The 80's Doctor Who games
| Year: March 1983 (Cover date) Price: 75p (cover price) Machine: Atari 400/800 |
Story: You are stranded in a pyramid on Strardos IV. You as the Doctor must kill the Master and retrieve the time drive for your Tardis. If you don't the Master will destroy you and the planet.
Background: The first Doctor Who game came in the form of a programme which you had to manually type into your computer. The article was printed in Computer and Video Games magazine, just a few months before the first adventure came out. It was a simple game involving the Doctor, the Master and a Pryamid. The Doctor even managed to get on the front cover.
This is what the game looks like. This is part of the title page which features all the sprites used.
| Doctor Who - The Fist Adventure
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Story: The game is divided into four episodes and is accompanied
by a booklet containing a fictional scenario.
(From the Terrestrial Index and the booklet itself)
Episode 1 - The Labyrinth Of Death - The Labyrinth is a maze of underground tunnels in which you must find the three segments of the Key to Time. The only problem is that the Labyrinth is also inhabited by poisonous worms whose odor is deadly if you get too close to them. You travel around the tunnels in an old mining buggy.
Episode 2 - The Prison - The Doctor must carry explosives across three defenses (a highway, a moat and a forecourt) to blow up the wall of the prison where his companion is being held.
Episode 3 - The Pterodactyls (spelt Terrordactyls in the booklet) - The Doctor must use a spaceship to fly through swarms of Pterodactyls to reach the TARDIS. You can fire missiles at the Pterodactyls
Episode 4 - The Box of Tantalus, the Doctor must detect and destroy four patrols of invisible aliens in a 3x3x3 grid of space. Using grid square coordinates (X,Y,Z) He must detect them by bounce laser beams off them, then use rockets to destroy them.
Notes: The game features the fifth Doctor (well in name anyway, you can’t tell a thing from the graphics). The manual is very wordy and is quiet complex for four fairly basic games. The games themselves are very cleverly disguised arcade games shoved together and slightly doctored. Episode 1 is lightly based on the Pac-man principle and episode 2 is your basic Frogger variation. Episode 3 is space invaders and episode 4 uses the Battleships idea. The game has a good story line, it’s just let down by its graphics and game play. Reviewers also noticed these points and so were less then kind when reviewing it.
The plot pits you against the Evil Black Guardian. The games release in 1983 was just around the time that the Black Guardian was reintroduced into the TV series in "Mawdryn Undead". The game also uses elements from his earlier appearance in the Key to Time season (indeed Graham Williams producer of that season is given a credit in the manual).
The front cover features an illustration of Peter Davidson as the fifth Doctor, drawn by Martin Brownfield. Considering that Peter is not the easiest person to draw, the cover comes over very effectively (accept his coat appears to be pink)
Publicity: The Radio Times released a 20th anniversary special magazine with features on the (then) 20 years of Doctor Who. One of the features was on the merchandise, and after only just being released the game gained a whole page feature.
The game was even advertised after episodes of Doctor Who on TV.
The keys are -
Z - left
X - right
@’ key - up
?/ key - down
Return - fire
The books description of the first game does not inspire confidence -
The Labyrinth of Death - The buggy is signified by four dots arranged in a diamond shape. The "phut -phut" noise of its engine can be heard whenever it is moving. The segments of the Key to Time are represented by flashing crosses. The four worms are represented by wriggling white lines. (sounds fun doesn’t it ?, what do you mean No!)
Doctor Who
Year: August/September 1984
Author: Ranjan Bhattacnarya
Price: 95p
Machine: BBC B
Story: (From the magazine) Stranded on the planet of the Daleks, Doctor Who is trying to reach the Tardis before his oxygen runs out. However, the Tardis is out of order and keeps jumping about the screen. Can the Doctor reach the reach and avoid the Daleks.
Notes: Another magazine program you could have a go at typing in yourself. The article features an illustration of the Fourth Doctor avoiding three Daleks while heading for the Tardis. Not much more I can tell you about this game until I manage to type up the code.
| Dr Who and the Key to Time (A.K.A The Key to Time)
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Story: (From the game itself) The time storms have affected the ability of the doctors current persona to operate properly. Because of the nature of the emergency, the high council of the time lords have authorized that control is passed to you. This is contrary to the first law of time, but desperate situations require desperate remedies! Good luck, Doctor. (You're going to need it!)
In this adventure, you must guide your earlier persona by sending him messages through this time lord telepathic controller, cunningly disguised as a Sinclair spectrum.
References - ZX Spectrum magazines
| Magazine | Issue | Feature |
| Sinclair User | December 1984 | Review |
| Sinclair User | May 1985 | Letters - About Sentient Software having taken over distribution of the game. |
| Crash | January 1985 | Review |
Notes: I found this game as a result of skipping though the Eighties book by David J Howe and chums. It was placed in the miscellaneous section and stated that nothing particular was known about it. The front cover makes no mention of its Doctor Who roots, only a tiny Tardis picture alerts you to it. The full inlay can be found here.
You play as the Doctor. You start out as the 1st Doctor and each time you lose a life you can regenerate into the next doctor up to the sixth Doctor. The game is dedicated to the memory of William Hartnell.
This game may have been a ZX Spectrum only game as it is very specific in the instructions. As with all text adventures it's very annoying and finding the right commands to do something can be difficult.
