TARDIS (video game)

TARDIS (The Adventure Games)

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TARDIS
Doctor:	[[doctor::Eleventh Doctor]]
Companion(s):	Amy Pond
Main enemy:	The Entity Chronomites
Main setting:	The TARDIS London, Earth, after the 23rd century
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Wales Interactive
Developer:	Sumo Digital
Writer:	James Moran
Release details
Platform:	PC Mac
Genre:	Graphic Adventure
Release date:	27th August 2010 (PC & Mac)

TARDIS is the third of the Adventure Games, a series of four games in which the player have the ability to play as the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond.

Synopsis

With the TARDIS caught in a time riptide, it's up to Amy to save the day or leave the Doctor trapped in the void forever. Meanwhile, a dangerous entity is roaming the TARDIS corridors and it hasn't been fed for a very long time...

Plot

The Doctor and Amy are inside the TARDIS, discussing where they should go next for a more peaceful outing, which is nearly impossible considering the Doctor's long track record of vacations failing miserably. However, the TARDIS suddenly enters a 'space riptide', and the Doctor is launched through the doors and out into space. After the TARDIS steadies itself, Amy looks outside and sees the Doctor hovering, still conscious and surrounded by a number of strange blue worms, a short distance away.

Through sign language, he manages to tell Amy that he is slowly suffocating, and she can save him by operating the TARDIS by using the red levers to reset the oxygen shield. Amy does so and the Doctor uses an earpiece to tell her to use the tractor beam to pull him back in. However, the console would need an outside source of power for that and he sends Amy to his drawing room to retrieve something to power the beam. Searching through the many nick-nacks in the Doctor's drawing room, Amy finds the Master's laser screwdriver in a safe, but accidentally knocks over a vase. Thinking she can just replace it, Amy hurries back to the control room. Unbeknownst to her, a orange glow escapes the shattered pieces of vase and follow after her. After informing the Doctor through that she found the laser screwdriver, she inserts it into a slot in the console, activating the tractor beam, pulling the Doctor back into the TARDIS.

The blue worms that had pestering the Doctor are known as Chronomites, somewhat harmless parasites, but they can make you 'very itchy'. Unfortunately, the Entity, a old enemy of the Doctor that survived by draining years from others, has arrived in the control room. The presence of the Entity, along with another space riptide, causes the TARDIS to send Amy away.

Amy is now in a future TARDIS with the Entity. Realising that Amy is in the TARDIS 1,000 years into the future, the Doctor sets about scavenging parts from the present TARDIS in order to create a tachyon feedback loop which will reunite Amy and the Doctor. The Doctor manages to scavenge three items; his Fob watch, an Oscillator from the distress beacon he picked up earlier and the Krontos Crystal used to make a chronal blocker in City of the Daleks; using these, the Doctor is able to successfully make the feedback loop.

In Amy's timeline, the Entity attacks Amy in order to begin the process of sucking the time out of her. A time-activated recording of the Doctor contacts Amy and tells her that she needs to answer some trivia in order to prove that she's herself; then she can access and use the tachyon feedback loop to get back to her proper timeline.

Once reunited, while the Entity's finishing Amy off, the Doctor threatens the Entity to restore her or he will re-imprison it. In exchange for letting Amy go, the Doctor promises to release the Entity into the timestream, where it can feed off of the limitless supply of Cronomites. However, he forgot to mention that they're itchy, possibly as extra punishment.

Now back on track, the Doctor resets the co-ordinates for their intended vacation spot: Poseidon 8, built on the flooded London after the great flood of the 23rd century. However, upon exiting the TARDIS, they find that the city is under attack by a gigantic alien shark.

Cast

• The Doctor - Matt Smith
• Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
• The Entity - Sarah Douglas

References

• The TARDIS has a drawing room, sun room and a lift.
• Things seen in the Drawing Room include:

• The Fourth Doctor's scarf
• A cricket ball
• The Master's laser screwdriver
• A Dalek eye stalk
• A Cyberman chest plate
• A fob watch
• An Ood translation sphere
• A Time Lord staff
• The Journal of Impossible Things
• A sonic blaster
• A Sycorax staff
• The Chronon blocker
• A recorder
• Elizabeth X's mask
• The Book of the Weeping Angels
• A gramophone
• A map of Medieval Venice
• A distress beacon
• A painting of a what appears to be Steven Moffat

• Amy and the Doctor are both bad at charades.
• King Kong and Tarzan are mentioned.
• The two red levers on the console reset the TARDIS and extend the air shell.
• The drawing room is half a mile down the corridor, left, then right, then right again, then the third right, past a weird swirly thing, left, then the other left, through the sun room, past a green door, right, along a wall until it becomes slimey, down a lift to the third floor and straight ahead.
• The Entity says "I must feed". This is very similar to something the Ood said in The Impossible Planet.
• The panels of the TARDIS console are named according to function; these are the "Fabrication", "Mechanical", "Communications", "Diagnostic", "Navigation" and "Helm" panels. Many of the individual devices on the panels are named or used.
• The Cloister bell is heard.

Story notes

• In a video posted on the BBC Doctor Who website, Karen Gillan promoted the game and announced the alien was called the Entity.
• The story continues in VG: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada.
• The day before TARDIS was released to download, a story was posted on the Doctor Who website called Wish You Were Here, acting as a prelude to TARDIS.
• This is the first story to actually teach the viewer/player how to fly the TARDIS and what everything on the console actually does.
• A 'Who Fact' about Cybermen states the Eighth and Ninth Doctor's never encountered them. However, it does note that there are some adventures "which we never get to see", and indeed it is clearly only covering TV stories. The Eighth Doctor encountered the Cybermen in DWM: The Flood.

Promotion

to be added

Rumours

to be added

Production errors

• The Doctor says "press red," but Amy pulls two red levers.
• The promotional image shows the front TARDIS doors, but does not show the "St John's Ambulance" sticker on the right-side door.

Continuity

• Items from the previous games appear such as the Dalek Eyestalk, Chronon Blocker, Distress Beacon and a Cyberman chestplate. (VG: City of the Daleks, Blood of the Cybermen)
• The scene where the Entity breaks out of its small prison is very similar to the scene in the TV movie where the Master does the same. (DW: Doctor Who)
• The laser screwdriver is attached to the console. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
• Amy uses the zigzag plotter. (DW: The Lodger)
• The Doctor and Amy both notice that he is rambling. (DW: The Vampires of Venice)
• The Doctor refers to the TARDIS as a female again. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen et al)
• The Doctor refers to bad things happening at Brighton Beach, and Paris. (DW: The Leisure Hive, City of Death)
• The Doctor has a Gramophone in the Drawing Room. (DW: Doctor Who)
• The Entity is stored in a flask, much like Fenric. (DW: The Curse of Fenric)

Timeline

• TARDIS occurs after WC: Wish You Were Here
• TARDIS occurs before VG: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada