The Gunpowder Plot (video game): Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 03:17, 12 October 2024

The Gunpowder Plot

Key crew

Publisher:

BBC Wales Interactive

Developer:

Sumo Digital

Writer:

Phil Ford

Director:

Sean Millard

Music:

Murray Gold

Release details

Platform:

PC, Mac

Genre:

Adventure

Release date:

31 October 2011

Official trailer

*The Adventure Games*
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You may be looking for the titular plot.

The Gunpowder Plot was the fifth episode of the video game Doctor Who: The Adventure Games. The player had the ability to play as the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams, in his introduction to The Adventure Games. It featured the first use of Rutans by BBC Wales. The episode boasted a much longer and more complicated gameplay experience than the first four instalments.

The episode was marketed as the first in a planned second "series", but the series was ultimately cancelled.

Summary[[edit]]

After a run-in with a spaceship during departure, the TARDIS lands in 1605, where the crew finds the collision has caused portals to other places in time and space to open. On top of that, a group of men are plotting to assassinate the King with the help of a mysterious woman with glowing green eyes. It seems the Doctor may not be the only alien in town...

Plot[[edit]]

The Eleventh Doctor has sent Amy and Rory to Liao Dynasty China for Chinese food. Unfortunately, they mistake the palace for a restaurant, offend the Emperor and have the guards on their tails. The Doctor is in the middle of TARDIS maintenance when a spear is hurled into his record player and the TARDIS takes off.

The TARDIS bumps into another space ship, forcing the latter to crash on Earth. The collision also creates a portal to another planet inside the TARDIS. The Doctor explains the portal as a dimensional lesion. He asks Rory to hand him the sonic screwdriver to examine the lesion properly. However, Rory tosses it and the sonic ends up on the other side of the lesion. On the Doctor's orders, Rory walks through the lesion to find the screwdriver before returning to the TARDIS.

While Rory is getting the screwdriver, the Doctor sends Amy to get a Kardanian Vortex Tuner and a Zardak holofield trap from his drawing room and put them together for him. Using the newly-invented dimensional equaliser, the Doctor closes the lesion. The TARDIS picks up a distress beacon from the ship they ran into, and they go to investigate.

The group arrives underground in London in 1605, four hundred years after the crash. They discover that the proximity of the two alien ships is creating more lesions throughout London. If they don't close them soon, all of London will be sucked into the lesions. While the Doctor hunts down and closes lesions, he sends Amy and Rory to find the ship.

During their search, Amy and Rory spot two suspicious figures talking about a plan to kill the king and follow them to their headquarters in the sewers. Using the chopsticks from their takeout, Amy picks the lock into a secret tunnel and they spy on the men. They realise that they are part of the Gunpowder Plot to assassinate the King of England. Rory notes a detail that wasn't in the history books: a female conspirator named Lady Winters.

Amy creates a distraction by taking advantage of a plotter's fear of rats, using her takeout to lure a bunch of them to him. She notices Lady Winter's eyes glow green. Rory steals a document listing the plotters' final meeting before the plot comes to fruition. With the information in hand, Amy tells Rory to find the Doctor while she follows Lady Winters to see if she's not from Earth. Amy loses her in an alley, where a green goo is all that's left of her. A black cat with green eyes passes her...

Elsewhere, the Doctor is trying to close a lesion and instead diverts the location on the other side to where Amy is. He sees a green-eyed cat turn into a Rutan, prompting him to jump through to save Amy. Amy's scream reveals the Rutan's sensitivity to high-pitched sound. Taking this into account, the Doctor farts and uses his screwdriver on his backside to amplify the sound which scares the Rutan off, much to his amusement. The Doctor concludes the ship they bumped into was a Rutan ship.

Amy is also led to the conclusion that Lady Winters is the Rutan they just fought off. She explains to the Doctor that she is working with the Plotters. The Doctor encounters another lesion. This time a man is in shock from having found it, his mind unable to cope. The Doctor closes the lesion, thus bringing the man out of shock. The man tells the Doctor about a orphan named Charlie who has had encounters with Lady Winters, the "green lady", and more lesions. The Doctor has the man take him to the other lesions while he orders Amy to look for Charlie.

