I had a chance to try out the VR Game “Doctor Who – The Edge of Time” at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Kiron Ramdewar of Playstack London got me set up for the demo, and I got to chat with him and Chris Rosario of Homerun PR afterwards. Keep reading for the teaser trailer, a recap of the demo, the official gameplay demo video, and a few clips of me playing the game.
Teaser Trailer
Demo Recap
(Spoilers for the demo below, both in the recap and the videos.)
Full disclosure: I play very few video games, and I’ve never played a VR game of any kind before. So you’ll need to talk to more experienced gamers if you’d like to know how this demo compares with other games in terms of resolution or playability.
What I am is a Doctor Who fan, and I speak from that level of experience when I say the demo was a hell of a lot of fun.
The first thing they got right: you’re playing as the Doctor’s Companion. As both Kiron and Chris pointed out: when you play a Batman or Iron Man game you’re usually playing as Batman or Iron Man. But the Whovian fantasy isn’t to be the Doctor, it’s to travel with the doctor. The second I heard Jodie’s voice coming from the little radio on the table, walking me through how to put together an amplifier to call the TARDIS, I thought: yep, this is exactly how it’d be. The Companions start out a little on the clueless side but if they’re very lucky they get to travel with the Doctor long enough to learn how to start saving the day on their own. Bring it on.
In the video of me below you’ll hear the noisy sounds of Comic-Con at full swing on a Saturday, but I was hearing the game in three dimensions, turning my head to catch different sounds, and moving closer to the little radio to hear the Doctor’s voice better.
That’s the second thing they got right: Jodie Whittaker did extensive recordings to voice the Doctor for the game. (Video game voice work being notoriously time-consuming, because not only are you doing multiple takes to get the line right, you’re also doing multiple versions of lines: different responses if the user goes in different directions, extra hints if they’re taking too long, and so on.) And she’s got just the right tone for it: partly patient, partly reassuring, and partly “what are you waiting for run!”
I was glad she was patient, it took me a little bit to get used to the controls, though I imagine an experienced gamer would be a lot faster. VR controls have gotten more intuitive over the years, so it didn’t take too long to get comfortable with them. The thumbstick on the left moves you around, the thumbstick on the right changes your view, you use the triggers on each controller to pick up objects or to activate the sonic screwdriver.
And there’s another thing they did right: you’ve got a sonic screwdriver. It hangs at your side till you pick it up, and once you’re holding it the trigger activates it. Waving it at a nearby car to pop open the hood was all kinds of cool. (I seem to remember some haptic feedback from the controllers when I plunked the car battery on the table or when I pointed the sonic at the satellite dish on the wall, but our brains do a pretty good job of imagining that feedback even when it’s not there, so I’ll have to confirm that.)
I think the only thing that bothered me in the demo was that I was in a dimly lit alley, with a red glow to everything. It’s because we’re in the middle of an apocalyptic situation (an alternate universe where Very Bad Things are happening) and it also might have been done that way to make the bright lights in the next scene even more dramatic, but I had a little trouble seeing some of the details (if Kiron hadn’t suggested I look at the top of the drain pipe for the satellite dish I might not have known that’s what I was looking at.) But that was a specific choice for that scene, and the game demonstrates it can handle bright lights and vibrant colors later on.
But in the demo there were three moments that were my favorites. One: after activating the little device we put together I heard a sound at the far end of the alley and looked over to see the TARDIS slowly appear. I’ll admit it, I got choked up. After a few minutes in the headset I really started to feel like I was inside the game, and hearing that parking-brake-is-on TARDIS noise while watching it fade into view right in front of me was a real thrill for a Whovian.
Which led to one of my other favorite moments: the Doctor starts to sound concerned, she can’t see what’s happening from where she is, I hear a sound above me and look up and there are giant spaceships right above me. They were dramatic and menacing and when a Dalek’s voice roared out of them I got the best kind of chills, a wonderful “ohhh we are really in trouble now” kind of feeling.
Which led to the best moment: after a panicked fumbling around because I could not figure out how to open the TARDIS door, I ran inside, into the bright, colorful control room that’s so obviously bigger on the inside than the tiny alley I was just in. The screen goes black, and the Doctor’s voice asks if I’m ready to save the universe, and then we’re in the credits, watching the TARDIS fling itself all over as we zoom down the crazy time tunnel.
Lotta feels, is what I’m saying. It was fantastic.
Official Gameplay Video
Elizabeth playing the demo at SDCC 2019
Visit www.doctorwhotheedgeoftime.com for videos, images from the game, developer diaries, and more. The Edge of Time launches on PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Vive Cosmos in September 2019. Thanks to Kiron, Chris, and Damien Sarrazin for inviting me to try the demo!