Taken to Task
How opportunity for improvisation is helping TV’s most beloved gameshow work in VR
Videogames based on TV shows don’t have a great track record, especially when the original property is a gameshow. When we put this to Scallywag Arcade’s Niall Taylor, currently responsible for making a videogame based on a TV gameshow, we’re surprised at how quickly he agrees. “Oh, a hundred per cent. I mean, just licensed videogames [as a whole], there are some fantastic ones now, but if you enter that realm, there’s generally a bias against you right from the start.”
With Taskmaster VR, though, Taylor and team have the benefit of “unlimited access to the behind-the-scenes of the show”. They’ve visited on filming days, taken 3D scans of the Taskmaster House, and picked the brains of its production staff, including creator Alex Horne. But what really sets this project apart, in in Taylor’s mind, is the source material he’s working with: “I keep telling Alex: he is a game designer.”