It not only features the TARDIS, but also Daleks, Cybermen, even Sensorites! There are five destinations you can go to, the Dalek city, a field which leads to a cave system with Cybermen lurking inside, an old monastery inhabited by Sensorites, a zoo at Regents Park and even Gallifrey (where you can visit the president's quarters, and even steal the sash of Rassillon)
Reviews:
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Sinclair User December 1984
HAVE TARDIS WILL TRAVEL Knock, knock, Who's here. The Doctor's back, in search of The Key to Time. This new text adventure from Lumpsoft features the veteran time traveller and many of his oldest enemies, battling it out through time and space. Davros, Daleks, Cybermen and fellow time-lords all show up as you steer your Tardis through the ages. With the aid of a timescanner you must discover the scattered pieces of the great key and presumably save the Universe into the bargain. Before you can begin the quest you will have to learn how to operate the Tardis. Addicts of the TV series will find themselves in a well-known environment, but the program is very friendly and will give considerable help to those who are less familiar with the bumbling doctor. The program is responsive and versatile whilst the riddles are by no means obvious. It will get you zipping back and forth through time like nobody's business. The Key to Time is good-humoured, well written and a joy to play. Richard Price THE KEY TO TIME
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Crash issue 12 January 1985 [Dr Who and ]THE KEY TO TIME Producer: Lumpsoft
The Key To Time is Lumpsoft's first adventure and is all about a time traveller who was all the rage when people used to watch television. The loading screen shows a picture of a police box and funny little robots with a bad case of metallic pimples and tunnel vision compounded by the position of their only eye on the end of a stalk. Apparently it is a bad time for time travellers what with time storms distorting travel coordinates which might lead anywhere and it proves imperative that someone recovers the object that can dispel the storms for good. At a meeting of the High Council of Time Lords one senior member asked, "Who can dispel the time storms?" But this was taken as a command by the others and so you, The Doctor, ended up with the job. On your first attempt at the game it's better to ask for HELP rather than STARTing straight off so you can gather some useful information. "In this adventure you must guide your earlier persona by sending him messages through this Time Lord telepathic controller, cunningly disguised as a Sinclair Spectrum." Here you are told of the game's intricacies including a timely list of recommended verbs including a general HELP, a more specific HELP(TIMESCANNER) and WAIT. The HELP is not as useful as it could be because it only results in a random selection from three or four phrases, one of which reads "Never eat anything bigger than your head", a saying reminiscent of the work parodied by Lumpsoft's next program to be released, Malice in Wonderland. The other, more specific help command is very useful in that constructions like HELP(DALEK) give encyclopedic information concerning a certain object or creature, eg. Cybermen are allergic to gold. I really do like this kind of encyclopedic reference material as it was what we all thought computers were about, indeed what they are good at, until the limitations of micro memory become apparent. In this respect, I can't wait to see what adventure games the QL can produce. The WAIT command begins mimicking The Hobbit but soon departs with an amusingly prolonged diversion. The vocabulary is very friendly with constructions such as GO(TARDIS) and ENTER(CRACK) equally helpful and the plot is similarly responsive; everything can be examined and if you look at the screen you find "The Tardis materialised. Atmosphere: breathable.". Swearing will bring the wrath of Mary Whitehouse down upon your head leaving you to regenerate into your next persona, perhaps this time the chap who is a trifle absent-minded and plays a pipe. Time travel is the core of the game and if you find play relatively easy as I did, then you will proceed quite quickly through the five time zones, although you may well use up a few of the Doctor's characters. Moving through the likes of Daleks and Cybermen you arrive at Gallifrey where you enter, presumably, the final stages around the president's office. If the game's tricky moments hinder progress then you may have time to ponder on the difficulty of getting any score higher than 0 or how to travel from one time zone to another in the Tardis, an operation which involves a tricky combination of lever pulling and button pressing. The Key To Time is a very worthy effort from Lumpsoft combining a friendly response with an interesting plot and amusing interludes. A text-only Quilled game with a familiar theme but very well executed. COMMENTS Difficulty: mostly easy
Atmosphere 7
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Hints: A full write up of the game is here. It is fairly indepth but does not give you all of the exact commands to enter (where would the fun by in playing !)
| Doctor Who and the Warlord
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Story: (From the Terrestrial Index and the Eighties book) First, you must traverse a strange planet in search of the Doctor. Then, the TARDIS takes you and the Doctor back to the battle of Waterloo where you must defeat Napoleon and stop the Warlord from altering history.
References
| Magazine | Issue | Feature |
| Micro Adventurer | November 1984 | News |
| Doctor Who Magazine | 113 | News |
Front Cover: The game was packaged on a blister card. The TARDIS features on the front cover, after BBC Software found that sales of the first adventure dropped when the doctor changed from Peter Davidson to Colin Baker. The inlay details loading instructions and helpful hints. The back of the blister card offers screen shots and the games plot.
Notes: The rarest of the rare. This game came out around the time Doctor Who was put on hiatus so it was not a big seller. About the only game not available on the Internet. Very little is known about this text adventure. What we do know is that the game doesn't feature any graphics and came in two parts. Each part features around 250 locations. According to my sources you had to complete the first part in order to get a code word to continue the adventure. That’s it! We don’t even know which Doctor it features (I suspect its the sixth Doctor).
Articles: An interesting point about the game was like the Mines of Terror, it was intended to be released as a ZX Spectrum game. The article in Micro Adventurer goes like this -
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Micro Adventurer
The player is one of the Doctor's sidekicks, and must negotiate the perils of an alien planet in search of the Tardis. The Doctor pops up every so often and is his usual scatter-brained self. Once the Tardis has been found, the action switches to the battle of Waterloo, where the player will meet various historical personages. The ultimate aim is to defeat the machinations of an evil warlock, out to change history. |
Nothing else was heard of this Dr Who game on the Spectrum, even though it's release was supposed to be fairly imminent at the time. The article also mentions the Tripods game, which did come out for the Spectrum. It’s ironic because the Tripods TV series was cancelled in favor of bringing Doctor Who back, while the Tripods game appeared and the Doctor Who game didn’t.
On to the Mines Of Terror
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