Amy finds Barnaby, a friend of Charlie's, but he refuses to talk to her for fear that she'll give him the plague. Amy finds an apothecary who offers to make her a posie, which are said to ward off the plague, in exchange for its ingredients. Using the posie, Amy gets Barnaby to talk to her. Barnaby hasn't seen Charlie in days. He's been too busy looking after his younger sister, Annie, to look for him. The last time anyone saw Charlie, he was wet and had been underground.

Meanwhile the Doctor and the man, called Mr. Plum, have tracked down two more lesions, which the Doctor seals. Amy arrives shortly after the second one is sealed and explains what she knows about Charlie. Based on those clues, he's been hanging around the drains and near them is where the Rutan ship is.

Meanwhile, Rory has been exploring the London underground and finds Sontarans coming out of the water. Before he can make his escape, he is caught by their mind-controlled servant, Black Rod. The leader of the group, Field Major Kaarsh, wrongly deduces that Rory is working for the Rutans and is tricked into revealing the Sontarans and Rutans are after the Rutan ship because it contains something of strategic value.

Kaarsh decides to imprison Rory as part of a plan to bargain with the Rutans, leaving Black Rod to guard him. Rory sneaks up on Black Rod, steals the mind control device and gets away as Black Rod regains his mind. Black Rod explains he is in the service of the King and investigates threats to his person. He was investigating rumours of the Gunpowder Plot when he came under the control of the Sontarans. After he guides Rory out and away from Sontaran patrols, he tells Rory to find his friends while he returns to his post.

Amy and the Doctor find Rory. All three are aware of the Sontarans in the sewers. Rory gives the Doctor the paper detailing the plotters' next meeting, only to discover it is blank. Using the fireplace in the TARDIS drawing room, the Doctor reveals the details of the meeting have been written in invisible ink. By heating the paper, the Doctor learns that the next meeting is to take place at the Duck and Drake at precisely 9:00.

Using his psychic paper, the Doctor tricks the plotters into thinking he works for King Phillip of Spain and earns their trust by doing tasks vital to the Gunpowder Plot, such as obtain a sedative for the plotters' intended puppet ruler so they can kidnap her without fuss. While the Doctor talks to the plotters, Rory and Amy find a trail of Rutan goo and plan to follow it to the Rutan Ship.

On their way, Rory and Amy discover the Sontarans' weak spot on the back of their neck. Rory and Amy enter the Rutan ship via a lesion and deactivate its security system. They soon run into the brain of the ship, revealed to be alive. The ship doesn't appear to be interested in Rory because he has Rutan goo on him. Amy, on the other hand, is nearly killed by the ship, Rory saves her by giving her some of the Rutan goo. With the ship no longer trying to kill them, they enter the control room, where they find Charlie, who has been captured by the Rutans.

They free Charlie. He thinks they are working with the Rutans and runs away, stealing a green sphere from the Rutan console. However Charlie has left behind his slingshot and a bag of marbles, which prove effective against Sontarans when aimed at their probic vents. Armed with the slingshot, Rory and Amy fight their way through the sewers and get back to the surface.

While Amy and Rory are dispatching Sontarans, the Doctor and the conspirators meet with Lady Winters. To the Doctor's surprise, the conspirators are planning to use forty-one kegs of powder instead of the historical thirty-six. After the meeting, the Doctor convinces Winters that he intends to help her get off Earth, citing the problems her ship and she are causing. Winters claims she needs three things: a pair of energy conversion rods, Parliament removed from the top of the ship, and the momentum from the explosion.

The Doctor sends Rory and Amy to look for the rods. They learn that the rods were integrated into a clock and a globe. Rory and Amy collect the rods, bring them back to the ship and install them. Meanwhile the Doctor and Lady Winters encounter a stray Sontaran, whom Winters kills. Winters explains that her ship was carrying a pair of doomsday bombs to wipe out the Sontaran species.

Winters leaves for her ship. At the same time, Guy Fawkes, the explosives expert and most famous of the plotters, gets the Doctor's help with the Plot. After complications caused by the Rutan ship, Guy and the Doctor get to the kegs. The Doctor convinces Guy to use five fewer kegs and light the fuse ahead of schedule.

