This is an entry to the Ludum Dare 46 jam. Please vote for us!

The game gets progressively more difficult, with a special scene appearing as you complete 20 stories.

In "Bard: Keep the Story Alive", the timeless tradition of storytelling is being passed from one generation to the next. The player takes the role of an apprentice. Each night before a performance, the master Bard gives the apprentice a new verse of the story to tell. During each performance, the apprentice must perform the verse as close to the teaching as possible.

Give your storytelling desires a whirl!
See how audiences respond!
Find out what strange tales the master has to tell!
Most importantly... Keep the Story Alive!

Controls:
Keyboard, arrow keys for menu, space to select.

Pixelart: Rhoq and Retroshark
Music: Robyn
Programming and writing: Polyducks

Shout out to Somepx for creating the font 'Debuff Pro'

StatusReleased
PlatformsHTML5
Rating
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
(29 total ratings)
AuthorsPolyducks, Rhoq, retroshark, darobyn
GenreRole Playing
Tagsbard, Fantasy, Ludum Dare 46, Narrative, Norse, Pixel Art, roleplay, Story Rich, Typing, vikings
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
InputsKeyboard
LinksLudum Dare

Development log

Comments

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(+2)

Will you ever make a rom for Gameboy for this?

(+1)

That's a great question. I wonder if it'll convert well from keyboard to D-pad. I imagine it'd be very pretty.

Thanks for the idea! I'll put it on the list.

(+2)

Thank you so much for responding! I'll make sure to stay posted :) If you do make it, I can't wait to see it! The game looks amazing so far!

(2 edits)

Story log: (starting at 3 because I didn't think about doing that for the first two)

3: Good leaf
dying spider needed cave
child tempted shrunken knight

4: Lost sheep
Young cleric found pig
Happy villager sought cemetery

5: Fat thing
Monkey walked glen
Dreary knight rode prince (📸🤨)
Happy whale promised gardener

6: Distant pirate
Foolish elephant refused golden skull
Ancient widow consoled cemetery
Raiders defeated

7: Arcane skeleton
Frilly hound kidnapped dark frilly painting
Dark spider consorted ancient island
Lovely dove caught distant treasure

(+1)

These are great stories, thanks for sharing!

It's amazing how you can just imagine all the story's details from three lines

for me its broken, stuck on this screen except the fire is the only thing that moves

What happens if you type on the keyboard?

(1 edit)

literally nothing

i pressed almost every key (except the off button on my computer, and pointless stuff like reload or tab)

Sorry, I just saw your comment and looks like I didn't manage to respond. I looked into this at the time and couldn't find the error.

Firstly, does it work now four months later, and if not,  which browser are you using?

OH! And when you go to play, make sure you click on the game to make it the focus of the window. If you click away (or tab out) you will lose focus.

Thanks and sorry!

(+1)

I loved this sooo much!!
you are amazing!!!!

(1 edit) (+1)

Omg Filipe haha thanks 😊

This one was a team project. Had a great time making it together.

Cool, but too short

How many rounds did you play? The stories get longer and more complicated

it's just a maroon blank screen for me  :'>

(1 edit)

How odd! What hardware/browser do you have? I know it's a bit difficult to read on the itch.io page sometimes


edit: I see an issue with it too. I'll take a look when I'm back at my keyboard next week. It's possible it's missing some data.

ooh alright alright, i can wait! i'd love to try this game :DD

and if my hardware and browser info is still needed, i'm using a dell inspirion 15 5000 with an intel core i5 (hopefully this is the correct information) and then google chrome for the browser

(1 edit)

Thanks for the deets! I think I had trouble loading it because I was on my phone, as it loads in fine for me on my desktop. When you go to this URL ( https://polyducks.itch.io/bard-keep-the-story-alive ) you should see it under "Bard: keep the story alive" and it should say 'tuning up' as it loads. If it still doesn't show that, could you press F12, go to the 'console' tab and tell me if there are any errors (red text)?


(+1)

It's a funny game. I liked it

(+3)

Alright so, It's a pretty fun game, what I kind of like about it is making up my own stories to go along with the little prompts you have to use in game. It makes the game a lot of fun and you get a nice little jolt of creative energy out of it. This is a really neat game, I don't know why, but it reminds me of those old games we played in computer class, you know? Fun little call back to those times.

How do i download?

I'm not sure you can! To play the game you click on the splash screen in the browser. It does look like it blends in a little too well with the background. It's the big pixellated image with the words 'press spacebar to begin'.

(+1)

Ohh I thought that was an image, not the game lol

haha yes, that's been a recurring problem :p

(+3)

That's pretty nice guys! Again, you tried something unusual and achieved a lot with very little. I really enjoyed these 21 verses (had to stop eventually ). The gameplay is limited but refreshing (not sure of the word, i mean unusual / new in a good sense) and, more than once, i ended up burst out laughing because it was so nonsensical. Verses like "Stinky pirate saved skeletal bread" or "Sorry sorcerer accepted lonely pickle." (my favorite) are so absurd that it's hard NOT to remember them. The game is funny and cute (i have to ask, is the green sprite the alien doll of Toy Story?!) and also quite challenging for a non English speaker like me (i prefer it that way so it's a good point). Again, i had a blast. It would be really nice to have some specifics about the game like what engine did you use or how did you build the gameplay (did you create three arrays (nouns, verbs , adjectivs) and randomize its each verses),... That being said, congratulations to you all. You really inspired me (i'm gonna try to participate to the next Ludum in October) and i'm impatient to see your next game. Again, well done (and sorry for any grammatical mistakes, really)!

(+3)

The generated stories were definitely my favourite.  The game is in vanilla JS, which means I rolled my own engine. The stories are made up of four arrays - nouns, characters, verbs and adjectives, and each verse follows a predefined pattern like 'character, verb, adjective, noun' which gets selected from reach array randomly.

We had to be really careful that we didn't accidentally generate something rude!

(+2)

Thanks for  your answer! I was really curious about the way the game works. Had some ideas but wasn't quite sure. It's really cool to have some insights here. Again, good work ;)

(+1)

Thanks! I passed on your comments to the rest of the team :)

(+2)

This is awesome!