True. But these kits go back way further than that. For example, the Adventure Construction Set was released in 1984 to make tile-based RPG/adventures.
IIRC, one guy made a full game out of it. It was called Bardlore (I think); it was commercial, and he wrote a scenario [MQ], added hit points to everything and changed all the spell casting codes with the hope that he could sell players the manual. He also put a nearly topless photo of a woman that he claimed was his girlfriend, as the queen in that game.
Yeah... you can tell that I read the thread all the way to the end before posting. ^^^The problem with Frua was that they did not own the TSR license, so Frua was not allowed to export standalone games.
EDIT:
I wanted to give you link to good FRUA modules archive, but looks it's dead. Good archive of Blades of Exile modules dead as well. Gladly, years ago I downloaded them all.
Not entirely true. I'm the developer of Bt Builder, an open source implementation of the Bard's Tale Construction Set. It has nearly all the features of the BTCS although some are implemented more like the earlier Bard's Tale games. It also has a number of capabilities beyond the BTCS. Currently there are two sample games with it. One will be restricted to BTCS functionality and one with showcase more functionality. (Right now the BTCS restricted sample is using some Bt Builder only capabilities but that will be removed soon.) So there is one BTCS game still being made and hopefully my spiritual successor to the BTCS will have more games made for it.
I've found working download links to a two part game made with The Bard's Tale Construction Set, The Bard's Lore. You can find them here under Homebrewed Games.
EDIT: Looking at the maps for the game:
I might have to play this.
I don't believe Devil's Whiskey ever used BTCS during development. From my understanding there were two groups that tried to create a Bard's Tale spiritual sequel. The first didn't want to do a full 3D rendered landscape instead do 3D view like the Bard's Tale games. The second group was going to do full 3D rendered world. The first group folded and second group scaled back to a setup more like Bard's Tale view. (It is still rendered using opengl but everything is still grid based like the older games.) I suspect the first group was the one working with BTCS. I was joined the Devil's Whiskey team after they already scaled it back. I offered to write a converter to turn BTCS maps into Devil's Whiskey format but the other developers didn't want the restrictions of BTCS so I never wrote it.
First, thanks for the reply. My memory is a little fuzzy on 90's BTCS mods, but help me clarify this, if you would. There was a BTCS mod called "Devil's Whiskey" or at least a demo available, correct, or no? Also, when were you on the team? Were you there to produce the finished product? Anything new coming along the same lines? Any info would be appreciated.
It was never a BTCS mod. It has a different game engine. The demo is still available. (Or at least it looks like it is available. I haven't tried downloading it from the site.) I joined the team in Dec 2000. A fair amount of work on the graphics rendering had been done. I took on importing the item list into the game and making the items function. I implemented the save game system. After the game's release, the lead programmer moved on. He was really the driving force behind the group so no further games were developed. I continue to work on Bt Builder which is my open source reimplementation of the BTCS. It removes many of the limits in that engine and adds new features. For example you can define your own classes, races and bard songs. It supports maps larger than 22x22 and has an unlimited size for specials.
