The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for the Apple II.

[3] The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Apple IIGS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS, Mac, and NES.

The following text from the box cover summarizes the premise: Long ago, when magic still prevailed, the evil wizard Mangar the Dark threatened a small but harmonious country town called Skara Brae.

Only a handful of unproven young Warriors, junior Magic Users, a couple of Bards barely old enough to drink, and some out of work Rogues.

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 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.

On some platforms, 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[citation needed].

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."

Casting one of the 85 magic user spells consisted of typing a four-letter code found only in the printed game manual.

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, the player (party).

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 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.

David Lowery designed the graphics, Lawrence Holland composed the music, and Joe Ybarra served as producer.

[9] After a falling-out with Brian Fargo, he was not involved in The Bard's Tale III and decided to go back to college to study philosophy and theology instead.

[11] Cranford in turn called Heineman's words "disparaging slant" and "fiction", noting that Heineman ("a storyteller with an agenda") at the time was (paraphrased) 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.

[12][13] Although a compromise was found, Fargo asked Cranford to leave the company after The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight was finished.

[12] 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.

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".

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%.

[23] 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 the uncommitted.

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.

Some content was added, including female character portraits and (inconsequential) references to the Bard's Tale IV storyline.

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 the Captains and Wrath of the Princes.