Doctor Who Gamebooks

[CharlesX]

In the '80s there was a series of 6 Doctor Who gamebooks under the UK title "Make Your Own Adventure With Doctor Who". Despite some of the TV writers being the authors these were poor at best, with bad writing (patronising, pedestrian), few references, (maybe 30), errors both in show continuity and mislinked references, a preference for do-or-die dice rolls, arbitrary choices and weird puzzles (questions about space and chemistry of no interest to the audience of young people).
   In the 2000s there was the Decide Your Destiny series, first in the Tennant era, a later run in the Smith era. I own a couple of these and they are OK, the characterisation and writing matches the TV show, there are some good endings, I would read more.
  Those are a couple of well-known Doctor Who gamebook series, if anyone here has memory of these or maybe more importantly of other Doctor Who series, why not share your experience?
   I remember getting Time Lord Doctor Who RPG after the paperback was advertised in Doctor Who Magazine, it was faithful to the TV series but I thought it was simplistic and lacking, and the fact the sample RPG was terrible didn't help. That was a long time ago, before Rose or even the Paul McGann movie, and I've heard the system includes new templates and presumably RPGs online, although for me the system itself wasn't quite good enough. Like Maelstrom, I feel it emphasises realism a touch more than gameplay.

[a moderator]

The '80s also saw a couple of gamebooks released to tie in with the FASA Doctor Who RPG, both of which I've played at my blog. They're better gamebooks than the Make Your Own Adventure lot, but still flawed. Particularly bizarre is the presence of Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan in Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble, which takes place in the Sixth Doctor's era. Allegedly, the book was written for the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry, but the cover artist got confused and put the current Doctor and companion in the picture, and the decision was made to rewrite the text to make it match the picture rather than get the artwork redone...

The 12 Tennant-era Decide Your Destiny books were followed by another 4 featuring Matt Smith's Doctor. In a dated gimmick, they included links to online material, which is no longer available. The Doctor Who DYDs are all part of the 'no bad endings' craze that blighted gamebooks earlier this century, and the Smith ones are still playable even though the links are dead, but certain sections are now off limits. I've only played the first of them, Claws of the Macra, but that was a bit of a mess in places.

A little more recently two gamebooks featuring Peter Capaldi's Doctor were released under the banner Choose the Future. I've played the first of them, Jonathan Green's Night of the Kraken, at my blog. It is an improvement on DYD in at least some regards - there are a couple of ways to fail, and some of the success endings are better than others, so your decisions actually mean something. There are some unreachable sections, though, so the bugs still haven't entirely been eliminated. The other one in the series is by the author of Claws, so I'm a bit more wary of that.

Issue 397 of Doctor Who Magazine had an article in the form of a gamebook. It was actually about the filming of the episode Turn Left (in which companion Donna discovered how things would have turned out if she'd made a different decision at one point in her life), but there is a competitive element to it, as you score points for displaying journalistic competence as you try to report on the making of the programme.

[CharlesX]

Jun 8, 2022 0:29:17 GMT a moderator said:

The '80s also saw a couple of gamebooks released to tie in with the FASA Doctor Who RPG, both of which I've played at my blog. They're better gamebooks than the Make Your Own Adventure lot, but still flawed. Particularly bizarre is the presence of Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan in Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble, which takes place in the Sixth Doctor's era. Allegedly, the book was written for the Fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry, but the cover artist got confused and put the current Doctor and companion in the picture, and the decision was made to rewrite the text to make it match the picture rather than get the artwork redone...

The 12 Tennant-era Decide Your Destiny books were followed by another 4 featuring Matt Smith's Doctor. In a dated gimmick, they included links to online material, which is no longer available. The Doctor Who DYDs are all part of the 'no bad endings' craze that blighted gamebooks earlier this century, and the Smith ones are still playable even though the links are dead, but certain sections are now off limits. I've only played the first of them, Claws of the Macra, but that was a bit of a mess in places.

A little more recently two gamebooks featuring Peter Capaldi's Doctor were released under the banner Choose the Future. I've played the first of them, Jonathan Green's Night of the Kraken, at my blog. It is an improvement on DYD in at least some regards - there are a couple of ways to fail, and some of the success endings are better than others, so your decisions actually mean something. There are some unreachable sections, though, so the bugs still haven't entirely been eliminated. The other one in the series is by the author of Claws, so I'm a bit more wary of that.

I've played the last DYD of the Matt Smith era Empire Of The Wolf and it definitely has a number of bad endings 

SPOILER: Click to show

You turn into a wolf along with the rest of planet Earth!

and by some coincidence I have also played just the one DWCTF, Night Of The Kraken.

[a moderator]

Interesting. The Tennant DYD books and Claws all definitely had no 'fail' endings. I specify 'fail' rather than 'bad', because the 'nothing remotely exciting happens' route through The Dragon King ends in such an anticlimactically dull manner.

I'd better check the middle two Smith era ones to see if either of them are failable.

ETA: It would appear that they dropped the 'no fail endings' policy mid-way through the Smith set, as the third book, Judoon Monsoon has at least one ending in which things can go badly for you and the Doctor.

