The Doctor Who Flash Game Where You Play as a Dalek

Extermination has never been this fun.

Alright, cat’s out of the bag. I’m a massive Whovian¹. Like, Doctor Who is probably my favourite science-fiction franchise of all time across any medium. I was fortunate enough to be at that sweet spot of childhood when the revival series was really hitting its stride in the mid-to-late 2000s. But my fandom extends to before and after the über-popular David Tennant and Matt Smith eras as well. Despite the television series fluctuating in tone and quality across its sixty-two-year run, I will always have a place in my heart(s) for Doctor Who’s wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, polarity-reversing, low-budget-production-design, occasionally-terrifying, often-cheesy glory.

With all of that said, I don’t really care for most Doctor Who video games. While many of the attempts to translate the franchise over to gaming have suffered from basic design and technical deficiencies, I do believe there is a deeper issue with these adaptations. Playing as the Doctor simply doesn’t lend itself to that many exciting video game mechanics. Sure, the Time Lord’s a genius and hero of the universe, but it’s difficult to pitch an action-packed Doctor Who video game where the gameplay largely revolves around opening doors with the Sonic Screwdriver and talking your way out of situations. A fun puzzle or narrative game, maybe. But no sane developer has ever asked “how can we incorporate the Psychic Paper into combat?”.

The Doctor and their companions are more comfortable outthinking their enemies—or, at the very least, running away from them—than diving head-first into battle. Again, this makes for fascinating television, audio dramas, and novels. Not so much video games. However, there is one Doctor Who video game I remember fondly from my childhood. A game that solved this fundamental issue and created a cathartic gameplay experience for Whovians across time and space. The solution? Have you play as one of the enemies chasing the Doctor. Not just any enemy, mind you, but the most iconic monster in Doctor Who: the Daleks.

Well, technically just the one Dalek. The Last Dalek is a 2005 browser game developed by New Media Collective and published on the BBC’s old Doctor Who website. If you’ve never heard of that developer before, don’t worry. From my research, all I could gather about New Media Collective was that they were a Leeds-based studio who only ever created this one game. Thankfully, that isn’t really important. What is important is that The Last Dalek is an alternative take on the Season One episode written by Robert Shearman and directed by Joe Aheame, simply titled “Dalek”. And just like the episode it takes inspiration from, the game is a classic in my eyes.

In The Last Dalek, you play as the titular Dalek imprisoned deep within a scientific laboratory under Utah who is desperate to return to the surface, kill all of humanity, and conquer the universe—you know, typical Dalek things. However, just like in the episode, your Dalek is in a pretty scrappy state at the start of the game. You’re limited to moving around and using your handy toilet plunger—er, apologies, I mean Manipulator Arm—to exterminate some hapless scientists and begin your escape attempt in earnest. Across the game’s ten levels, you’ll gradually gain new abilities that transform your Dalek from a hunk of old metal into the elite death machine we all know and fear from the show.

I’m not going to pretend like The Last Dalek is operating at the highest level of video game design. But for a mid-2000s Flash game about controlling a Dalek, everything you want is there and works well enough. The game is played from an isometric third-person perspective which feels ideal for 360-degree combat and traversal. Each new upgrade is a worthy attribute for this iconic monster—from getting to shoot enemies with your laser to hovering over holes in the ground. The levels themselves are surprisingly intricate, spicing up their design with locked doors, invisible obstacles, and enough enemy variety to keep things interesting.

As I mentioned earlier, The Last Dalek presents an alternative take on the canonical episode it takes inspiration from. In the show, the Dalek decides to end their own life after realising their DNA has been corrupted by that of the human, Rose Tyler. In the game, the Dalek straight up wins. Yep, the final boss of The Last Dalek is none other than Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor himself. And after you exterminate the Doctor (twice!), you destroy the mother-flipping TARDIS and proceed to return to the surface, kill all of humanity, and conquer the universe—you know, typical Dalek things.

It’s kind of wild getting to play as a Dalek who achieves everything a Dalek could ever possibly want to achieve. The Doctor must win every time they confront the Daleks in the show because that’s how happy endings work. But in this one, strange, and, let’s be honest, pretty epic twenty-year-old Flash game, it’s the old pepperpots that end up on top. And as the player, you’re the one responsible for their ultimate victory!

Sadly, The Last Dalek isn’t strong enough to overcome the great extermination of Flash gaming that has crippled the internet this past decade. This means that outside of some slightly dodgy Flash archival websites, The Last Dalek is inaccessible to play in 2025. But if you were a Doctor Who fan in the early days of the revival series looking to play as your favourite monster in your favourite show, you couldn’t go past this neat little game. Glory to The Last Dalek!

Do you, by chance, remember The Last Dalek? Any other great Doctor Who games I should check out? Let me know in the comments!

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Stuff from the Stack

Opinion - The Lost Video Games

While it’s sad that old Flash games like The Last Dalek are nearly impossible to play now in their original form, the issues with video game preservation go far deeper. 1UP Vault explores the impact of lost games in this thoughtful article, and how our careless treatment of past software will shape the medium’s future.

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The Video Game Storyteller is a Substack written and formatted by Harry Fritsch on the lands of the Jagera and Turrbal people, the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin (Brisbane).

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1. A term that describes an enthusiastic fan of the BBC science-fiction franchise, Doctor Who. Not to be confused with a “Who” as it denotes the population of fantastical humanoid creatures inhabiting “Whoville”, a recurring setting in Dr. Seuss’ picture books.