Developer’s Insight – Silversword

Happy birthday Silversword

I will celebrate the 10th birthday of Silversword on February 13th 2021. And I invite you to join me 🙂 Never thought that my hommage to The Bard’s Tale series would last so long. Thank you very much dear players. For each line of code the game has been downloaded once. Sound’s cool, doesn’t it? And it still pops up in the App Store’s Top 100 from time to time. That doesn’t mean that you will get rich, tho 😉 Don’t expect too much if you happen to be a game developer and want to publish something. But of course you should publish! I am still waiting for a remake of Wizardry 6/7 on mobile. Might & Magic 4/5 would also be a blast.

Enjoy the game as I do! Thank you again. Yours, Mario.

Them nasty rats!

I never understood why the very first quest – the one with the rats in front of the armoury – caused so much trouble for so many players. Tonight I’ve (hopefully) finally found the missing piece in this puzzle. And with the next update, these troubles should be gone forever (fingers crossed).

Well, in this case, a seemingly simple string to integer conversion just didn’t work out. And because this fight seemed to be like the others, I always overlooked what was wrong right in front of me. Now I know better – this combat is interestingly the only one in the whole game that does things different. Maybe it’s because it was one of the first combat scripts I’ve ever written for Silversword. Being a programmer can be hard… 😉

Lootbox RPG available!

The satisfying dungeon crawler is here for your grinding pleasure.

Lootbox RPG is a classic dungeon crawler. At first sight some of you may say “oh no, another rogue clone”. But it is not. I hate rogue, because when you do something stupid, you die. And the game is over. Very frustrating.

Lootbox does things different.

“Oh no, an incoming call!”

no real time decisions, you can safely interrupt the game at any point.

“So late already?”

no need to exit the game, a real world clock can be switched on optionally.

“What? I AM DEAD?”

No permadeath, this is no rogue-clone. You can load/save at any time, or return to safety without losing all your money or equipped items.

“Damn! I died and I forgot to save!”

The game is autosaved every level, don’t panic.

“If I only could teach those damn rats what I’ve learned…”

You can come back to your old friends and show them your uber gear.

“Nice game, but my smartphone is over 5 years old…”

The game runs well on older devices, happy playing!

“Where can I buy money?”

Nowhere. This game is OFFLINE and there is NO Pay-To-Win mechanism. Sorry.

“Where is the chatroom?”

There are enough messengers already in the world, right?

“Where do I have to register?”

“Where is the premium version?”

There isn’t. Buy once, play endless.

https://lootbox-rpg.com

Bard’s Tale I Remastered is available

I don’t support websites which force me to enter my birthdate before displaying content (wave to inxile), but as a true believer and follower of the old ways it is my duty to inform you all that the spiritual father of Silversword has been re-released in a remastered version. Tales Of The Unknown (Bard’s Tale 1) can be bought for Windows on Steam. So far, I am some hours into it and I can say that they’ve put some effort in making things easier. If you ever thought that Silversword has too much grinding – please do me a favour and give that game a chance 😉 You will soon see how it was back in the old days… so happy playing and good luck when kicking Mangar’s arse…

Silversword was removed from the App Store today

Apple has informed me that Silversword violates against the App Store Review Guidelines. They found that my app duplicates content or the functionality of another app… and this is considered spam.

Well – that would be cool because then I could play a classic Bard’s Tale clone by myself finally and don’t have to do all the work. I kindly asked the review team to name the duplicate content or the other app that lead to this violation. Hopefully things will get more clear soon so that Silversword is on the App Store again.

What we do for christmas…

While my wife is working on the french translation of Silversword, I shoot many photos on Tenerife which perfectly fit into the story that the Flooded Island will unfold. Do you have any special wishes for the next expansion? Just write me an email or post it on our forums. Promised: I read all posts 🙂

News from the past

I am very happy that Burger Becky (Rebecca Heineman) is really working on a remastered edition of the classic Bard’s Tale games.

Chances are that we might see a mobile version, for converting the existing C++ / Assembler Code to XCode/iOS can be done (by her – she told me 😉 ).

In the meantime, I am trying to get the Flooded Isles crowded with creatures, stories and riddles (for your gaming pleasure).

Thank you all for enjoying the game 🙂

Happy Holidays in Tarnak!

Thank you very much for another great Silversword year, my dear fans of classic CRPG!

And while you surely will escape the ice and snow by visiting Inferno once again, I am working on the Flooded Isles. The major storyline develops, and new maps, monsters and items are already implemented. You really shouldn’t throw your seashells away…

Best wishes
Mario

What if…

what if…

your thief could prepare your party for an ambush, jumping on an enemy and surprising it at melee range, ready to strike first?
your thief could teach your party members how to hide in the shadows until a suitable wandering creature passes by so that you can actively look for company?
that creature would turn hostile once you rob it of its money? 😉
your thief could show you how to sneak past enemies, avoiding a confrontation completely?
some genius invented a bedroll with which you could rest outside and let your health and mana regenerate?

Wouldn’t that be nice?

I’d say: Stay tuned for the next updates 🙂

What’s he working on?

Eight new runes, that do not only give more damage / armour, but also give HP / SP regeneration, and even damage shields (automatic riposte when getting hit by an enemy).
The Flooded Isles are being worked on.
Heritage Expansion… the world gets tougher, and the landscape is changing…