Board Thread:Inclusion debates/@comment-24894325-20180907002807

According to Tardis:Valid sources, to accept a source as valid we need to satisfy four rules. It has to be licensed, released, intended to be part of DWU. All these create no problem here. With original actors hired to voice licensed characters, drawn in painstaking likeness---there seems to be little to discuss. As if this were not enough, the head of digital entertainment and games at BBC Studios Bradley Crooks stated: "...to have gaming-led content. Doctor Who Infinity would fit into that category. So it’s taking content from our major brands and delivering gaming experiences that actually form part of the canon. It’s not led from TV series it comes to the game first."

- https://www.mcvuk.com/business/bbc-new-gaming-first-initiative-to-turn-game-ips-into-bigger-franchises

While this wiki decided to abandon the notion of canon, this statement should clearly be seen as a strong statement of intent by the licensor. (Credit goes to NateBumber for pointing this out.)

But, as for many other games, the main problem of determining validity of Infinity content lies in fulfilling Rule 1. Is it a story? Or, more precisely, can the material within the game be seen as a collection of stories? The predecessor of Infinity, Doctor Who: Legacy, was deemed invalid, twice, in Thread:161867 and Thread:186659 based on the violation of exactly this rule.

Thus, it seems reasonable to start the discussion of Infinity's validity with comparing it with Legacy and deciding whether the features that rendered the latter invalid still persist in the former.

The main problem cited by the then-admin in closing the threads was, essentially, that different players could use different characters in the same situation. Thus, there was not one game experience but multiple. In particular, it was hard to determine which of the characters appear at which level.

Infinity consists of separate, so far independent, "stories" (named so in the game and put in quotation marks here to distinguish from what is called stories on the wiki). Each "story" has its own cast, author, colourist, etc. More importantly, each "story" has a clearly defined, linear plot (with flashbacks). Each "story" consists of named levels. In each level, the player plays for one (sometimes several successive) of the characters (who may or may not be present on the playing board). Each level has an objective related to this character and is won when this objective is reached. Here is an example from the first "story", The Dalek Invasion of Time: "20: Time, Rewritten The TARDIS cannot reach its destination with anomalies spreading each turn - clear them by making adjacent combos. The TARDIS will use the yellow waypoint gem as a guide towards the exit - match it with other yellow gems to power it (it will turn white), to lure the TARDIS towards the exit. Success: TARDIS reaches its destination Failure: Take too many turns"

Characters participating in the level are either to the left of the board or on the board. Enemies participating in the level are either to the right of the board or on the board. There is no choice as to who is present (at least in all the levels I've already completed).

Thus, there is no problem of determining which characters appear. Similarly, each level is part of the overall plot.

Another objection mentioned regarding Legacy was that some of its levels were explicitly based on TV episodes, giving an impression that events from these episodes are retconned. This problem is not present for Infinity either. The material, as stated by the BBC is wholly original, with authors of storylines (George Mann, Gary Russell and Scott Handcock so far) being explicitly credited. All three are, needless to say, well-known DW authors.

The only variabilities between individual experiences I could observe are
 * the exact movements on the board within each level;
 * choice between winning a level and losing a level. Losing is accompanied with some appropriate text often encouraging to try again;
 * after too many losses, there is a choice to skip a level to proceed with the plot.

To my mind, these three bullet points are the only thing that could be used to argue that the game does not present the same story for different players. I myself do not see it this way. I believe that each "story" in the game is a story in our sense too. I hope that I provided sufficient information (complete to the best of my current knowledge) in case somebody would like to argue otherwise. I also encourage everyone to add relevant details that I may not be aware of. 