The Doctor and the Dalek Review

[Jubal]

The Doctor and the Dalek

Game Type: Free Online Play/Free Android Download
Genre: Puzzle/Platformer

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/games/doctor-who-game

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I started making a Doctor Who game for many reasons, but one of them was that I hadn't found an official DW game that I actually really enjoyed. After playing the BBC's most recent output on the matter, "The Doctor and the Dalek", that view is, sadly, unchanged.

The draw/idea of this game was given as it being something that would help kids learn programming - so it has little programming "puzzles" between sections of gameplay. Each puzzle unlocks an additional bonus for your dalek (affectionately referred to as "Lumpy"). The programming mechanic is fairly swish, works well, and provided most of the fun I had with this game. Trying to do puzzles with a minimal number of commands is a good thought, and I'd have liked to see more (and more diverse) puzzles available. In fact, I'd probably have preferred it if the entire game had been a string of the programming/puzzle sections.

The reason this would have been preferable is that the "meat" of the rest of the game is essentially a set of platformer levels. Which, though there's not too much inherently wrong with, there's really not much right with either. They're not the most super-smooth perfect platform levels ever created - I got stuck in the floor twice during my playthrough, and the controls generally handled with all the finesse of a Gloucester Old Spot drunk on a keg and a half of rum. A lot of the game's difficulty was nonetheless bound up in repeated attempts to get through each level, which managed to be tricky without the resulting accomplishment feeling rewarding. There were a few puzzle-platform sections which was good, but by and large the platforming just felt like frustrating filler in between more interesting bits of puzzle and story.

The storyline, where it existed, was fine, and it was good to see the Sontarans get in there as well as the omnipresent cybermen and daleks; the voiceovers are good, and Capaldi does lend the right level of doctorishness to the plot. The lack of any real characterisation beyond a very few cutscenes meant, however, that this did not make up for the somewhat unimpressive content of most of the levels.

Overall, I can only give this game a 3: there were some good elements, but I'm not going to play through it again and the world, sadly, still remains crying out for some really good RPG or puzzle gameplay mechanics in the Whoniverse setting.

[Clockwork]

Nice review dude


I think two games you'd really enjoy are HackNet and SpaceChem. Both incredibly difficult at the highest levels and still pretty difficult at early stages. I own HackNet (on steam) but haven't touched it yet.


HackNet you're a hacker but writing actual code instead of the usual RPG minigames to hack things. In SpaceChem you're a reactor engineer and you make chemicals at the molecular level. Both puzzle games in every sense, enough story to make them engaging and a wide variety of difficult to impossible challenges

[Jubal]

Noted, will have a look

I should finish reviewing all the other DW adventure games sometime, but that would involve playing them all again and they're really not that great. 95% of them are just a simple sneak mechanic.