Devil Whiskey

Originally planned as something like a fan remake of the old Bard's Tale games, Devil Whiskey has developed over the years to something completely original and highly ambitious. Here is the history of the project, as found on the official website:

The idea for creating this game started in October of 1999 when a group of talented individuals, all fans of old-style adventure games such as Dragon Wars and the Bard's Tale series, met on a discussion list. They banded together with the intention of creating a new game to carry on their favorite storylines, and a dream was born.

After tossing some ideas around in early 2000, it became evident that the group was divided in their approach to creating this as-yet undefined game. The group decided to break up, and the earliest core of what would become Shifting Suns Studios, LLC came together with the intention of creating a completely fresh title, based on the concepts of game play and storyline that made the old favorites such fun, but set in a completely original game universe.

By the middle of 2000, the core of the group was solid in their interactions with one another and their desire to tackle the production of an independent, commercial game. Realizing after some discussion that a full, 3D, real-time game was not the best first project, a smaller undertaking was attempted: a simple, turn-based, grid-mapped adventure title in the style of those old games that sparked the group in the first place. Thus was born The Bard's Legacy: Devil Whiskey (later renamed to Devil Whiskey, to avoid potential confusion between our completely original product and certain other products available in the computer entertainment industry).

Over the course of many months, Devil Whiskey has evolved into a much larger, more complex game than it was originally intended to be. There are many hours of game play, many pieces of original artwork, over 100 minutes of original musical compositions, a full game engine including 3D graphics produced using OpenGL, hundreds of items and monsters, and dozens of races and classes. While it started as an attempt to make an easy first pass at game production, Devil Whiskey has grown, through the enthusiasm of our fans and through our own better understanding of the process of game design and development, into a complete game that has already brought many hours of enjoyment to the testers and developers, even though it is not yet even finished!

As we rapidly approach release, we would like to thank our fans, who have kept us going all this time. The development has been done entirely in the spare time of those who made the effort a labor of love. While we will be selling the final title, we won't be asking more than is fair, and it's only to compensate the many who have worked on the game for as much as three years for their blood, sweat, tears, and continued faith in our ability to put a quality game out there for the fans of adventure and turn-based role-playing.

One final comment: there are those who still confuse our product with a non-existent sequel to the popular Bard's Tale series from Electronic Arts. While it is true that the Bard's Tale series is one of many games of the style and age that we draw inspiration, our game is entirely original, and in no way related to the Bard's Tale series.

Hopefully our game will be recognized as an original game. Once you play it you will realize that not only is it original but there isn't any other game like it. It's a classic style game where old game play meets the latest in graphics and sound capability.

The combination of old-skool gameplay and state-of-the art graphics can be dangerous. The Shifting Suns team have handled it well, the graphics never feel out of place. The portraits are lovely, and creating your characters is great fun.

Unfortunately, the interface proved a bit too old-skool for me. Interface, after all, is one of the few aspects of gaming where there has been true progress over the years. I didn't mind the character-based menus, but I would have liked more details about the equipment. The game gives you no indication at all which items are better, or which player the might fit best. Even Wasteland at least showed the armor class.

As for gameplay, Devil Whiskey has inherited the far too tough enemies from The Bard's Tale series. The very first band of monsters I encountered completely annihilated my party without even losing one of their own.

In the end, it still burns down to whether you liked the old Bard's Tale series or not. If you did, you will probably enjoy Devil Whiskey too, as long as you don't expect a remake, which it isn't. But if you didn't, if you found combat too hard and hated stumbling around Skara Brae with no orientation, you probably won't get much out of Devil Whiskey either.

As for now, Devil Whiskey is available for Windows and Linux. A Macintosh version is in development. The game is currently closed source, but the developers plan to release the source after 50,000 copies have been sold. You can download a large demo with one quest, and buy the game either boxed or per download.