Bardic

Bardic
Authoring system
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Links	Home page Download
Developer	Kate Louie
Format	Other
Interaction style	Choice
Systems	Browser, Windows, macOS, Linux
System details	Bardic is a Python package that runs anywhere you can install/run Python.
Latest version	0.4.0 / 9 December 2025
Status	Beta
Implements
Uses
Multimedia support	It supports custom text styling, graphics and sound via the `@render` directive which sends story information to the front-end framework. Bardic is primarily a narrative engine layer meant to be frontend-agnostic.
License	MIT
Notes	Uses `.bard` files for narrative and optional pure `.py` Python files.
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Bardic is a Python-first interactive fiction engine and domain-specific language (DSL) designed to bridge the gap between narrative scripting and full-stack programming. It was developed to solve state-management limitations found in other choice-based systems like Ink or Twine.

Key Features:

• Python Integration: Allows authors to import and use custom Python classes, objects, and functions directly within the narrative script.
• State Management: Features auto-serialization of the entire game state, including custom objects.
• Graph-Based Editing: Includes a VSCode extension with a visual node graph, syntax highlighting, and live passage previewing.
• Frontend Agnostic: Compiles stories to JSON, making them portable to various frontends. Ships with templates for NiceGUI, Reflex, and React+FastAPI.
• Parameterized Passages: Supports "functional" passages that accept arguments, useful for repeated mechanics like shops or generic NPC interactions.