Sunday, 27 April 2014

The Mothership Doctor Who Legacy Torchwood Exclusive by Jess Griffin

    

   
Love Doctor Who and puzzle games? Try Doctor Who Legacy the new free to play game app available on iOS, Google Play and Kindle.

Game Description
Team up with your favourite Doctor and head back through time – revisit your favourite episodes from the TV series and build a team of your favourite companions and allies including Clara, Rory, Amy, River, Sarah Jane, K-9 and dozens more, each of which has their own abilities to help you solve the infinite number of puzzles you’ll face.

Face the Doctor’s greatest enemies! Crush Daleks, destroy Weeping Angels use puzzles and abilities to take down The Silence, Headless Monks, Peg Dolls, Spoonheads and many more in this brand new BBC Doctor Who gem gaming saga!

It’s quite an addictive game with the endless levels and strategy needed to defeat the enemy, the play is split into season starting with season 7, each season has a series of levels in which you meet the characters and from corresponding TV Series.  As you progress through the levels you earn new Characters, Costumes, Time Crystals and Time Fragments. The time crystals can be used to buy items or continue game play, the time fragments are used to level up your characters.
You can purchase the time crystals but it is not essential as you can progress through the game without making this a truly free to play game. Add the fact the creators value the input of the fans, regularly give away freebies and are always on hand to answer questions and queries makes this game unique in many ways.

Useful Tutorials to help beginners are available on YouTube I use TheAdiposeTV
Gems and how best to use them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tY-EEuwmEE  
A basic guide to characters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoBt5i8KnWw

Another good site full of useful information on characters and levels is the Doctor Who Legacy Wiki page that is edited by dedicated players

I recently spoke to Susan Cummings, Executive Producer asking her a few questions about the game and its creation.

Where did the idea come from for Doctor Who Legacy?

At the start of last year Tiny Rebel was looking for their next game project. We wanted to make a mobile game since that whole area was new to us, and we wanted to make a game based on a universe we loved. We started talking to the BBC and we found out that it might be possible to get the rights to do a game based on Doctor Who, a series we were (and are) passionate fans of. We discussed many different types of games we could build around the Doctor Who universe, but we wanted something very specific – a gameplay framework that would encompass the entire history of the show, all the great characters, locations, and something which could be extended over time. We were huge puzzle games fans (we had designed and produced a puzzle game together earlier in our careers), and it was an area we were happy to jump back into.

How long did it take to go from the idea to the available game?

We worked through February on the original design concept, we pitched to the BBC early March, the game development started in April, and we released the first version of the game in very late November. From November onwards we have been working on version 2.0 which comes out in 2 days (April 17th).

Did you expect it to be such a huge hit with the fans?

We didn’t expect the reception we received – we’re thrilled that fans love the game as much as we do.

When you approached the BBC with your idea what was their initial reaction and do they have any say in which characters and episodes you bring in?

The BBC have been incredibly supportive at every step. The game concept we pitched to them originally was very close to the game we shipped, and they understood, and supported, the vision from the very first day. We send ideas and lists of characters to them occasionally, they send thoughts back, and collaboratively we come up with the episodes and characters who finally appear in the game.

How long does it take to get permission to use the characters?

It depends, and varies dramatically. Some take days, some take months to be cleared. We can never guess – it happens when it happens =)

The characters we have seen so far are from the New Who with a few from Classic Who will you be incorporating any more of the classic Doctors, companions and aliens?

We plan to push much more heavily towards “classic” Doctor Who in the upcoming seasons. Season 4 is being planned around having 3 (very) classic episodes, and we want to continue that in further seasons.

The game is split into seasons how long does it take to create each season and how do you decide which characters to put in?

The first thing we do is to break down seasons into appropriate episodes – some episodes work better as levels in the game than others, so we use those as a starting point. From there we work on a general flow for the seasons, which characters we want / are appropriate, and after we sketch out a chunk of gameplay we start to go back and fill in the gaps. We try to get the “more important” characters from the universe first.

You brought us Captain Jack and Ianto Jones soon followed will you be bringing us Gwen Cooper and maybe the rest of the Torchwood team? (I would love to see Toshiko Sato and Dr Owen Harper).

Absolutely!  Gwen Cooper has officially signed off on joining the game, so we’re planning to have her in during (or before) season 4. We would love to do a Torchwood specific side story to the main game which incorporates not just the whole Torchwood Three team, but the more Torchwood specific aliens and themes.

We have Sarah Jane Smith are there any plans to bring in Luke and the other characters from The Sarah Jane Adventures?

We’re not just huge fans of Doctor Who but the whole of the “expanded universe” as well. We would love to dive deeper into the Sarah Jane universe, in the same way as we would love to do more with Torchwood.

It had been mentioned you were trying to bring the game to Facebook are you any closer to achieving that?

We’re very, very close to having a completed Facebook version. Our goal is to have it live a couple of weeks after Season 5 is launched and is stable (so within the next 2 or 3 weeks).


Every Thursday from 8pm – 10pm UK time tune into www.twitch.tv/theadiposetv where fans gather to talk through the game, share ideas, watch live game play, question the and have the chance of receiving free items for the game.


The game was co-developed by Tiny Rebel Games and Seed Studio and published by Seed Studio, under license from BBC Worldwide.

"Doctor Who Legacy is a exciting strategy game based in the Doctor Who universe. What starts off as a simple 'match 3' gems game quickly develops into a complex mix of character selection, perks, targeting, bosses, special attacks and more! There are over 40 hours of gameplay and a huge variety of characters and enemies from the modern and classic era. The company has an excellent ethos of not using energy systems or 'pay to win' but a far more friendly - 'pay for quick unlocks' which is refreshing, moral and a model that other companies should follow. I do weekly live shows with the creators of the game so come and get involved in the community!"  AdiposeTV

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