeat of the evil wizard Mangar, his true master — the Mad God Tarjan — arrived and unleashed foul creatures which destroyed the town of Skara Brae.
The box cover states it thus:
Skara Brae is in ruins. Roscoe's Energy Emporium stands vacant. The Equipment Shoppe went under so quickly Garth was crushed. Your Bard hasn't stopped whimpering since he realized all the taverns were closed.... Someone—or some thing—has sealed the city's fate with an evil so vast, so unspeakable, that a host of Paladins and an army of Archmages are out-matched. Hard times call for subtlety. Smaller is better. Sneakier is better. What the world needs now is a thief. The Thief of Fate.
The player's party then has to visit various alternate dimensions and collect artifacts of power with which to eventually destroy the Mad God Tarjan.
This dungeon crawl game featured several improvements over its predecessors:
According to Shay Addams, The Bard's Tale III is:
A much more enjoyable adventure than Bard's Tale I or II ... Missions involve a wider variety of puzzle types due to a new command that permits you to use objects and artifacts as you would in a text adventure such as Zork. Other improvements include auto-mapping, new character classes, magic spells and dungeon levels (84 of them!) that vary in size and shape. You also get to visit more exotic lands than in the previous installments, for each quest takes place in its own universe: a forest world, a frozen wasteland, and one that's linked via time warps to different times on earth, from ancient Rome to the Nazi's Berlin. The interface is smooth, [and] the first-person graphics [are] sharp and colorful. Characters from the previous games may be imported into this one, as well as characters from Ultima III and IV and the first three Wizardry scenarios.[1]
A review in Computer Gaming World described the game as an improvement over its predecessor, but "still too heavily oriented towards mega-combat."[2]
The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #138 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.[3]
Michael Cranford, the creator of the Bard's Tale series, was not involved in this sequel, as he had decided to leave Interplay to study philosophy and theology.[4]
The Bard's Tale III programmer Heineman has said that the original name of this game was to be Tales of the Unknown - Volume III: The Thief's Tale. Heineman also once sought to continue creating new Bard's Tale games, but was unsuccessful in obtaining the rights from Electronic Arts.[5]
Michael A. Stackpole created the storyline of The Bard's Tale III, and made maps for it. He has since become a successful author, and has penned many novels in the hugely popular Star Wars and BattleTech series.
Bruce Schlickbernd and Michael Stackpole also collaborated on Interplay's Wasteland, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, and Star Trek: Judgment Rites.
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