The BBC has recommissioned The Adventure Games for a second series, due to be released next year.

Series One of The Adventure Games has been a great success with over 1.6 million downloads so far. Three parts of the four part story have so far been released, with the final part due out later this year.

UK players can download the game free of charge from the BBC official site while Windows users outside the UK can purchase and download the game from Direct2Drive.

The new series will be developed by the same team with Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger, Beth Willis and Anwen Aspden producing and it will be developed by Sumo Digital.

The BBC’s head of multiplatform in vision Simon Nelson told MCV:

Doctor Who Live has launched an official Twitter account. The feed provides news and updates from the team behind the live show, due to tour the UK this Autumn.

Details of David Tennant's new 4 part drama series, Single Father, have been released by the BBC Press Office. In the series, filmed in Glasgow, Tennant plays a photographer facing the seemingly impossible job of bringing up four kids alone after the sudden death of his wife, Rita. The Daily Record has been reporting on how Tennant prepared for the role.

A Doctor Who inspired stage adventure is being performed at the Charles Cryer Studio Theatre in Carshalton in South West London. Hell Blossom, by Ian Wheeler, is part of a trilogy of Doctor Who plays. It runs from 30th September - 2nd October.


The actress Margaret Hickey has died. Hickey played Mary Smith, an inhabitant of Salamander's underground community, in the Second Doctor story The Enemy Of The World.

Actress Katy Manning has launched a new website called Katy's World.

Manning played Jo Grant, alongside Third Doctor Jon Pertwee, for three seasons in the early seventies. She is due to make a guest appearance in the upcoming fourth series of The Sarah Jane Adventures alongside Matt Smith.

The new website contains a welcome message from Manning, a biography, a Question and Answer section, a picture gallery and news about how she feels about returning to the character of Jo Grant nearly 40 years after she created her.

Katy Manning wants fans to know that the website is her only online presence and she is not on Twitter, Facebook or any of the social networking sites.

The third instalment of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games is due to be released tomorrow (27th August), and writer James Moran has written a preview mini-adventure Wish You Were Here.

The BBC website reports:

You can download the mini-adventure (PDF format) from the BBC website, and find out all the details about the new adventure, screensavers, a 360° panorama, etc. - and of course download from tomorrow - from their TARDIS section.

The third instalment of Doctor Who: The Adventure Games will be available from 27th August.

The game will be based around the TARDIS with players exploring the famous blue box and visiting rooms created specially for the game, such as the Doctor's drawing room, full of treasures from his many adventures.

Lead Writer and Executive Producer, Steven Moffat, told the official Doctor Who website
The game features the voices of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan and is executive produced by Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger, Beth Willis and Anwen Aspden from BBC Wales Interactive, alongside Charles Cecil. Music is by Murray Gold and TARDIS is written by James Moran, who wrote the Tenth Doctor story The Fires of Pompeii.

UK players will be able to download the game free of charge from the BBC official site. Users outside the UK will be able to purchase and download the game from Direct2Drive.

BBC Blast has launched a competition looking for young designers, aged between 13 and 19, with fresh ideas to work with their teams and help create a new The Sarah Jane Adventures game for CBBC.

The competition runs until 5pm on Monday, 11th October 2010. The task is to make some sound effects and/or design a spaceship for the Krulius, an alien on The Sarah Jane Adventures website.

Up to 8 winners will get the chance to attend a two day master class on 23rd and 24th October 2010 with leading industry professionals involved in games design. They will work alongside sound designers, visual designers and games executives to produce an online game for The Sarah Jane Adventures website.

To enter in the sound category you need to record 3 different sound effects for the Krulius. He should have a sound for each of the following:-

• When he moves
• When he breathes out his toxic breath
• When he uses the digital bio-converter and modem on his wrist

Each sound should be up to 10 seconds long so that the whole entry is no longer than 30 seconds.

To enter in the visual category you need to design a spaceship for the Krulius including a special feature which will be useful to him. You could draw it, paint it, create a collage for your design and digitally manipulate it.

To accompany either entry, you need to write a description of no more than 200 words on the creative thought behind your entry and how the sounds were made or why the special feature on the spaceship will be useful to the Krulius.

Full details and resources for you to use are available on the BBC Blast website.

Big Finish have announced that an online adventure featuring Bernice Summerfield will be available from September.

Bernice Summerfield or Benny, is a character originally created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length Doctor Who novels. Since 1998 Big Finish Productions have been producing officially licensed audio dramas starring the character.

The latest adventure, Dead and Buried, is a 10-minute CGI animated adventure that will be available to view absolutely free of charge. Lisa Bowerman is back playing Benny, who is returning to her roots as an archaeologist – although it isn’t long before she’s being pursued through the ruins of an alien world by a deadly adversary.

Dead and Buried is animated by Alex Mallinson, who has been working on the project for months and says
There’s a glimpse of what’s to come in the teaser trailer, available at the Big Finish website.


The final animation will be available in September, completely free and will lead into the events of Bernice Summerfield 11.1 Resurrecting the Past.

The official site has released details of a new Doctor Who game, Amy's History Hunt, to be released next week.

The game will is not part the Adventure Games series and does not need to be downloaded. It stars Karen Gillan as Amy and features a series of specially shot videos. The challenge is to unlock the Doctor's safe and if you're successful you'll release a special short story by Paul Cornell, writer of Father's Day, Human Nature and The Family of Blood.

Throughout the quest you'll find out more about the Doctor's friends and places he's visited. Plus, you'll get Amy's unique point of view about some of the people she's met during her adventures with the Time Lord.

The Windows versions of the first two episodes in The Doctor Who Adventure Games are now available to download internationally.

Both City of the Daleks and Blood of the Cybermen, are now available globally from Direct2Drive.com, IGN's digital retail game store.

The games are being launched to coincide with the North American season finale of The Big Bang, which airs July 24 on BBC America and SPACE, and with this year's Comic-Con festival. No Mac version has yet been made available internationally.

The games are still available to download free of charge for fans in the United Kingdom. Two more episodes are planned for release over the next couple of months.

The Online Gaming Industry conference Develop takes place in Brighton this July, and will feature the development of the game Doctor Who Adventures as a subject for the Production Track Keynote:
Charles Cecil recently discussed how the game is progressing on the BBC's Doctor Who website; the first episode is due to be released on the 5th June.