Gates Of Integrity - free The Bard's Tale clone

https://tarjan.itch.io/gates-of-integrity

I just started to explore the second dungeon. The game is very much like The Bard's Tale, and maybe even more like The Devil Whiskey since visually it also looks like it, including using real time outside combat (and classic phased-base combat), if you've played The Bard's Tale or The Devil Whiskey you know exactly what to expect.

I don't know if there's a way to play the game in full screen, and the game does not have mouse support, no biggie, full keyboard control works.

You start in a town and dungeons are accessible from there, you unlock the access to the next dungeon by completing the last one. You can only save your game inside the adventurer's guild. That's fine but unfortunately I don't think there's a way to Save & Quit.

I got poisoned once but until I finally encountered some mages targetting the full party all monsters had basically no ability, the only difference between them was stats, at least the difference can be high enough that you need to learn when you'd better try to run. Besides the randomly triggered random encounters there are also fixed spots which also trigger random encounters, I also found at least one fixed encounter but I got no reward other than gold and xp so I barely saw the point.

One difference with The Bard's Tale and many directly inspired games is there's no distance (10' ...), or so I think, although' the mentalist, which is not a spellcaster, has an ability to pull a group of monsters, I never fought more than two groups of enemies and what I assume is that they may be more than two in which case the third one is not accessible in melee or something like that.

The classes are quite classic and the spells I got so far are what you would expect, some damage or paralysis spells targetting one monster or a group, one spell telling your coordonates which helps placing your map on your paper sheet, levitation (over traps), disarm (chest) traps, some light spells and summon spells since the game is directly inspired by Bard's Tale.

One weird thing is that so far anytime I tried to use weapons they made less damage than fists so I just fight barehanded. My warrior may deal some damage with a weapon but because of his low dexterity he never manages to hit so I'm not sure. I have not find any missile weapon (maybe the shop has one and I'm just blind) and then my mentalist in the second rank is useless. I bought some weapons I never used but the shop also has some basic armor parts to sell, and the beginning of the game is partly about buying those parts, then you'll get better equipment from killing monsters. For the rest raising levels take all your gold.



Some screenshots :

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Gates of Integrity kind of sounds like a parody name.

 

I got the Teleport spell which can teleport the party anywhere in a dungeon so now going back and fourth from dungeon to town is just a matter of a few clicks and MPs.

My two spell casters reached the highest level of spells in their class and then switched to the other class available at the start (there are 2 unlockable classes).

 

Hello CryptRat!

Thank you for sharing my game here!

"Some tips from the underground":

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The game only works windowed and you can only save your game in the adventureres guild. This was intended to prevent saving every 10 seconds.
The Mentalist will do some more or less useful monster shuffling when there are 3 groups or more because only the first two groups are reachable for melee attacks as you assumed. Depending on your armor and how much you leveled at this point, he may or may not be helpful...
I just looked at the calculations for damage dealing. At very low Strength and Endurance levels fighters indeed tend to do a little bit less damage with weapons than with bare hands. This will change when the character gets stronger and/or finds more powerful weapons.
Your spellcasters will be able to learn the other two spell classes when they reach the highest level of their second class. You may find it useful to exchange one character for a new, third mage then.

I played the original Bard's Tale 1 on Amstrad CPC over 30 years ago and since these days I wanted to create a game with the exact same atmosphere.

 

so no exit save?

 

No, you must return to the guild if you want to save.

 

(in reality it's a quite organically presented puzzle)

Maps of the town and of the two first dungeons in case someone would want those :

 

I really like the art, it looks so clean and simple. Are you an artist ArchmageTarjan ?

 

Thank you, Lukipaluki! But I did no artwork for this game. Some stuff I bought on various sites, some are public domain graphics. My job with the art was just to select a fitting combination of graphics and to present it in a nice, but old-school way. There is a long list of credits for the graphics in the online help

 

Any guy that makes a blobber has my support (and money)!

I just got done running through BT1-3 so will take a break from that formula, but once I'm ready for more BT I'll play GoT!

 

Thank you very much, newtmonkey! I hope you enjoy it!