Yesterday Gamercast had the privilege of a trip to the industrious Sheffield, we weren’t there to visit the Millennium Galleries, or the Botanical Gardens, instead we headed into a large business park in the heart of Sheffield and visited the illustrious; but well hidden Sumo Digital, who are working on the new Doctor Who Adventure Games for the BBC.
It’s what you’ve all been dying to hear, and we can now officially confirm that the first episode in the Doctor Who Adventure Games will be titled; City of the Daleks, the doctor will take us to London in 1963, ready for Beatle mania; however something is wrong, and London is in ruins, and the human race is all but destroyed! The most exciting feature of the first episode is that we will be taken to the Dalek home planet of Skaro to the city of Kaalaan, where you ‘wouldn’t want to go without a brolly’. The episodes will all be canon, and are made in close collaboration with the creators of the show, and there is even the possibility of episodes referencing the Doctor’s exploits in the games, so we know that these adventure games will be serious business.
The BBC are very excited with their plans on the series, and sees the Doctor Who Adventure Games as a new enterprise in which the brand will introduce gaming to an audience that may be unfamiliar with the idea.
Follow up:
Sumo Digital approached the BBC with a pitch of Trafalgar Square in ruins; something not possible to create on television, and the BBC loved it, however there were quite a few design hurdles at early stages, with the most important being that the Doctor is the worst character you could ever have as a main protagonist, specifically because his sonic screwdriver works as a skeleton key, he can open every door and fix any problem in his path, the other issue was that unlike 70% of video games, the Doctor does not kill or attack people, instead he negotiates with them. After much deliberation, Sumo decided the best route to take was stealth and puzzle solving, the game itself is very much an adventure game with dialogue trees and puzzles to solve, but stealth is a big section of the games.
Sumo Digital's Creative Director on the team Sean Millard assured me that;
The Doctor Who Adventure Games will have all the proper features of an adventure game, but with simpler puzzles so everyone can enjoy the game, and with Charles Cecil on board it will be just as immersive as Broken Sword and bring players into the game.
If there was just one word that I could use to summarise the first episode: City of the Daleks, it is: impressive. The team at Sumo Digital have put nine months into the title, and it definitely shows; with high resolution models in cut-scenes, a well thought out control system, and a very notably modelled world, and best of all, it is free!
I can definitely see a family huddled around the computer on an evening playing together, in fact when I tried out the game I was taking turns with Melinda from Miss Geeky, and something just felt right about passing another player onto the game when a certain point was just too hard to finish yourself. It caters to all people; new to games and familiar; the stealth could perhaps be a little difficult to unfamiliar gamers, but the dialogue sections and puzzles are accessible to everyone.
One of the reasons that all non-gamers will not feel alienated is that the games feature a really simple control system, where you can use the mouse for camera and movement, which actually works really effectively, or you can use your standard movement WASD or arrow keys if it feels too unfamiliar, the Stealth system is very intuitive and the Doctor will crouch when you are unseen by enemies, and run when you have been spotted which works really effectively, by not having players manually press a key to crouch or run.
From a gamers perspective the stealth was fairly simple, and very easy to get to grips with, which stopped the onset of frustration, and looking at it as an adventure game it definitely has promise, it perhaps didn’t have enough talking and interaction with characters, instead relying on action, however it is definitely worth downloading when it becomes available if you are an adventure fan, and especially if you are a fan of the Doctor; it feels just like an episode of Doctor Who, and if you don't download it then you’ll miss out on seeing the planet of Skaro!
The episodes will last -based on your skill- for around 2-2 ½ hours, and will be a direct download and install for Windows PC and Mac of around 250mb, City of the Daleks will be available on the 5th of June from the BBC. We think the game is looking remarkable, and cannot wait to download it!
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