David Bowie

David Bowie released a new album, Blackstar, for his birthday three days ago, a reflection on his life, still playing with genre both musical and narrative - when I heard the first single and watched the video I said that it would be a great episode of Doctor Who, and I was not entirely joking.

He was a trickster. Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke... The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Goblin King - and in gaming he was Boz of Omikron.

As an adolescent, I was painfully shy, withdrawn. I didn’t really have the nerve to sing my songs on stage and nobody else was doing them. I decided to do them in disguise so that I didn’t have to actually go through the humiliation of going on stage and being myself. I continued designing characters with their own complete personalities and environments. I put them into interviews with me! Rather than be me - which must be incredibly boring to anyone - I’d take Ziggy in, or Aladdin Sane or The Thin White Duke. It was a very strange thing to do.

Musician magazine interview, 1983

And in so doing, he helped make a place for outsiders.

And he was very good at keeping a straight face.

A game featuring Bowie himself might draw from his influence on Doctor Who in particular.

Whenever I think up a dangerous and charming character, they might well have a hint of Bowie.