![]() ![]() Labyrinths now consisted of colored walls with unique "event" spaces rendered in even greater detail. The wire frame dungeons and crude monster illustrations of earlier dungeon crawlers here solidified into more concrete imagery. They're like, 'What's that right there? What's that thing we're seeing peeking out behind that rock right there?'Ĭranford (along with his collaborators on The Bard's Tale, which included such future video game luminaries as Brian Fargo and Lawrence Holland) put together a game that looked a lot prettier than Wizardry, as well. They were critical, and I'd have guys like Brian Fargo studying the drawing. In other words, The Bard's Tale managed to take the Wizardry format and integrate a degree of Ultima-esque world-building and narrative that Sir-Tech's impressive RPG had lacked. Yet it nevertheless played a significant part in the quest: The fragmented dungeon could only be accessed from different points within the city, and each entrance was hidden behind a series of cryptic riddles and oblique tasks. Adventurers didn't need to contend with random monster mobs in the city streets, of course, as Skara Brae existed as a sort of safe version of the labyrinthine depths. It sprawled across a 30x30 grid that demanded to be mapped by hand, just the same as the mazes below the surface. Players navigated the city as they would a dungeon. Skara Brae itself proved to be a setting every bit as rich as the dungeon's depths-even more so, in some respects. The Bard's Tale broke its dungeon into multiple pieces, all scattered across a town called Skara Brae. While it lacked Ultima's emphasis on exploring a world and interrogating non-player characters with keywords, it nevertheless presented a virtual space that consisted of more than just a dungeon and a menu for dealing with essential tasks in town. ![]() I think I can actually write something that's like, beyond this.'"Īt the same time, Cranford created a game experience that went far beyond the strict dungeon-crawling of Wizardry. I wish I could do that.' I was generating a list, because I thought, 'I think I can do this. Even the screen format looks much the same, with party information appearing as a permanent fixture below a windowed dungeon view and text display. The bulk of the game involves traveling through simple first-person dungeons, battling hordes of random monsters with a six-member party of warriors. I think I can actually write something that's like, beyond this.' Then I started wondering if people would want to play this? Would they be intrigued if this had three times the depth of Wizardry? And better graphics?"Īt first glance, The Bard's Tale does indeed owe a tremendous debt to Wizardry. "It was so limited in so many ways, but it had a huge impact on me. " was a brilliant implementation of a Dungeons & Dragons experience. "I was definitely standing on the shoulders of Robert Woodhead there," he admits. ![]() As the lead designer and programmer on the most notable of the second-wave American RPGs, The Bard's Tale, Cranford sought to take computer role-playing to the next level by building on what had come before. "It was like drawing a bunch of connection points for me between gaming in the past and what a computer-moderated experience could be."Ĭranford, whose career has included stints as a writer, programmer, and college professor, would make his own impact on the role-playing genre in 1985. "Playing Wizardry was so profound," says RPG designer Michael Cranford. Along with other foundational efforts like Atari's Adventure, Automated Simulations' Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai, and Infocom's Zork, Ultima and Wizardry provided designers with all the fundamentals they needed for transforming their own RPG ambitions into digital form. They also helped spark a wave of computer RPGs that drew inspiration from them (or, in many cases, outright imitated them). These two role-playing goliaths didn't simply rack up record sales for the era, though. ![]() You'd be hard-pressed to find an early RPG fan or creator who didn't find themselves entranced at some point by Sir-Tech's dungeon-crawler its meaty mechanics and unforgiving design drew players in, then provided them with enough substance to justify the struggle. Along with Ultima, it defined what computer role-playing games could-and should-be. When Wizardry landed on Apple II at the end of 1981, it hit with megaton force. This is the third entry in an ongoing series by Retronauts co-host Jeremy Parish exploring the evolution of the role-playing genre, often with insights from the people who created the games that defined the medium. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team. This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. ![]()
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