Dr Who \ Doctor Who Games

[Sslaxx]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/08/gallifree-doctor-who-the-adventure-games/

Holy crap! By Revolution Software no less? Nice.

[Peder 🚀]

I has the Peace and Goodwill Prologue here:
http://www.agsarchives.com/game-files/DoctorWho-TheCurseofZog.zip
Though its not playable.

I also DID have the Time Snare demo, but cant find it, and the sever I had it on is a server I dont have anymore.

[Frodo]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/08/gallifree-doctor-who-the-adventure-games/

That looks interesting.  I'll be keeping an eye on that.
Thanks for pointing it out, Trumgottist.   

[Stupot]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/08/gallifree-doctor-who-the-adventure-games/

Holy crap! By Revolution Software no less? Nice.

And FREE apparently.
I have very little interest in Dr. Who, but I'll probably give this a go, just because it's Charles Cecil.

P.S. I've served Tom Baker in a supermarket where I occasionally work.
The guy is an absolute arrogant CUNT... sorry, but it's true.

[xenogia]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/04/08/gallifree-doctor-who-the-adventure-games/

That looks interesting.  I'll be keeping an eye on that.
Thanks for pointing it out, Trumgottist.   

Here are some more screenshots of it via Adventure Gamers website.

http://www.adventuregamers.com/gallery.php?id=1654

[Cirius]

And lo, as if summoned from the depths of time and space itself, Cirius appears in a puff of smoke.

Peace and Goodwill is a V. big project for me. With absolutely no experience of AGS, and very little time and energy to commit to a project, I decided to take on far more than I can ever chew. Work does continue, but at a pace reminiscent of a no-legged millipede.

In my absence, the Peace and Goodwill demo has apparently fallen off my download site. I do apologise. I'll try and put it back up in the morning.

I am planning a few far smaller doctor who games, single or few room jobs, along the mini-episode lines. Not a lot to show for it at the moment beyond a few sketches, but conveniently, I can steal a massive number of sprites and objects from Peace and Goodwill, so the difficult part is almost out the way.

[Sslaxx]

Very surprised to see you responding, Cirius. The mini-episode ideas sounds good, good luck with them!

[Cirius]

As promised, the demo for Peace And Goodwill has been resurrected here:

Peace And Goodwill

Also, assuming Duckbutcher won't object, I've also uploaded the excellent Doctor Who: Time Snare as the website seems to have disappeared into the etherwebs.

Time Snare

To expand this conversation somewhat, people always say how spectacular a doctor who adventure game would be, but the idea does raise a few important questions I'm curious as to how you'd all address.

Given that the doctor is, in his own words, a genius, it seems a little odd to have the character bumbling around a setting with little idea what's going on. There generally seems to be a sense of purpose to all his actions, whether he draws attention to them or not. How do you counter this in a gaming setting? Do you make the doctor a non-player character, and if you do that, do you not run the risk of turning off potential audiences who expect to play as the doctor?

Duckbutcher chose to make the doctor the playable character, but I can't help feel that it acted somewhat to the detriment of the companion character, who seemed to fall into the background on occasion.

On the other hand, I have discovered there is absolutely nothing more fun than writing for a doctor who villain.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose. Ho hum.

[Sslaxx]

As promised, the demo for Peace And Goodwill has been resurrected here:

Peace And Goodwill

Also, assuming Duckbutcher won't object, I've also uploaded the excellent Doctor Who: Time Snare as the website seems to have disappeared into the etherwebs.

Time Snare

To expand this conversation somewhat, people always say how spectacular a doctor who adventure game would be, but the idea does raise a few important questions I'm curious as to how you'd all address.

Given that the doctor is, in his own words, a genius, it seems a little odd to have the character bumbling around a setting with little idea what's going on. There generally seems to be a sense of purpose to all his actions, whether he draws attention to them or not. How do you counter this in a gaming setting? Do you make the doctor a non-player character, and if you do that, do you not run the risk of turning off potential audiences who expect to play as the doctor?

Duckbutcher chose to make the doctor the playable character, but I can't help feel that it acted somewhat to the detriment of the companion character, who seemed to fall into the background on occasion.

On the other hand, I have discovered there is absolutely nothing more fun than writing for a doctor who villain.

Swings and roundabouts I suppose. Ho hum.

Well, I'd imagine the Doctor will be playable in the new adventure games they're making, so they'd have to address that issue too.

Why should (or does) play control over the Doctor necessarily equate to "bumbling around a setting with little idea what's going on". One issue would be player knowledge versus character knowledge I guess. I'm not sure I'd necessarily want to see "companion saves the day" stories ala the Eccleston era if you were to do games with the player as the companion; the balance would be tricky. Not impossible though, and there might be ways around it.

[Jared]

The Doctor did do a lot more 'bumbling around' in the Classic series of course...

If there's serious intent here for a spontaneous group effort of finally making a completed AGS Doctor Who game then I'd like to be involved. I'm a very big fan, across all the mythos from Absorbaloff to Zygon, from Faction Paradox to Zagreus. I'm also a confident writer - bit of my work (a fan re-write of Attack of the Cybermen) available here and I've some friends who are also big fans and good writers.

I can code, too. So... if anything happens I'm definitely in. The first AGS project I wanted to try was a DW one in fact ("The Power of the Nestenes") but that was around ten years ago and never got past an uber-n00bish "I'm going to make th1s game, dudes!" post.

Was rather amazed by the news of the new games earlier today, since I was saying years ago that I was amazed Revolution had never bought the rights...

[Cirius]

Broken link there Jared.

