The Adventure Games

Doctor Who: The Adventure Games is a series of four graphic adventure video games, the first series was released in conjunction with Series 5 on the official website. A second series is planned to be released in 2011.

Promotion
Details regarding the games were announced on 21 April 2010. The games are being produced in conjunction with the Doctor Who TV production team, with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan lending their voices and likenesses to the games. In announcing the games, series producer Piers Wenger stated that they are part of Series 5: "There aren't 13 episodes of Doctor Who this year. There are 17 - four of which are interactive. Everything you see and experience within the game is part of the Doctor Who universe."

Footage of the games was shown after Victory of the Daleks, revealing one "episode" would involve the Daleks and a destroyed London in 1963 with the tagline Fight The Daleks. This was later revealed to be City of the Daleks by Phil Ford, initially announced as being available on the 5th June. A second series of another four episodes has been commisioned for release in 2011.

Availability
The first of the games, City of the Daleks, was released for download via the BBC's official Doctor Who website on 2nd June 2010 for PCs - several days earlier than the originally announced release date of 5th June. It was later revealed that the early release of the game was part of a system test as they gear up for the official release date. A trailer for the game was shown straight after Vincent and the Doctor on Saturday to mark its official launch . A Macintosh version was later released on 15th June 2010.

At present, the first four games are available to international audiences from Direct2Drive, for $3.70 American. However, Direct2Drive has controversially chosen not to make the Mac OS version of the game available, which has had the side-effect of preventing some gaming sites from reviewing the game.

Robert Nashak from BBC Worldwide has also said that in the future, there may be retail versions of the games.

Gameplay
The Adventure Games are a puzzle-based game: the player has to navigate obstacles with a specific pattern to them, crack codes, use objects to bypass obstacles, and navigate mazes. There is little margin for error: most hazards kill automatically, and (as the Doctor) it can be hard to escape from his enemies once they've spotted you. The game follows a linear path: tasks have to be handled a certain way and in a certain sequence.

Primary cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan

Guest cast

 * Sylvia - Sara Carver
 * Chisholm - Barnaby Edwards
 * Elizabeth Meadows, the Entity and Jones - Sarah Douglas
 * Daleks and Cybermen (Voices) and Oswald Fox - Nicholas Briggs

Producers

 * Gary Russell

Executive producers

 * Steven Moffat
 * Piers Wenger
 * Beth Willis
 * Anwen Aspden
 * Charles Cecil

Writers

 * Phil Ford
 * James Moran

Future
A second series was commissioned by the BBC in September 2010. It is expected for release sometime around the end of Series 6 and will feature the voices of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as The Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams. The four episodes will all be written by Doctor Who writers including Phil Ford. It will once again be executive produced by Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Beth Willis, along with Anwen Aspden at BBC Wales Interactive.

The first game of Series 2, The Gunpowder Plot, will be released in October. It is the first Adventure Game to use the new portal technology to let the player step inside the TARDIS without having to wait for a loading screen. It also has advanced lighting systems and more complex puzzles.