Doctor Who Pinball: Time Streams

Doctor Who Pinball: Time Streams is a pinball machine released in September 1992. It has an unusually complex ruleset which made the machine somewhat unpopular amongst casual pinball players, but has since made it more collectible to pinball aficionados.

The machine's video screen refers to the story, outlined in the manual, as Time Streams. Appropriately, each ball is referred to as "Parts" of the story ("Part 1", "Part 2", etc.).

Publisher's game story
Time is running out, literally...

The Master is back and this time he will not fail! He has recruited Davros and what is left of his desperate Daleks. Since being beaten by the Movellans, this group of Daleks have nothing to lose. And both have one enemy in common...the Doctor!

The Master has found an ancient Gallifrey Laboratory equipped with an everlasting self-regenerating "Time Expander". This "Time Expander" can take any part of time and space, stretch it, then allow all other space and time events to interact with this new time stream. This machine requires two operators to work together (changing time and space is serious business). Of course, this has never stopped the Master, or even Davros.

The problem of finding all seven Doctors and expanding their time streams is easily solved in one word-- Earth! This is the Doctor's favorite planet. All of his regenerations, past, present, and even future, have or will, arrive upon Earth. All that has to be done is to expand Earth's time and push all the Doctors into the final nova of the Earth's Sun. At game start, you can experience the time expansion of Earth by observing the continental drift back to the past (over 300 million years ago!).

But everything has not gone as planned. All of the Doctors, aware of time being expanded, have escaped. However, not everone is safe. The first Doctor has escaped to a planet and is being bombarded by the Master's "borrowed and enhanced" Roni spheres. The second Doctor is lost in a land mine of black holes in space and is trying to dodge destruction (the black holes are rumored to power the Time Expander). The third Doctor is trapped in the Whomobile. The fourth Doctor is stranded somewhere to repair his TARDIS from old unreliable force field projectors. The fifth Doctor, transmatted away from Earth is, unfortunately, held prisoner in a never ending transmat web. The sixth Doctor was jettisoned to a mountainous Dalek planet, where the time expanded rebirth of the Dalek race is about to begin. Last but not least, the seventh Doctor is much more fortunate. He escaped unharmed and has found the Time Expander. Now the challenge is to restore Earth's Time to normal, confront the Master and his traps, the Daleks, and of course Davros (the creator of the Daleks).

When it is time for the ultimate battle with Davros, all the Doctors will be re-united, combining their unique knowledge and experience to defeat Davros and his Daleks.

Gameplay
The basic concept is that the Doctor's first six incarnations have become trapped in some way, and it is up to the Seventh Doctor and Ace to rescue them and defeat Davros. The player decides before beginning a round of play which of the seven Doctors s/he wants to rescue, then attempts to make shots to the particular area of the playing field associated with that incarnation. When the player does what is required to rescue that Doctor, they must shoot into a particular area for a "video mode", in which that Doctor must outrun a pursing Dalek by jumping over obstacles (one flipper button for small obstacles, both for long obstacles) and get to his TARDIS. Jumping into the Ship also awards a point bonus.

Following three rounds of the video mode, the player gets a particular performance enhancement, such as extra balls (Third Doctor) or faster point accumulation for certain shots (Sixth Doctor). Because of the ways in which the game play can be affected by which Doctors the player rescues, strategy is far more complex than the average pinball machine.

Credits
The in game credits, accessible on the video screen while not playing.

The Doctors
WILLIAM HARTNELL

PATRICK TROUGHTON

JON PERTWEE

TOM BAKER

PETER DAVISON

COLIN BAKER

SYLVESTER MCCOY

Companions
CAROLE ANN FORD

FRAZER HINES

WENDY PADBURY

NICHOLAS COURTNEY

JOHN LEVENE

ELIZABETH SLADEN

LOUISE JAMESON

SARAH SUTTON

JANET FIELDING

MATTHEW WATERHOUSE

NICOLA BRYANT

SOPHIE ALDRED

The Master
ROGER DELGADO

Davros voice
TERRY MOLLOY

The Daleks
TERRY NATION

Producer
JOHN NATHAN-TURNER

BBC Enterprises
JOHN HOWSON

JOHN WALLACE

RICHARD HOLLIS

Game design
PFUTZ

BARRY OURSLER

Artists
LINDA DEAL

Graphic effects
SCOTT SLOMIANY

Game programmer
PFUTZ

Music/sounds
JON HEY

PAUL HEITSCH

Mechanical
ZOFIA BIL

Engineering
MANU JAYSWAL

MARK COLDEBELLA

Marketing
ROGER SHARPE

Model makers
JERRY PINSLER

AL CARDENAS

ART CLAFFORD

FRANK REYES

MARK JOHNSON

Tech. support
P. J.

BUTCH ORTEGA

JOSE DELGADO

BILL THOMSON

WALLY ROEDER

DICK VALOSEK

KENT PEMBERTON

HOWARD LEE

HERB UHER

Publications
BETTY PURCELL

Special thanks
RAND MARLIS

RUTH SALISBURY

DWIGHT SULLIVAN

TED ESTES

PAT LAWLOR

BRIAN EDDY

MARK PENACHO

JOHN VOGEL

Key creative talent
The game features the voices of Sylvester McCoy (Seventh Doctor), an Anthony Ainley imitator (The Master), and Terry Molloy (Davros and Daleks).

Artwork was by Linda Deal, design by Bill Pfutzenreuter and Barry Oursier, and music by Jon Hey.

Notable gameplay
filmed an interview with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill playing a game on the machine while they were in New York City in 2011.