Doctor Who: The Adventure Games

Next week it will be two years since Doctor Who: The Adventure Games exploded onto our screens with City of the Daleks.

Blood of the Cybermen, TARDIS and Shadows of the Vashta Nerada followed in 2010 whilst 2011 saw the release of the epic The Gunpowder Plot, the most ambitious of the lot that boasted an all-star cast including Emilia Fox, Ralf Little and Phil Daniels. These five games finally gave you the chance the fight Cybermen and Sontarans, fly the TARDIS, try the sonic screwdriver and basically be the Doctor!

Every Adventure Game remains available to download from this site and they’re free within the UK. It’s hard to believe their second anniversary is upon us, and when asked about the origin of the games, their Senior Producer, Mat Fidell, commented, ‘We are always trying to explore new ways of telling Doctor Who stories and games have always been phenomenally successful for Doctor Who – so the Adventure Games were a perfect fit.’

The games were – and remain – very much part of the Doctor Who universe that we see in the television episodes. Every care was taken to make sure that starting with City of the Daleks, the world of the games would have the feel of the TV series. Of course, Matt Smith and Karen Gillan voiced the Doctor and Amy with Arthur Darvill (Rory) joining them for The Gunpowder Plot and all three had their movement captured to ensure the figures in the games moved like their onscreen equivalents.

The award-winning Phil Ford (The Waters of Mars, Dreamland, The Sarah Jane Adventures) wrote all but one of the games, Doctor Who veteran Gary Russell served as Drama Producer whilst Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis were on-board as Executive Producers. There were several cast member cross-overs including Nicholas Briggs and later, Dan Starkey and even the music was by the brilliant Murray Gold, the show’s composer since 2005.

‘It [making the Adventure Games] was a unique experience,’ Mat Fidell recalls, calling them, ‘A true hybrid production, bringing together the story-telling skills of the Doctor Who Production team and the game design talent of Charles Cecil and Sumo.’

We caught up with writer Phil Ford for an exclusive interview about the Adventure Games, but if you’ve still not played them, what are you waiting for? They’re free within the UK, dead easy to download and are the closest you can get to regenerating into the Doctor! Try them now!