Doctor Who Games Score Second Season

Logan Westbrook

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Feb 21, 2008
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Doctor Who Games Score Second Season



Everyone's favorite Time Lord will once again be materializing in people's computers, doing battle with monsters and aliens while wearing incredibly cool bow ties.

The success of the Doctor Who adventure games has prompted the BBC to commission another series. The first three episodes of season one have been downloaded more than 1.6 million times to date, with a fourth and final episode still to come.

The new episodes will again feature Matt Smith and Karen Gillen as the Doctor and Amy Pond, and will be produced by - amongst others - lead writer Steven Moffat.

The BBC's head of multiplatform in vision, Simon Nelson, said that it would be "daft" not to commission a second season after the success of the first. According to Nelson, not only are the download figures high, the feedback the BBC has received has been overwhelmingly positive. He said that for many people, the Doctor Who games were the first games they had ever downloaded. He believed that the games had introduced a lot of people to a new type of drama, and had pushed the idea of families playing together.

The Doctor Who games are available to download [http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/theadventuregames] free of charge for UK residents, or for a small fee for those outside the country. The final, and as yet untitled, episode of season one of the games will be released for PC and Mac later this year, with the new season starting up in 2011.

Source: MCV [http://www.mcvuk.com/news/40945/BBC-recomissions-Doctor-Who-Adventure-games]



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JediMB

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"...free of charge for UK residents, and anyone going through a UK proxy."

>_>
 

luvd1

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Think the beeb are missing a trick. They could make a tidy sum if they do a proper game for cash instead of a quick, novelty download. Give the character some real backing and make a open world adventure. Not that I care. Just always thought Aunty is too lazy thanks to the licence fee. Go on, branch out and take a real risk into the multi media world of today.
 

TimeLord

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Woo! I love these games and for being free, there is no downside!
 

unacomn

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I played the fist two episodes. As adventure games, they were rubbish. As games expanding the Doctor Who experience, they were poor. In total, they were a poor pile of rubbish.
Why can't they just remake the Amiga games?
 
Feb 13, 2008
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Logan Westbrook said:
The BBC's head of multiplatform in vision, Simon Nelson, said that it would be "daft" not to commission a second season after the success of the first.


Hear that, Grade? That's the programme you cancelled because you didn't like Sci-Fi.

That's also the sound of karma biting your ass off.
 

Vault Citizen

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I'm not sure whether or not these games deserve a second season. They were fun and amusing for a couple of hours but nothing really special but I pretty much only had a look because they were free.
 

Jared

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Glad to see more of this will be coming out! Loved the first series of games- Fun lil mini adventures!
 

Sindre1

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While this is good news, I really want a regular type game for all platforms.
How great would a FPS be if they featured the angels from blink? :D
 

Swifteye

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unacomn said:
I played the fist two episodes. As adventure games, they were rubbish. As games expanding the Doctor Who experience, they were poor. In total, they were a poor pile of rubbish.
Why can't they just remake the Amiga games?
Maybe the games would be better if they charged people money?
 

unacomn

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I payed 4 euros for 'em. But yes, a real commercial release, with a budget and that isn't targeted at 8 year olds would be a lot better.
The thing that graded my noodle the most was how bland the story and characters felt. This really bugs me, because the script for both episodes was written by the guy who wrote Waters of Mars, and that had an amazing ending. This just felt like poor fan fiction.
 

oktalist

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This news makes me very happy, not so much for the Whovian in me but for the adventure gamer in me who welcomes the genre getting more coverage.

luvd1 said:
Think the beeb are missing a trick. They could make a tidy sum if they do a proper game for cash instead of a quick, novelty download.
That would be up to BBC Worldwide, which is supposed to be a separate company. The BBC proper is not allowed to sell stuff for money. It's the rules they have to follow in exchange for our license fees. And I don't think the adventure games were quick novelties.

unacomn said:
As adventure games, they were rubbish.
I disagree. As adventure games aimed at kids, I thought they were quite good. If they fix the awkward controls and the broken voice acting they could be very good.

I think the somewhat bland stories could be due to the DW writers not really knowing what adventure games are about, not understanding the medium, not realising what can be achieved. I think now, after the first few games they might have more of an idea what's going on.

unacomn said:
But yes, a real commercial release, with a budget and that isn't targeted at 8 year olds would be a lot better.
They are targetted at kids because it is a kids' TV show.

