'I Become a Bit More Annoying' - Alex Horne Talks Taskmaster VR

Taskmaster has the perfect amount of whacky and chaotic that it feels like a no-brainer to see it coming to VR. To learn more about how the adaptation is going, we had the chance to talk to series creator Alex Horne. 

Designing Tasks in Taskmaster VR

Alex is not only the creator of the show but the mastermind behind most of the tasks, so my natural first question was just how much he was involved in designing the tasks for the game.

Alex said that it felt odd handing something over, but wanted to stress how brilliant the team at Scallywag Arcade is. He’s still heavily involved, though, and gave the team this sort of guidance: 

“With the show, when we come up with a task, we always want there to be variety in the responses, the same way that we want people to be able to come up with their own way of doing something that we didn't expect, as well as the four or five ways that we have written into it."

A big part of the delight in Taskmaster is the completely unexpected ways many contestants will approach a task. While solutions or certain actions can often feel obvious at first, part of what has made the show work so well is how much out-of-the-box thinking is both rewarded and just how entertaining it can be. 

For Taskmaster VR, preserving that essence is incredibly important.

With that particular philosophy in mind, how do you balance keeping things familiar with the newfound freedom of a virtual world? 

Taskmaster VR is a "Slightly More Pure Taskmaster Experience”

For Alex, moving into the virtual world was “quite liberating” just due to the fact that there is not a camera crew around. Logistically, they have to set up cameras, take up space, and if contestants run around, they need to have cameras following. 

In a game, those physical limitations are gone, giving tasks a lot more freedom. No more are rooms cut in half for the crew -- we will have a lot more room for activities. 

Beyond even those limitations, the virtual world doesn’t need to care for things like health and safety. Nor is it wasteful to smash hundreds of eggs or melons, something Alex tries to be conscious of so as to not waste food on the show. 

“You can climb up on the roof, and we're not allowed to with certain health and safety things. Every series the contestants say, 'Can I get on the roof of this?’ and we have to say, 'No, you’re not allowed to do that.’ You don't need to worry about that sort of thing in there.” 

While Taskmaster VR is a more unshackled version of the show, Alex wanted to make sure it’s still grounded. I asked if there was any temptation to make something “otherworldly’ with the freedom being a game provides. 

Alex said, “Right now, it's still household objects.” However, that in the future “there's a realm where you could go through a door and you're suddenly on a boat or whatever it is. But right now we think it’s important to make it faithful to the show.” 

Part of that grounded mentality comes with some lessons Alex and the Taskmaster team have learned over the years making the show: 

“In the show, we actually went through a little phase of having quite big props, expensive things that you wouldn't have at home. And it was instantly obvious. It's much better when you can play it at home. So yeah, it's treating the house as if it was a real house.” 

Taskmaster VR is going to be recognizable, familiar, and grounded “like the real world, but just a slight twist on it.” 

Alex Horne: Game Designer 

Alex has actually been quite involved with game making in some form or another for a long time now. Obviously, Taskmaster itself is gameified and each individual task has its own set of rules and goals. In essence, each task is a little game itself within a game. 

Going back many years before Taskmaster, however, Alex made some game shows and is involved in a complicated YouTube series called No More Jockeys. It’s about naming famous people with exceedingly more difficult rules the longer the game goes on. 

Beyond those, Alex has already helped make a Taskmaster board game, card game, and made a book full of tasks for people to perform at home. 

With that in mind, I asked Alex if he considered himself a game designer. He said, “I didn't realize I was and I think I would still deny it.”  

However, he admits that his job is to essentially gamify things. In what is likely no surprise, Alex admires designers of escape rooms, as they are doing a lot of the same things he does in Taskmaster. It’s from talking with them he solidified the idea that he probably is a game designer, even though he doesn’t want to admit it. 

“I really love talking to particularly escape room makers. I mean, they take it so seriously," he said. "I tend to just work things out in my head rather than write things down. But I think if things had gone a different way, I could see myself being in that world.” 

Ever humble, Alex praised escape room makers for their serious approach, while minimizing his own work. But in the same breath of doing that, I think Alex really hit on one of the reasons Taskmaster is so appealing and relatable: 

“I think I've luckily got quite a good instinctive feel of how to turn something that’s quite routine into a game. And I think we all do that. We used to do that when we were kids. We used to be quite good at making up games on the spot. So that's what I do.” 

While not “serious” like those escape room makers, we can all instantly think of some “dumb” game we made with our friends as a kid. That playfulness is key to Taskmaster’s charm, and I think that level of insight bodes well for both the VR game and the show’s future. 

As a quick aside, Alex also said that they’re currently working on an in-person Taskmaster experience, sort of like an escape room. However, it will be something that will try to make it look and feel like you’re in the Taskmaster house and participating in the show. 

Becoming Little Alex Horne in Taskmaster VR 

Both Alex and the Taskmaster himself Lord Greg Davies feature heavily in the game, of course, so we talked about the process of bringing them to life in the game. 

I asked Alex if it was strange to try to essentially portray himself when recording lines. “I put a suit on and become a bit more annoying, but not much more," Alex said. "So it wasn't that weird at all."

With so many tasks and possibilities of how people can accomplish them, I asked if some of what was recorded was some of him just reacting to seeing tasks done in front of him.  

Alex said it was mostly written beforehand and “hopefully well thought through.” The team wrote a lot of responses and reactions for Alex and Greg trying to anticipate what players might do. 

Though, Alex acknowledged there are some lines that may never be heard and likely actions in tasks that won’t get a proper reaction because they didn’t think of it at the time.  

With that in mind, Alex said that, depending on what players do on certain tasks, he’ll be heading back in to record lines to account for what they may have missed. 

They can only anticipate so much, after all. Plus, you never know what the public will do when they get something in their hands.

“The Public Are a Nightmare” 

Taskmaster the show is a controlled setting and Alex gets to pick or choose what gets seen. Once Taskmaster VR comes out, however, that’s all out the window and people can do whatever they want.  

I was curious if Alex found that prospect a little daunting, as he’s been a gamemaker with very few players so far really. He’s going from a handful to thousands. 

He had a taste of that experience during the COVID lockdowns, where Alex put out videos to give the public tasks to do at home that Greg would judge. They received a ton of fan feedback and response, and I asked Alex if that is helping him brace for the thousands of people about to play the game. 

“Yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised with that, the imagination out there. And also the lengths people go to. People are very clever... I did a book a couple years ago, a Taskmaster treasure hunt book with lots of clues to find a thing ... and they cracked it so quick. There were 100 clues, and it was cracked in about two hours... But, yeah, people are so smart. So, I think I think that will be annoying.” 

Part of it is exposure that maybe things weren’t quite as difficult or clever as first thought. Then there’s just the fear of people engaging with a creation, moreso than as just a viewer as Alex is mostly used to that sort of feedback. 

And when it comes to people getting the game in their hands: 

“The public are a nightmare, aren't they? Who knows what they'll do. I think we'll hear a lot of feedback about first ways they've cracked things. Second ways that can be better, and hopefully, hopefully some positive feedback, as well.” 

Taskmaster VR releases June 13th for Meta Quest and SteamVR.