Crow's Nest - Gallery

A few years ago - even before the great Doctor WHO revival of 2005 - I had it in mind to make a Doctor WHO adventure game. The Doctor has appeared in a number of games over the years but all of them have been arcade fayre - either platform games or (shudder) an FPS (Destiny of the Doctors). I always felt that Doctor WHO really suited a Point-and-Click Adventure and so I set about creating one. I'd come across AGAST - an object oriented adventure game authoring language not unlike C++ or Java. It had everything I needed and I quickly built a two-room demo before losing interest. This was partly due to my pathetic attention span and partly due to the fact that whilst AGAST is a great system - the whole Monkey Island thing seemed horrifically dated - even back then.
Then I discovered Dark Basic which is a BASIC-style language for creating 3D video games. It's on such a stripped down level though, that like AGAST, it's possible to do anything with it and that set me thinking about doing the Doctor WHO Adventure game in 3D - a lot like Final Fantasy 7 - which I adored.
So let's get this straight. I was going to do a Final Fantasy style game with a Doctor WHO theme. On my own. In my spare time. When I wasn't using said spare time for whatever other fad I happened to be interested in at the time.
Needless to say the project went nowhere, fast.

I did, however, manage to produce a fair amount of concept artwork whilst I was interested in the project - along with some 3D models. It seems a shame that they should be confined to the back of my harddrive only to be viewed when I'm feeling whistful and nostalgic - so I thought I'd dump them on a page on my site for all to peruse what might have been if there had been 106 hours in a day and I didn't have the attention span of a 3-year-old.

The Doctors

The Bad Guys

...and some others

Download the original AGAST version of the game

Screenshots from the original AGAST version of the game

This is a two room demo. It begins in the TARDIS console room. You have to collect your sonic screwdriver, land, open the doors, and then step outside. After chatting to the little green fella, you can use the Sonic Screwdriver to fix the device on the right. That's it. To move the Doctor about, click on the floor where you want him to go. If you move the pointer towards the top of the screen an icon will appear that you can click on to change to look, use or talk mode. To deselect that mode and go back to the pointer, right-click. There are controls on the right side of the console to land the TARDIS and the red knob on the left opens the doors.
The image above was hand painted in Photoshop. The TARDIS interior, Police Box, alien and the Doctor were modelled and animated in 3D Studio MAX and rendered out. The Doctor's idle animation can be seen on the left here.

..and then it all went 3D

Download the Dark BASIC version of the game

These were concepts for aliens on the first planet in the game.

Above are the models I actually managed to create. The Cyberman wasn't strictly part of the game project (I made him as part of my teach-yourself-Maya crash course) but he fits in, so I thought I'd include him anyway.

And this is as far as I got. This is what you get if you download the demo. Another 2-room effort. It starts with a home-made AVI of the TARDIS spinning along the vortex and then fades to the above scene with the pink surface. If you aren't blinded, you can walk the Doctor around. If you get too close to the dalek, it turns to face you and shouts 'Exterminate!'. If you walked to the front of the TARDIS and pressed the action button, the door will open. The screen will fade and you'll find yourself inside the control room. At which point the game stops. That's it.
Use the arrow keys to move forward, back and turn left or right. Use the CTRL button to open the TARDIS doors.

...But it was not all for naught

I did manage to see something through to completion as a side product of this whole endeavour and that is the marvellous, mechanical Dalek screensaver! Below is a screenshot and if you click on the image you can download the zipfile.