User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-5791028-20150709160234/@comment-4028641-20151009190924

From Tardis Wiki, the free Doctor Who reference

I've gone on ahead and removed the accusation that that the game can't be set in the DWU because it crosses overs with products that are fiction in the DWU, and that this suggestedly is why it's invalid. This is not true.

The main reason that most people here want the story to be invalid is that it's a lego game and thus can't be set within our Doctor Who Universe. In reality, however, all characters in the game being lego could just be interpreted as nothing more than an artistic decision on part of the creators. In fact, I would argue that the style isn't too far removed from that of Neil Slorance. Story wise, the game is clearly trying to capture the universe for the Doctor Who levels and actually seems to try and fit the story as another "adventure" for the Doctor, which is somewhat unlike other worlds and packs which try and give the characters a "Lego reboot," such as the Back to the Future world. If the game were nothing more than the simple narrative represented in the story, then you could easy place the game within the Twelfth Doctor's timeline and write about this as one of his pre-Series 9 travels.

The issue for this wikia comes only at the gameplay that comes in between story and cut scenes. Here, you're left on a world with a simple mission to complete, be it 'connect these wires' or 'go to point b.' To do this, you have an infinite amount of choices in terms of characters and actions to choose from. There are tunnels that only Scooby Doo can reach, and entire sections of the level that you can only get to by use of Cybermat. This makes for fun and loose game-play but it makes it hard to write about the events with complete certainty. On this site we're used to games like The Adventure Games, where the story and levels are simple and there aren't many ways to go off track or to use different paths. So we don't know when the Doctor is a part of the team, what levels he's a part of, or what he does at all because it's all up to the player. Further confusing is the soon-to-be-gained Doctor and TARDIS figures, where if your character dies, you regenerate into the next incarnation. This seems to separate it from all in-universe logic entirely.

On the other hand, the in-game scenes consistently show only Wildstyle, Gandolf, and Batman. So no matter who you're playing, those three are who are having "the adventure" and those three are who are traveling through the dimensions. Furthermore, in game continuity seems to openly contradict the additional players you can have. Even if you have the Doctor and TARDIS figures in level one, Batman, Wildstyle, and Gandolf still have no idea who the Doctor is in the Doctor Who levels. And by my guesses, which are that and nothing more, the cutscenes in the Doctor Who extra levels will always have the Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, Missy and Doc Brown no matter who you have on your team or how many times the Doctor has "regenerated." This means that the game itself has a plot which is entirely disconnected from the game play, as if the creators of the game wanted to have both be exceedingly fun and amazing without really working together.

Basically this is one of those video games where the underlining story and the actual literal gameplay don't actually mix at all. One solution to this problem would be to count the narrative with Gandolf, Wildstyle and Batman to be the only one we accept as valid as it's the only one that the game really accepts. However, I think that it's unlikely that we'd make such an extreme exception for any game, let alone this one. I'd say that we will most likely deem it a role-playing story due to its vast customization choices in each world, and then push all info to behind-the-scenes sections and put links to the LEGO Dimensions wikia where ever we can.


I've also removed all references to K9, Clara, the first 11.5 Doctors and Missy being in the game since they didn't appear in the main game and the Doctor Who figures and pack haven't been released yet. Thus inclusion of this info is against our spoiler policy.