Doctor Who: The Adventure Games

Since early last year, production has been underway for the Doctor Who PC video game. Working very closely with the new series production team, the development by Charles Cecil and Sumo Digital has embraced the look and feel of the 2010 season including the new TARDIS interior design and the new Doctor as well.

Details have been very scarce until this month and now that they are becoming available, it is sounding more and more interesting.

A quick guided tour of its impressive features: it’s free, it’s released in four episodic chunks, it’s on PC and Mac, its first installment is out in just a few weeks, and it’s one of the closest collaborations between Big Media and games development ever seen.

Simon Nelson, the BBC Vision’s controller for portfolio and multiplatform, is the first to admit that prior form hasn’t been brilliant for the BBC or Doctor Who. And as the man who greenlit this latest effort, he can explain the the thinking behind the new game.

“In drama, and stories in general, we have always been fascinated by the potential of the participative medium that is the internet and online – and how we can fuse the new participative features that the web enables with our traditional skills in storytelling, writing, production,” he tells Develop.

“And if the BBC is to stay relevant to younger audiences it needs to stretch its traditional content beyond TV and radio. But we had delivered some poor results in the past from not having the level of expertise to do that.”

The first three of the four adventure episodes are written by Phil Ford, responsible for Doctor Who special ‘The Waters of Mars’, episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood, associated books and radio plays, and the script for Dreamland. The fourth episode is written by another Doctor Who scribe, James Moran, who wrote the series four episode that took the Doctor to Pompeii.

As for the platform, the game is being made for PC and Mac – because the BBC has to be able to address the widest audience possible as part of its public service remit, and that’s computer owners, not console owners. (That likewise explains why it’s free, because the BBC cannot charge for content.)

“Our approach is to make something that is like an interactive TV episode. You don’t get stuck, but are challenged. You have to drive people to play, but not put them off – the reward to overcome the challenge is the next chunk of Doctor Who narrative.

“Generally the gameplay is driven by stealth, minigames and a little bit of object interaction. But it’s not an adventure game where you are scratching your head trying to work out how to use two abstract objects together.”

Adds developer Sumo Digital’s creative evangelist Sean Millard: “We wanted to write a game that appeals to three generations – kids, their parents and older viewers. But that audience is so wide we can’t really have them stopping to think for more than two minutes – it’s not that your hand is held, you make your own way independently through the game. But the challenge is never about you sitting back and scratching your chin.”

“We can do things in those episodes that we can’t do in the TV show,” adds TV show exec producer Wenger, with a hint of envy. “We long to go to alien planets and to blow up the centre of London and go on the Underground in a post-apocalyptic world, but we can’t do them on TV sometimes.”

“Or if we do we’d need to have five cheap episodes after to make up for it,” jokes Moffat.

So Cecil and Sumo have been given free reign to come up with some of the most ambitious Doctor Who stories ever told visually. Yes, London gets blown up – another episode is set leagues beneath the sea.

The Cybermen will challenge the Doctor and Amy Pond in the new video game

“We got to see the set very early on,” explains Cecil. “Ed, the head of design, became very excited by our requirements and showed us the new TARDIS to be sure our vision matched what they had. Prior to then we just thought it was cool that the game would allow you to explore the new TARDIS, partly because it is so different and new. But when we saw it the second time there were these new doors and stairs. I started to panic, and asked what they were for. Ed’s reply was: ‘Hang on, that’s for you guys – you said you want to explore the TARDIS in the game’.”

So the show’s iconic set, which will be seen every Saturday night until summer, has been built with the game in mind. Players will be able to go through the very door they see on TV in the game itself to find the Doctor’s drawing room, full of artefacts from the show’s long history.

Fidell explains: “It’s a new opportunity to introduce fans to the history of the Doctor. The drawing room features lots of iconic artifacts from his travels.”

In one interactive episode, the Doctor and companion Amy visit one of the most famous planets in the show’s history – but one barely seen on TV in any real detail. That means Sumo has had to define the look and feel of it, something that the TV crew has promised to adhere to should the show itself ever go there.

“When the previous Doctor Who visited some of the iconic locations, they were shrouded in mist or very closely shot – for good budgetary reasons,” explains Cecil.

“The team here gave us free reign on those locations to just go for it, live up to the legacy and create things that are epic and menacing. Its an amazing thing – the game is defining what some of those big things in the Doctor Who mythos look like.”

Read the entire article that goes into even greater detail here

I’m still getting used to the fact that I’m enjoying the new Doctor Who series with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. After being been very underwhelmed by the past few years of Doctor Who, it has been exciting to see the revitalization of the new series. The confirmation of a second series along with a script from comic book legend Neil Gaiman sounds like the quality will continue to hold up.

I have to note that Doctor Who has not had the best of luck in the video game world.  In 1983, the PC game debuted to cash in on the 20th anniversary. This was followed by the very strange 1986 entry Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror game starring the 6th Doctor and a shape-shifting robot cat Splinx… no kidding.

Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror

In 1992 the Seventh Doctor and Ace battled a world over-run by Daleks and Ogrons in Dalek Attack, the only game that I know of allowing the player to select a unique incarnation of the Doctor ranging from 1-7!

Dalek Attack

It wasn’t until the ‘Destiny of the Doctors’ Doom clone in 1997 (featuring an absolutely mad Anthony Ainley as the Master) that the program truly explored the 64-bit video game world… with mixed results.

Destiny of the Doctors intro

Episode 6: Silurians

Episode 7: Zygons

The close development of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games and the TV series is a unique approach that should pay off in the long run. The episodic format and the fact that the game is free is very enticing… I wonder if it will be available in the US?

Of course, i have a soft spot for this one:

Doctor Who pinball game