The Doctor uses the TARDIS to transport Parliament into orbit, safely away from the explosion and the Rutans. Lady Winters calls the Doctor and accuses him of stealing the weapon, demanding it back or else. Amy realises that Charlie has the weapon. He is hiding in Parliament and is under attack by Sontarans. Rory also realises that the ceremonial mace has the second bomb incorporated into it.

The Doctor gives Amy and Rory a Rutan stun device that needs to be repaired. The group splits up — Rory and Amy will go after Charlie and the Doctor will go to Black Rod and get the staff. Unfortunately the Rutans and the Sontarans have turned Parliament into a war zone. The Doctor finds Black Rod and uses the psychic paper to convince him that he is one of Lord Salisbury's agents. Unfortunately they wind up cornered by a Sontaran.

In the meantime, Amy has found Charlie and Rory has repaired the stun device with a musket. After clearing away a few Rutans, Rory finds the weapon Charlie stole. Amy distracts the Sontarans by getting them into a fire fight with a Rutan patrol. Amy frees Charlie. Unfortunately the Sontarans win the fight and come back. Rory barely saves them with his last marble.

Elsewhere, the Doctor signals Black Rod to distract the Sontaran while he gives him a much needed whack to the back of his head with the mace. The Doctor removes the weapon on the end of the staff and reconfigures the weapon so it is non-functional; if he had made a mistake, that corner of the universe would have been destroyed.

Unfortunately they run into a patrol personally led by Kaarsh. The Doctor lures a patrol of Rutans led by Lady Winters into the Sontaran patrol. The Doctor gives each group a weapon, one now reconfigured to wipe out the Rutans — but not telling them which is which, creating a possibility that each group could hurt themselves with the weapon they were just provided. This forces both sides into a stalemate and makes them leave. Kaarsh takes this news in stride; the Doctor's intervention has made their war with the Rutans "honourable" again. Lady Winters, on the other hand, is furious; the device would have ended the war.

With the Rutans and Sontarans gone, the Doctor returns Parliament to its proper place on Earth and goes to greet Guy. The Doctor assures him that even though he failed now, people will still remember him. He boards the TARDIS and leaves history to take its course as Guy continues with the plot, just in time for King James' guards to come in and arrest him.

In an epilogue, we see fireworks over present-day London as an off-screen Doctor recites the familiar poem, "Remember, remember, the Fifth of November..."

Cast[[edit]]

Crew[[edit]]

Writer - Phil Ford
Executive producers - Brian C. McAuliffe, Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger
Executive producers, interactive - Anwen Aspden, Charles Cecil
Senior producer - Mat Fidell
Drama producer - Gary Russell
Voice director - Gary Russell
Sound and music editors - Nigel James Brown, Tom Barker
Sound effects - Matthew Cox
Programming lead - James Sutherland
Programmers - Phil Woods, Carl Dixon, Dan Mallinson, Henry Durrant, Sean Davies, Tom Sedden
Design and Scripting - Nana Nielsen, Mike Welsh, Sarah Cook
Concepts/Storyboards - Richard Jordon
Art Lead - Michael Hirst (as Mick Hirst)
Artists - Chris Pepper, John Hackleton
Animation Lead - Ian Dreary
Animators - Lee Taylor, Phil Hanks, Stephen Thomas (as Steve Thomas), Shruti Rao, Simon Wottage, Robin Butler, Simon Bradley
Graphic Design Lead - Chantal Beaumont
Creative Director - Sean Millard
Core Tech Manager - Stephen Robinson
Studio Head - Paul Porter
European VP - Carl Cavers
Casting Director - Andy Pryor
Original music by - Murray Gold

Rest to be added.

Collectables[[edit]]

Please note that this section contains spoilers for the locations of collectables within the game. Please skip this section if you don't want to know this information.

