I recently got myself an iPad, and one of the games I found was the new version of "The Bard's Tale", one of my all-time favourite RPGs.

The great thing is not the new game itself, but that you can play the old originals from inside the new game. So far they have both the original Bard's Tale, and Bard's Tale II, with Bard's Tale III coming. Woot! Been spending several hours playing BT1 already

Some screenshots (all scaled down from the New iPad (tm)'s resolution).


The opening menu.


Creating a character. Your stats are randomly rolled, so you have to reroll until you get one you want.


This is how the screen looks when you have the keyboard activated. I prefer playing without it for a fullscreen experience.


Walking about the streets of Skara Brae.


Egads! Beset by barbarians, I fight back! Combat is turn-based, and your top 3 characters can do melee attacks, while the others cheer from behind.


My combat options.


Descended into a dark dusky dungeon (or in this case, a wine cellar), in search of loot and monsters.

I paid what, $2-3 for the app, and I've sofar spent at least 5 hours with just BT1. The graphics are 80s, but unlike games like Baldur's Gate (1), I can actually just sit and watch time fly with this, having a blast.

I used to kill Baldur's Gate back in my younger days. I was a hard core Wizardry player then lost interest in the genre. When BG came along, I was hooked. It is a true classic in my opinion. If I ever get an iPad, that one will be a must get.

Game on, Adventurer.
--T

Played a TON of Bards Tale in Jr High with friends on a "portable" c64 with a few monitors linked up so we could all see. Early lan party! Using graph paper to map the dungeons....good times. Between that and a little game called Hydrax, we were loving us some CRPG.

Better graphics than my Tandy 1000 8MHz 640k 16color graphics

Nice. I played this back in those days. I suppose this is a straight port? No automap?

Looks to be a straight port, yes. No automap, one of the cheating loopholes is fixed. Granted, it has been 25 years since I played the original

Ah wow i had seen the ipad version on sale recently but it looked like a updated game so i didn't buy it, good to know it also contains the originals.

Darn. Mapping the game will be tedious then

Zero - unless you just download the maps elsewhere. Or do it oldschool - all the maps are 22x22 hexes

I did that when I played the original on the Apple ][ GS - not sure I want to do that again...