Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror (video game)

Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror
Doctor:	Sixth Doctor
Companion(s):	Splinx
Main enemy:	The Tremas Master
Main setting:	Rijar
Key crew
Publisher:	Micro Power
Developer:	Micro Power
Writer:	Gary Partis
Release details
Platform:	BBC Micro, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC
Genre:	Platform
Release date:	1985 (BBC Micro) 1986 (Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC)

Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror was a 1985 platform video game developed and published by Micro Power. It featured the Sixth Doctor and Splinx.

Summary

The Tremas Master has obtained a TIRU, a device with the ability to chop and splice time, allowing him to rearrange events in the universe. He has held up in the "Mines of Terror" on Rijar, where Heatonite, a mysterious compound vital to the construction of a TIRU, is mined.

The Time Lords send the Doctor to the mining complex. As an emissary of the Time Lords he may not bring any weapons, but he does have a highly sophisticated robot cat called Splinx.

Searching around the mines, labs and other mazes, the Doctor and Splinx collected various objects to confront and defeat the Master.

Characters

• Sixth Doctor
• Splinx
• The Tremas Master

Crew

to be added

Worldbuilding

• Designed by the Time Lords, the Time Instant Replay Unit (or TIRU) was capable of recording specific instants of time and replaying them with modifications and editing. TIRU would be used to repair time glitches that occurred throughout the universe. A complex crystal lattice constructed from Heatonite rods held in a force field is essential to the functioning of the TIRU. The Master intended to use the Doctor's brain as a component in his modified TIRU's structure.
• Heatonite was a mineral demonstrating a combination of radioactive, organic and metallic properties. Even in its natural state, it had considerable time-distorting properties. Large groups of crystals were capable of emitting a massive energy pulse fatal to most forms of life.
• The Tremas Master's modified TIRU unit was built within the Second Moon of Rijar. An obscure and barren planet lying far from the galactic centre of an isolated giant spiral, Y-Absolem. Rijar's sun is a Red Dwarf only a few times bigger than the planet itself. The moon was home to the first-generation Rijans, the cybernetic Controllers of the Ky-Al-Nargath and the planetoid's former dominant species, the Madrags.
• Splinx was constructed by the Doctor and runs on a computer programming language known as CYBAL.

Notes

• This is the first video game to feature the Sixth Doctor.
• A great deal of narrative information is explored in the Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror manual. These entries include briefing notes, the structure of Heatonite, the origins of the TIRU and the various inhabitants of the Second Moon of Rijar.
• The game is noted for introducing new elements close to - but distinct from - existing Doctor Who universe concepts to which rights were not obtained. The game's robotic "Controllers" heavily resemble Daleks and Splinx is a logical alteration of K9.
• The game was initially developed as a followup to the non-Doctor Who game Castle Quest by the same publisher. Doctor Who-related graphic, gameplay, and story elements were added partway through development after the licence to produce a Doctor Who game was obtained.

Continuity

• The Doctor has been sent on a mission by the Time Lords. (TV: Colony in Space, Genesis of the Daleks, The Two Doctors, et al.)
• The Sixth Doctor is travelling without any companions, apart from Splinx.

Gallery

• 

  BBC Micro version

• 

  Commodore 64 version

• 

  BBC Micro cover

• 

  BBC Micro cover (full view)

• 

  Commodore 64 cover

• 

  Commodore 64 game cassette

External links

• Doctor Who and the Mines of Terror manual