Facts[[edit]]

Jacobean Life[[edit]]

Fact	Location	Image
Wattled Hurdle	London cellar: Where the TARDIS lands, against the wall to the left of the lesion.
Gunpowder Barrel	London cellar: When first eavesdropping on the plotters, don't follow them and instead head straight along the corridor. Examine the barrel in the alcove on the right.
Veiled Lantern	London cellar: While following the plotters, it is a on a barrel close to where they are startled by the rats.
Fork and Spoon	London cellar: On a table next-door to the room in which the plotters are plotting.
Princess Elizabeth	London cellar: On the wall next-door to the room in which the plotters are plotting.
Deadly Nightshade	London garden: In the garden outside the Parliament building when following Lady Winters.
Clay Pipe	London: On a crate in an alleyway, to the right of the main street, between the town entrance and the Tyburn Tree.
Tyburn Tree	London: In a central square straight down the main street from the town entrance.
Chamber Pot	London: Down an alleyway to the right of the Tyburn Tree. It is beside one of the houses and passed if following Lady Winters.
Cabbage	London: On a market stall between the Tyburn Tree and the well.
Swaddling Cloth	London: On a market stall between the Tyburn Tree and the well.
Well	London: In the middle of a central square just along the main street from the Tyburn Tree.
Whip and Top	London: On a crate in the alley when Amy and the Doctor confront Lady Winters. It can be easily interacted with once the Rutan is dealt with.
Birch Rod	London: At the furthest end of main street opposite the church. It is leant against the wall.
Breeches	London yard: Hanging on a washing line in the yard behind Margaret's house.
Football	London sewer: In an alcove, guarded by two Sontarans.
Gibbet	London Bridge: On the left, hanging on the wall, upon arrival at London Bridge.
Pillory	London Bridge: Next to a market stall on the right upon arrival at London Bridge.
Nine Men's Morris Board	London Bridge: Near Robert Catesby on a bale outside the Duck & Drake.
Potatoes	London Bridge: At the far end of London Bridge, next to a market stall on the left.
Litter	London Bridge: At the far end of London Bridge.
Beer Barrel	London Bridge: In the bar area, at the bottom of the stairs, after speaking to Guy Fawkes.
Priest Holes	London Bridge: In the bar area, at the bottom of the stairs, after speaking to Guy Fawkes.
Ducking Stool	London Bridge: Beside the water at the foot of London Bridge.

Who Facts[[edit]]

Fact	Location	Image
Dalek Eye Stalk	In the TARDIS drawing room, on first bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Dalek eyestalk.
Book of Weeping Angels	In the TARDIS drawing room, on first bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Book of the Weeping Angels.
Recorder	In the TARDIS drawing room, on first bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Doctor's recorder.
Time Glass	In the TARDIS drawing room, on first bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Time Glass.
Chronon Blocker	In the TARDIS drawing room, on first bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Chronon Blocker.
The Doctor's Crib	In the TARDIS drawing room, between the first and second bookcases on the left upon entering. Interact with the Doctor's crib.
Map of Medieval Venice	In the TARDIS drawing room, on second bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the rolled up map.
Liz Ten's Facemask	In the TARDIS drawing room, on second bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the ornate mask.
Distress Beacon	In the TARDIS drawing room, on second bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the distress beacon.
Ood Translator	In the TARDIS drawing room, on second bookcase on the left upon entering. Interact with the Ood translation sphere.
Cyberman Chestpiece	In the TARDIS drawing room, to the left of the fireplace. Interact with the Cyberman chestpiece.
Psychic Container	In the TARDIS drawing room, on the table. Interact with the hypercube.
Fob Watch	In the TARDIS drawing room, on the table. Interact with the fob watch.
Time Lord Staff	In the TARDIS drawing room, to the right of the fireplace. Interact with the staff.
Sycorax Staff	In the TARDIS drawing room, on the wall in the far right corner. Interact with the Sycorax staff.
Journal of Impossible Things	In the TARDIS drawing room, at the far end of the bookcase on the right upon entering. Interact with the Journal of Impossible Things.
Sonic Blaster	In the TARDIS drawing room, in the middle of the bookcase on the right upon entering. Interact with the sonic blaster.
Cricket Ball	In the TARDIS drawing room, at the near end of the bookcase on the right upon entering. Interact with the cricket ball.
Cyberman Helmet	In the TARDIS drawing room, in the near right corner. Interact with the Cyberman helmet.
The Fourth Doctor's Scarf	In the TARDIS drawing room, in the near right corner on the coat stand. Interact with the scarf.

Worldbuilding[[edit]]

The Doctor uses a Kardanian vortex tuner and a Zardak holo-field trap.
Amy calls Lady Winters "Lady Gaga".
Rory accidentally throws the sonic screwdriver into a lesion that leads to an unnamed planet.
When talking to Black Rod, Rory mentions James Bond.
The Avix Patrol is a Sontaran squad.
John Cobb is mentioned.

Story notes[[edit]]

The Gunpowder Plot is the only pseudo-historical Adventure Game.
This is also the first Adventure Game to feature Rory Williams as a playable character.
The episode index at the back of the 2011 edition of Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia places this story between The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex.
The collectable cards and jelly babies from earlier Adventure Games are replaced in this episode by 41 facts about Jacobean Life and 20 items of Who Trivia, revealed by examining relevant objects.

Production errors[[edit]]

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

The sonic screwdriver is clearly seen within the TARDIS in the cut scene when the Doctor asks Rory to retrieve it through a portal.
The Ood Translator in the TARDIS drawing room is mislabelled an Ood Hindbrain until the player examines it.
When the Doctor and Amy first encounter a Rutan, the Rutan is able to shoot through the boxes you're supposed to be able to hide behind for safety.
When retrieving the three items for the plotters, it's possible for the game to forget one you've already done; you'll have to retrieve the fuse wire, parliamentary seal, or sleeping draught all over again.
At one point when asking Fawkes about the fuse wire, the Doctor calls it "fuse powder."
Characters are occasionally able to pass through walls or fall through the ground, especially in corners.
When Rory is asked to repair the EMP, he is able to skip it by walking into the bookcase and into the corridor on the other side.
Sometimes, during the brief door cutscene on London Bridge, the door opens and closes without the Doctor passing through it.
When talking to characters, the Doctor may end up facing the wrong way.
When Black Rod distracts a Sontaran, if the player leaves the room without retrieving the staff, the Sontaran is able to shoot the player from behind the wall.
When Amy is trying to attract the attention of the Rutan to make the Rutan and Sontaran fight each other so she can free Charlie, it is possible for her to fall through the floor to the floor below, where the Doctor is frozen, when trying to move through doorways.
The game's textual dialogue contains multiple misspellings and grammatical errors.
- After asking a Londoner for gossip and being dismissed, one of Amy's textual responses is "I guess I'm not worth talking too." One of the Doctor's is "Looks like I'm not important enough to chat too."
- Rory's textual dialogue describes the orb in the Rutan ship as "Just like the one attatched to Black Rod's mace."
- A line of Amy's text at the bridge reads "Those rod's are definately somewhere on the bridge."
- Amy's text describes the fishing line as "an environmental hazzard."
- While sneaking past Rutans in Parliament, if the Doctor attempts to go back his text reads "I need to cross the hall to get to Black Rods chambers."

Continuity[[edit]]

Amy returns to the TARDIS drawing room. (GAME: TARDIS) New objects found there include:
- The Doctor's cot (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
- A Cyberman's head, either from the Pete's World Cybermen, the Mondasian Cybermen, or the Cyber-Legions Cybermen.
- The spy glass from Apalapucia (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
- A hypercube (TV: The War Games, The Doctor's Wife)
A Silent can appear at any time during the game, in the parts where the player can free-roam, or at random when the player finds a fact about Jacobean life. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Closing Time, The Wedding of River Song)
Amy and Rory both recognise the Sontarans, having seen Strax in TV: A Good Man Goes to War.
The Doctor claims it has "been a while" since he last saw a Rutan. He last encountered them in his tenth incarnation in either The Sontaran Games or The Taking of Chelsea 426.
Amy again calls Rory "stupid face". (TV: Day of the Moon)
The Master's laser screwdriver is still in the console. (GAME: TARDIS)
Considerably earlier in his personal timeline, the First Doctor and his companions Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister likewise became embroiled in the events surrounding the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605. (PROSE: The Plotters)
The Doctor says to Black Rod, "I'm one of Salisbury's agents. Codename, the Doctor," repeating a variation of the line he said in TV: The Impossible Astronaut when he was telling Richard Nixon's Secret Service agents the "codenames" of himself and his companions (the Legs (Amy), the Nose (Rory), and Mrs Robinson (River Song).
The Doctor refuses to commit genocide. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, Dreamland; COMIC: The World Shapers)

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Contents

Summary[[edit]]

Plot[[edit]]

Cast[[edit]]

Crew[[edit]]