“They're for Who fans first and gamers second”: narratology vs ludology in Doctor Who: The Adventure Games

The proposed paper explores the tension between ludology and narratology in the BBC’s Doctor Who: The Adventure Games (2010 -2011) as representative of larger trends in the trans-media adaptation of TV series into digital forms. Though initially marketed to the specialist press as the work of respected adventure game creator Charles Cecil (Broken Sword), once released the first series of four episodes suffered something of a critical mauling due to their perceived simplicity and over-reliance upon clichéd video-gaming tropes. Yet, the ‘episodes’ were successful with a certain portion of the mainstream audience, leading to the first series being downloaded over 1.6 million times. Indeed, in response to the initial four episodes the head of the BBC’s multiplatform department commented that ““It's not just about the numbers ... Our audience has been introduced to a new form of drama - and, for many, these have been the first computer games they have downloaded.” This paper will seek to explore the implications of this ambiguous suggestion that ... The Adventure Games were intended as both a new ‘form of drama’ and a ‘computer game’, examining the often inconsistent needs that exist in cross-media endeavours that attempt to combine the seemingly disparate forms of TV and video-games. In particular, the fact that the series may have intended to span both and to be something other than a traditional ‘video-game’ aimed (primarily) at non-gamers, points to an inherent conflict between the ludological (play centred) and the narratological (story focussed) demands of different audiences within the digital space. Consequently, the paper will analyse the various techniques employed (narrative, aural, visual and structural) by the makers of ... The Adventure Games in order to negotiate between competing demands for narratological complexity and series’ continuity with the often wildly differing ludological abilities of their perceived audience/s. Asking the question to what extent is it possible to integrate the two sets of requirements into a cohesive whole