Licensed work · BBC

Quantum Builds

Doctor Who × Fortnite

Five games built against the official brand kit, and a concept mockup that ended up shipping as a Fortnite cosmetic.

TARDIS Landing Site, the Doctor Who hub island

The brief

Bring Doctor Who into Fortnite as something playable rather than decorative. Everything was built against the BBC's official brand kit (supplied vector patterns, backgrounds and logo lockups), so every asset had to survive brand review as well as work as a game.

TARDIS Landing Site

The hub

A matchmaking ring. Players spawn on the near edge, the TARDIS sits at the center as the landmark that orients everyone, and the perimeter is lined with portals out to the other four islands. It is the same routing pattern used later for the Shortnitemares lobby.

The TARDIS is walkable, and the console room is built out inside it. The hub also carried the quest: find six crystals, repair six dynomorphic generators, restore power to the TARDIS. Finishing it handed the player a code that unlocked the spray.

It took 706,207 of the 873,498 plays across the set. It was the front door, and where most people stayed.

  • TARDIS Landing Site island thumbnail TARDIS Landing Site
  • The hub island: the BBC Doctor Who logo in the sky, the TARDIS on the grass, a Dalek and a Cyberman nearby The hub, with the crystal quest running
  • The hexagonal TARDIS console room lit orange Inside the TARDIS
  • A Cyberman sitting at the edge of the hub island, ruined columns and a Moai head around it, a green energy sphere overhead A Cyberman on the hub

Escape the Pting

Puzzle escape

A ship coming apart around you. The Pting works its way through it destroying systems, and each thing it breaks becomes the next problem: puzzles to open the way forward, traps to survive, clues hidden in the rooms, and an escape pod at the end of it.

The ship was built to match the look of The Tsuranga Conundrum, the episode it comes from, so the setting does the explaining and the game does not have to.

  • Escape the Pting island thumbnail Escape the Pting
  • The Pting control room The control room
  • The communications room: a long green readout above a bank of consoles, with a screen overhead reading Connecting to TARDIS The communications puzzle
  • A curved white corridor with the ship insignia inlaid in the floor, a TARDIS and a Kerblam sign at the far end The ship lobby

Battle on Gallifrey

Combat

The fight, staged on the Doctor's home planet: orange sand, red rock, a pink sky and the domed citadel on the horizon.

The island is an argument that a licensed location can be a playable arena rather than a backdrop you run past on the way to somewhere else.

  • Battle on Gallifrey island thumbnail Battle on Gallifrey
  • Orange sand and red rock under a pink sky, with the domed citadel silhouetted against the sun The citadel, under the glass dome
  • The spawn area: a lit Doctor Who logo above the words TIME RUMBLE, a TARDIS on one side and two Daleks on the other Spawn, with the Daleks waiting
  • Orange sand, red rock, a pink sky and the domed citadel Ground level

Kerblam! Box Fight

Box fight

Fortnite's most familiar competitive format, dropped inside the depot from Kerblam! Players who have never seen the episode already know how to play it, which is the point of choosing that format for a licensed island.

A Kerblam Man stands over the back wall at full scale, so the setting reads instantly from anywhere on the map.

  • Kerblam! Box Fight island thumbnail Kerblam! Box Fight
  • The Kerblam lobby: red carpet across a grey floor, signs to the warehouse floor and the executive area, and a lit Kerblam logo on the far wall The lobby
  • Looking up at a Kerblam Man towering over the wall, shrink-wrapped pallets stacked below The Kerblam Man, from the floor
  • A giant Kerblam Man over the warehouse wall The Kerblam Man, at scale

The Museum

Walk-through

Drawn as a pathing problem. Four galleries, Classic Who, Time Lord, Monsters, and a bay left open for future expansion, arranged so a player circulates past every exhibit and returns to the TARDIS without ever needing a sign.

The exhibits are the draw: a row of Daleks on a plinth, Weeping Angels in a dim corridor, and the rest of the series' hardware at scale.

  • Museum island thumbnail The Museum
  • Four Daleks in different colors on a lit plinth, labelled Dalek Time Squad Dalek Time Squad
  • A blue-lit gallery of Cybermen in alcoves, with a giant Cyberman head and torso behind them The Cybermen gallery
  • Two Weeping Angels in a dim corridor, one covering its face and one reaching out Weeping Angels
  • The Thirteenth Doctor's costume on a plinth: long coat, rainbow-striped shirt and cropped trousers The Thirteenth Doctor
  • The Tenth Doctor's costume on a plinth: brown coat, pinstripe suit and trainers The Tenth Doctor
  • The Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS interior: a hexagonal console around a lit yellow time rotor The Twelfth Doctor’s TARDIS interior

The BBC’s own trailer

We sent the BBC footage of the islands. They cut this themselves and put it out under their own name.

Produced by the BBC, cut from footage of the five islands.

The cosmetic

I designed the mockup that made the case for a Doctor Who spray in Fortnite. Epic produced and shipped it as an official Fortnite item, in the game itself, not on an island.

  • Concept mockup for the TARDIS spray Concept mockup
  • The shipped TARDIS spray in Fortnite Shipped item

And the island unlocked it. The hub carried a quest: find six crystals, repair six dynomorphic generators, restore power to the TARDIS. Finishing it gave the player a code that unlocked the spray.