You raise an interesting point actually. I've somewhat assumed that any joint doctor who game would inevitably be one of the new doctors, but there's absolutely no reason why that should be the case. Certainly, it might make considerably more sense to involve one of the older doctors, if only for the 'bumbling around' factor.

That, and I'm still not overly sold on Matt Smith, but let's not derail a topic down that road.

I'd thoroughly throw my hat into any joint project, I've absolutely no idea what I could do to assist, but I'm sure I can think of something.

[Jared]

Broken link there Jared.

Fixed now. I keep forgeting which forum does what and had quotation marks round the address.

You raise an interesting point actually. I've somewhat assumed that any joint doctor who game would inevitably be one of the new doctors, but there's absolutely no reason why that should be the case.

Which is interesting because the ones that I've seen planned... Time Snare was 4th, the breakdown one was 8th, my idea was 5th, and one I saw on a website which a guy admitted was little more than concept art was 1-8. Oh, and somebody released a Klik 'N Play game that was 1-5. Peace and Goodwill was surprisingly the only modern Doctor game I'd seen (Ironically with some niftily uber-retro graphics)

It's as if people who enjoy making Lucas Arts/Sierra-style adventure games are predisposed to nostalgia somehow... 

Certainly, it might make considerably more sense to involve one of the older doctors, if only for the 'bumbling around' factor.

It isn't quite to say that previous Doctors were more foolish or less competent - a big part of it was stories having more running time on average and a slower pace. The Doctor didn't need to come up with a plan quite so quickly. I have to say that Tennant's hyper-competence would make an adventure game with his Doctor impractical unless the player took the companion role...

Personally I like the idea of the companion being an occassionally playable character as well, or even split evenly to the point of the later Broken Swords. The companion gets used a lot to provide multiple sides of a story, after all.

[Technocrat]

From an audience standpoint, I think a lot of the kind of people into adventure games have "the Doctor" in their heads as one of the older ones. After all, he'll always be John Pertwee to me. Conversely, maybe drag non-adventure folk in using newer doctors like Tennant and co?

[Chicky]

I have Pertwee's autograph, does that make me AWESOME?

Honestly, i really hate the crap that the BBC are spitting out for the new generation.

[Frodo]

From an audience standpoint, I think a lot of the kind of people into adventure games have "the Doctor" in their heads as one of the older ones. After all, he'll always be John Pertwee to me. Conversely, maybe drag non-adventure folk in using newer doctors like Tennant and co?

Oh, so true!  The old doctors are so much better than the new bunch.  

For me, it's Tom Baker (remember that scarf?   )  Stupot said he was arragont, but I don't care, I LOVE HIM ANYWAY.  

[Cirius]

I'm torn between Tom Baker or Sylvester McCoy, but Tennant did have a certain appeal for me after stepping out of the Tardis dressed pretty much the same way I've looked for about the last ten years.

Speaking of autographs. My wedding gift from my brother was an extremely large portrait of a dalek, signed by David Tennant, John Barrowman, Billy Piper, Catherine Tate, Camille Coduri, Eve Miles, Bernard Cribbins, Freema Agyeman, Elisabeth Sladen, Julian Bleach and Noel Clarke, pretty much the complete cast of Journey's End.

Now there's a guy who knows what his brother likes. And the wife was equally happy, before anyone asks.

Here's a bizarre, completely unworkable idea. Everyone interested calls a Doctor, puts together a v. short game and we release a complete collection? Crazy I know.

Even crazier, person one makes a short game, at the end of which the tardis dematerialises. He then zips up the unfinished game and passes it on, code, graphics and all to person two, who carries on with the tardis rematerialising. So person one has absolutely no idea where his Tardis will go once he ends the episode. Ending up with a mad, completely random jaunt through space and time with no coherent plot whatsoever.

[Sslaxx]

I'm torn between Tom Baker or Sylvester McCoy, but Tennant did have a certain appeal for me after stepping out of the Tardis dressed pretty much the same way I've looked for about the last ten years.

Speaking of autographs. My wedding gift from my brother was an extremely large portrait of a dalek, signed by David Tennant, John Barrowman, Billy Piper, Catherine Tate, Camille Coduri, Eve Miles, Bernard Cribbins, Freema Agyeman, Elisabeth Sladen, Julian Bleach and Noel Clarke, pretty much the complete cast of Journey's End.

Now there's a guy who knows what his brother likes. And the wife was equally happy, before anyone asks.

Here's a bizarre, completely unworkable idea. Everyone interested calls a Doctor, puts together a v. short game and we release a complete collection? Crazy I know.

Even crazier, person one makes a short game, at the end of which the tardis dematerialises. He then zips up the unfinished game and passes it on, code, graphics and all to person two, who carries on with the tardis rematerialising. So person one has absolutely no idea where his Tardis will go once he ends the episode. Ending up with a mad, completely random jaunt through space and time with no coherent plot whatsoever.

That really sounds quite an interesting idea...

[Cirius]

I prefer the first idea, if only because it'll end up with an insane mix of styles, graphics and plot, and it also means we won't have to wait forever and a day before anyone gets to play a finished game. Keep them short, keep them simple, and keep them moving. As each gets finished, it gets added to the collection.

Who needs a BBC budget? Pah.

[AngelicCharon]

I was going to type out a proper response, but instead have opted to merely say I support the idea of a collection, and would like this to move beyond mere discussion. 

[EnoRed]

Pretty cool idea, actually. Would be interesting if you could get one person per Doctor. Although I have a feeling not too many people will be stampeding to take up Colin Baker's part...