And the second CTF book appears to have gone for 'no failures, but some successes are better than others'.

[Peter]

Um... yes. We have found a couple. When I have figured out what they are, and got feedback from my family, I will contribute to this thread.

[bloodbeasthandler]

I just read 'Alien Arena' and I thought it was incredibly poor, more like a very bad Choose Your Own Adventure.

At the end of each section there is invariably a choice of two options. Always two. Never more, never less. And when they are not Do you go left? [turn to 123] or right? [turn to 234], they tend to be along the lines of Do you run? [turn to 321] or stay? [turn to 210]

Appalling dialogue throughout, aliens given ludicrous cockney-type dialogue like ''who're you and whaddaya up to?' and 'Best get a move on then, 'adnt ya?' and 'Turn around slowly, squirt'. Why the criminals should be Londoners, Essex or Home Counties boys I don't know. 

Bad description, we get stuff like 'two alien thugs take Martha to a cell' or 'tough-looking alien heavies' and that is all we get. What were they? Like something out of Moss Eisley spaceport? Or basically humanoids but blue skinned? What? Similar sparse description throughout. You might get one described as 'tattooed' or 'amphibian' or 'insectoid' but that's about it. 


Check this out for typical choices and results:

...You notice the cell door opposite though the window of which you can see the bear-like creature from Athox. It occurs to you that an escaped prisoner might just divert the attention of Martha's guards. 
To stay hidden and wait go to 32
To release the bear-like prisoner as a diversion go to 94. 

94: The diversion works beautifully - the aliens guarding the cell door hurry away to deal with the crisis. With the coast clear, you and the Doctor rush to Martha's cell.. 

That's all you get. Well done getting that door open, eh? How did you do it? No idea! And what did it do, this bear thing? Amble off and have a shit in a large potted plant it mistook for some woods? Did it tear the place to bits and eat the guards? Did the guards shoot it? Who knows!?


They were asking just a penny short of a fiver for these things back in 2007. 

[a moderator]

The Tennant-era DYD books were very variable. Despite the 'only successful endings' policy, there were some decent gamebooks in there. And some were not good.

Nothing as bad as Crisis in Space from the Make Your Own Adventure series, but the series' weaker entries were still pretty awful. 

[bloodbeasthandler]

I've got a few other Decide Your Destinys to go, but at this rate it'll be a single read through and back on the bookcase for eternity.
Or even [gasp in horror] giving them to charity shops.

In theory the series ought to be great. It was a successful franchise at the time and Dr Who was going through a wonderful revival (ought to be high profile and good for sales), and the books could be set anywhere and deal with anything (few limits to the imagination, indulge your desire to write historical or science-fiction stuff).

I felt the author wasn't trying hard at all with this one.
Soulless CYOA churned out by rote.
Strictly aimed at children, but not (it seems) aimed at the 9-12 year-olds found in the 1980's.

The thing that annoys me is that this sort of product will be held up as an example by publishers to say gamebooks aren't any good and/or don't sell.

[CharlesX]

Jun 11, 2022 22:23:31 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

I just read 'Alien Arena' and I thought it was incredibly poor, more like a very bad Choose Your Own Adventure.

At the end of each section there is invariably a choice of two options. Always two. Never more, never less. And when they are not Do you go left? [turn to 123] or right? [turn to 234], they tend to be along the lines of Do you run? [turn to 321] or stay? [turn to 210]

Appalling dialogue throughout, aliens given ludicrous cockney-type dialogue like ''who're you and whaddaya up to?' and 'Best get a move on then, 'adnt ya?' and 'Turn around slowly, squirt'. Why the criminals should be Londoners, Essex or Home Counties boys I don't know. 

Bad description, we get stuff like 'two alien thugs take Martha to a cell' or 'tough-looking alien heavies' and that is all we get. What were they? Like something out of Moss Eisley spaceport? Or basically humanoids but blue skinned? What? Similar sparse description throughout. You might get one described as 'tattooed' or 'amphibian' or 'insectoid' but that's about it. 


Check this out for typical choices and results:

...You notice the cell door opposite though the window of which you can see the bear-like creature from Athox. It occurs to you that an escaped prisoner might just divert the attention of Martha's guards. 
To stay hidden and wait go to 32
To release the bear-like prisoner as a diversion go to 94. 

94: The diversion works beautifully - the aliens guarding the cell door hurry away to deal with the crisis. With the coast clear, you and the Doctor rush to Martha's cell.. 

That's all you get. Well done getting that door open, eh? How did you do it? No idea! And what did it do, this bear thing? Amble off and have a shit in a large potted plant it mistook for some woods? Did it tear the place to bits and eat the guards? Did the guards shoot it? Who knows!?


They were asking just a penny short of a fiver for these things back in 2007. 

Weirdly, I was pretty satisfied with Empire of the Wolf which often had more than two choices, good characterisation, atmosphere and description etc. (although the gimmicky net video links to references which are no longer valid was annoying). I suspect a combination of the series changing over time and Alien Arena perhaps being a particularly poor one. As you point out that was from about 15 years ago, but it seems as though they haven't aged well.