If you haven't: Doctor Who: The Adventure Games is being released for PC and Mac in the form of episodic downloads. Each episode should be around two hours and (assuming you're reading this from the UK) will cost you absolutely nothing. Sumo Digital is developing it in close collaberation with the BBC and Matt Smith and Karen Gillan (the new Doctor and Amy, his new assistant) have both lent their likenesses and voices to it. And... actually, really, read the preview.
Anyway, as well as going hands-on with the first episode, City of the Daleks, and getting an early look at The Time of Angels (an old-fashioned telly episode) at a recent press event, I managed to steal away some of Charles Cecil's time. As well as being an industry vet and the MD of Revolution Software (the Broken Sword series – those guys) Charles has served as an executive producer on The Adventure Games.
SPOnG: When the Adventure Games were first announced, none of the coverage seemed to be mentioning the Wii and DS games. Why was that?
Charles Cecil: That's because we had a marketing plan, and the marketing plan was that it was going to be announced at this point, and BBC Worldwide are totally independent, and they had their own marketing plan.
SPOnG: How did you come to be involved in the project, without Revolution?
Charles Cecil: To put it in a 'Revolution context': Revolution creates and develops original games which, up until now, has been a bit of a loss leader to be honest. On the other side I do consultancy - before this The DaVinci Code, also A Christmas Carol, as you may or may not know, then this. And the two are balanced. But basically Revolution is a core group of people - four or five of us - and then we pull people in for projects. So, we have no overhead. We have no staff, so we work in a really nebulous sort of way. It's really fun.
They wanted to approach the Doctor Who project in a way that was much more ambitious. It was actually being driven through the games investor consultancy, who were working with the BBC advisory body, and they were very much saying 'work with the best people in the field, and you'll come up with something amazing. Spread yourself too thinly and go to multimedia companies and you'll have something that isn't amazing.'
So, there was a real shift in mindset that, as Iain (Tweedale, multiplatform commissioning editor at BBC Wales) said, instead of doing lots of things without too much focus, really focus on really big projects and this, obviously, is the first one to come out.
SPOnG: So, were you then involved with the selection of Sumo?
Charles Cecil: Yes.