Forums for Devil Whiskey

1998. I remember being part of an online Bard's Tale fan chat where myself and some other people were tossing the idea around about creating our own Bard's Tale IV since we were so die-hard about the series and frustrated about Interplay/Electronic Arts et al not picking up the reins and doing it themselves professionally.

I remember spending late nights at the kitchen table writing out items to be incorporated into the game. Ice Bows come to mind for some reason.

I also remember Jon Starnes and others saying they had named a monster after me, the "Dorendor".

It's a little hazy now, but I think I left the design process due to conflict of interest and a few personality clashes.


So a decade passes, and I come back here. What's happened? It's...dead...

Anyone want to fill me in?

I slew it using Mangar's Mallet.

Never leave me alone to get bored. I require a steady diet of Japanese women and cookies.

At first there was very good support. They fixed bugs, changed the level up xp needed, even added some additional optional quests. Then they just disappeared. Talking with some of the individuals involved with some of the dungeon stuff, as well as some stories, etc. in the arcanium, they were getting checks, and then everything stopped, without communication. Starnes is at a software company I think. It really disappointed a lot of people. It appears that there was not enough money made for them to give a damn. I still don't understand how you can create something as good as DW, and then just walk away. Hell, there are plenty of people out there, who would help for free.

Darendor, did you ever play the finished game?

There's also several superb mods made by forum members.

Interested to hear anything else you recall about the dev process..

I remember distancing myself from the project voluntarily because of one or two other people in the project having personality clashes with me.

Around early 2002 I moved across the country and more or less "forgot" about this place.

Kept myself busy at this other BT fansite forum where a small group of us managed to dissect a fair amount of the BTI game for the C64 and, to that end, I was able to "expand" the existing version of that game to include 4 dungeon levels.

Disk images:
http://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefil ... ltered.zip

To get started, grab a VERY high levelled party and head on down to Sewers level 3, at 9N 5E...