To anyone wilting at the words 'browser game', don't let it get you down. With the help of HTML5, platforms like Unity and, recently, the Unreal Engine's entry into the world of Flash, browser games are becoming a force to be reckoned with. Plus, this thing's being developed by Three Rings, the people behind Puzzle Pirates and the charming and stupendously Zelda-esque Spiral Knights. Based on the brief video at the official web site featuring the 11'th Doctor repairing the Tardis, it appears we'll be in for a 2d, cartoonish take on the world but it doesn't look half bad, considering. The Doctor's limbs animate individually and he even seems to have a decent range of facial expressions. If this means that I can invite my friends who may not have the latest in gaming hardware to go time traveling with me, I'm all for it.
What I'm wondering isn't whether the game will be fun, but how they're going to handle turning the Doctor's adventures into an MMO. A large part of the universe's appeal has to do with the Doctor himself and we can't all play as him, can we? Well, maybe we can. I can envision all sorts of Moffat-like twiddling that could be used to excuse this. But even if they can handwave millions of Doctors running around, how can they justify the fact that none of us could ever even pretend to be as inhumanly clever and moral as he is? This was the big problem I had with the Doctor Who adventures games - they had me playing as the Doctor and I'm no Doctor. My fumbling about, trying to figure out things that he'd have picked up on in half a second ruined the character for me. I felt like an imposter.
Could we all somehow play as companions to an NPC Doctor who's somehow been scattered into millions of alternate selves? This, I'd have an easier time buying but it would still be awkward. If we're going to be the ones actively playing, the Doctor's going to have to take a back seat, and who wants to see, let alone be a part of, a Doctor Who story that's mostly about a companion, even if that companion is us? The approach that would work the best would probably be to let us all play Time Lords but that would wreck havoc with the canon as it currently stands.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still psyched about this. I'm confident in the ability of Three Rings to create fun games with low system requirements that look great and if a Doctor Who game is going to happen, I think they're among the few that might be able to do it right. I'm just very curious to see how they're going to handle it.