Scrumpmonkey said:
Amy Pond's voice performace was also very phoned in
I'm afraid that's just Karen Gillan's acting.

Sindre1 said:
While this is good news, I really want a regular type game for all platforms.
Adventure games are a regular type of game, you heathen! :)

How great would a FPS be if they featured the angels from blink? :D
Might make an awesome horror game, but not an FPS for God's sake. And they wouldn't make a proper horror game because it has to be kid-friendly.

 

Sindre1

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oktalist said:
Sindre1 said:
While this is good news, I really want a regular type game for all platforms.
Adventure games are a regular type of game, you heathen! :)

How great would a FPS be if they featured the angels from blink? :D
Might make an awesome horror game, but not an FPS for God's sake. And they wouldn't make a proper horror game because it has to be kid-friendly.
Thats not what I meant :p
The Longest Journey is one of my favorite all time games.

I only meant FPS in the same sense that Portal is an FPS.
It could be a UNIT game. You walk around with a gun the whole game, but it never does any fricking good :p
And as long as the game is only related to Doctor Who, and don't have it in the title, it REALLY don't have to be kid friendly.
Case in point; Torchwood.
 

oktalist

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Sindre1 said:
I only meant FPS in the same sense that Portal is an FPS.
It could be a UNIT game. You walk around with a gun the whole game, but it never does any fricking good :p
And as long as the game is only related to Doctor Who, and don't have it in the title, it REALLY don't have to be kid friendly.
Case in point; Torchwood.
Good point. A Torchwood action/horror game could work.
 

Sindre1

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oktalist said:
Sindre1 said:
I only meant FPS in the same sense that Portal is an FPS.
It could be a UNIT game. You walk around with a gun the whole game, but it never does any fricking good :p
And as long as the game is only related to Doctor Who, and don't have it in the title, it REALLY don't have to be kid friendly.
Case in point; Torchwood.
Good point. A Torchwood action/horror game could work.
Sure.
Or something brand new, but set in the Whoniverse.
Point is; if they set their mind on it they could make something a lot better than these little things they make now.
Hopefully they will gradually figure out how they can use this media by working on the adventure games.
 

oktalist

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Sindre1 said:
oktalist said:
Sindre1 said:
And as long as the game is only related to Doctor Who, and don't have it in the title, it REALLY don't have to be kid friendly.
Case in point; Torchwood.
Good point. A Torchwood action/horror game could work.
Sure.
Or something brand new, but set in the Whoniverse.
Well if it doesn't have Doctor Who in the title, then it needs to be recognisable as related to it. An easy way to do that would be to use the name of the already recognised spinoff series.

Also, the target audience should already be aware that Torchwood is itself supposed to be the non-kid-friendly version of the show.
 

Flying Dagger

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the plot seemed a little slow to me, instead of making short games where your actions were only nescessary to story, they seemed to instead just shoehorn in puzzles everywhere, though I'm only a little bit into the first game anyway so :/
 

Sindre1

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oktalist said:
Sindre1 said:
oktalist said:
Sindre1 said:
And as long as the game is only related to Doctor Who, and don't have it in the title, it REALLY don't have to be kid friendly.
Case in point; Torchwood.
Good point. A Torchwood action/horror game could work.
Sure.
Or something brand new, but set in the Whoniverse.
Well if it doesn't have Doctor Who in the title, then it needs to be recognisable as related to it. An easy way to do that would be to use the name of the already recognised spinoff series.

Also, the target audience should already be aware that Torchwood is itself supposed to be the non-kid-friendly version of the show.
Oh, but they should not market it only to Who-fans.
The target audience should be anyone that likes good games.
It would be a great way to get in new viewers that have never even heard about DW or Torchwood.

While a Torchwood game would be fun, it does limit what they can do with it a bit.
None of the main characters could die, for example. That has to happend on TV.
And there are no other Torchwood employes left but Gwen and Jack at this point, so unless its set in the past (witch still would be fun) you can't have some other Torchwood team as the main characters.

If you had a Dalek or the TARDIS on the cover that would help the problem a bit, but only when you see it in the store.
How to make people aware it is Who-related by reading the name online, I don't know.