the game design of taskmaster: indirect control
Indirect control is one of my favourite topics in game design, and it’s no surprise that it can be found in the tasks in the television game show Taskmaster. But, first, what is indirect control?
Game designer Jesse Schell describes indirect control in The Art of Game Design as giving the player the feeling of freedom, when in reality, the designer is only providing the player with very little choice or no choice at all.1
Typically, indirect control is a valuable technique to get players to follow a prescribed path without them feeling like they are forced down it. The classic example is following lines on the floor without realising that you’re being led along the right path for the game.
With varying degrees of subtlety, a path can be indicated by lines or patterns on the ground, a trail of footprints, or even wires, like in this example from Gotham Knights.
Other examples of indirect control cues include lighting up an exit door, leading the player by using music and sound effects, or lining up enemies along a route through a level.
Indirect Control Through Visual Design
The most obvious and most common use of indirect control is through visual design.
Taskmaster
In a Taskmaster task (Series 4, Episode 4: “Make the highest splash.”), contestants are greeted by a telescope pointed at the printed task, which is posted on the caravan only a few steps away. Without being given any instructions, all five contestants look through the telescope to read the task.
When Hugh Dennis complains about not having been able to see through the telescope, Greg Davies even remarks for comedic effect, “No one asked you to look through that telescope.” This highlights the power of indirect control in designing real and virtual spaces. People often follow visual cues along clearly delineated paths or towards shiny items of interest, especially if they are something new or different in a scene, like the telescope.
Theme Parks
Drawing guests towards certain landmarks by visual design alone is common in theme parks. Walt Disney coined the term “weenies” (supposedly from his dog’s love of hot dogs) to describe the large visual features that would draw guests towards different parts of Disneyland. These tall structures, like Sleeping Beauty Castle, the Matterhorn and Big Thunder Mountain, draw guests’ eyes from a distance and prompt them to explore the theme park, spreading out crowds in predictable ways.
Video Games
Similar examples can be found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. First, Sheikah Towers scattered across the land stand tall in their surroundings, allowing them to be seen from far away. At these towers, players unlock a map of the nearby region, so it’s advantageous to head towards them. Additionally, the four Divine Beasts that are the primary goals in Breath of the Wild are large mechanised creatures that can be seen roaming around their respective regions, providing visual interest by changing the landscape with their movement. Players are therefore drawn towards locations that designers want them to go to in order to progress the game.
Subversion of Indirect Control
Taskmaster is an interesting case study because it subverts the regular use of indirect control. Although Taskmaster uses indirect control to get the player to do what the show wants, it does so by pushing players against the goals of the task, for entertainment value.
Indirect Control Provides Clues About What to Do
Such is the case in Series 8, Episode 8: “Make this beach ball cross the finishing line. Only water can touch the beach ball.” In this task, there is an obstacle course set up for the beach ball, with start and finish lines. Contestants do not have to use the course at all, but two of the five stick to the course without being instructed to do so. But, staying on the course makes the task more difficult to accomplish, a twist on the use of indirect control.
With the principle of indirect control in mind, roads and pathways are often designed to be the most efficient way to travel in games from Pokémon to World of Warcraft. As shown above, this is common in many video games to show players an intuitive way forward without the need for interruptions in the form of tooltips, instructions or tutorial screens.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has a different take on the use of indirect control to point players in the right direction. In Breath of the Wild, there are numerous roads traversing the huge open world of Hyrule. Instinctively, players may be drawn to follow these paths through their visual design, as they are separate from the wilderness and even lit up at night. Or, people draw on past real-world experience and other video games that mark roads as the safe way to travel.
There is, however, a clan of assassins known as the Yiga who are often disguised as travellers on the roads. Running into one results in a battle that takes up time and resources, which can be very annoying. Like Taskmaster, Breath of the Wild subverts indirect control and actually pushes players away from roads by a learned experience: encounters with members of the Yiga clan. This encourages players to explore more of the rich open world of the game instead of sticking to the traditionally seen as safe roads, going against players’ expectations.
Indirect Control Highlights Tools for a Player to Use
Indirect control can also show players what is important at a given moment. In Series 3, Episode 5: ” Move the water from bucket A to bucket B. You must not move the buckets.”, contestants are provided with a pile of useless items right by the first bucket. All five of them tried to use the objects in some fashion to accomplish the task.
The items, according to Alex Horne, are “a woolly hat, colander, bag of peas and holes, a tray, a string bag, sellotape and a coconut.” Greg Davies describes them as a “wonderful collection of rubbish to help them move the water… clearly useless for moving water.”
Knowing that players will instinctively look to nearby objects to use in the task at hand, game designers design UIs to make common actions most accessible.
An example of this can be found in the evolution of the Pokémon games. Released in the late 1990s, the first Pokémon games have a menu that appears during each round of a Pokémon battle, one that hasn’t changed all that much over multiple versions of the games in thirty years.
The four options, “Fight”, “Pokémon”, “Item” and “Run” are easily parsable, but diving into the “Item” sub-menu presents the player with a massive list of all items in their pack, whether or not they can be used in the fight. Having to scroll past various keys, your fishing rod, your bicycle and other useless items to get to the Poke Ball or Potion you need is frustrating and time-consuming.
In 2016’s Pokémon Sun and Moon, the menu still includes the four easy options (“Fight”, “Pokémon”, “Bag” and “Run”), with some updates for player convenience. For one thing, looking in your bag presents items in categories, with battle items like Potion easily accessible on the first screen. And, there’s even a fifth extra button on the main menu to access the Poké Ball, so you don’t even have to look in your bag.
Designing Games and Experiences with Indirect Control
Indirect control is an effective technique to push players in a certain direction. Game designers should be aware of what cues their players might pick up on, which can be found via playtesting. This way, we can be intentional with how they use indirect control, whether it is to steer players towards a goal to reduce frustration, or, as Taskmaster does, to trick players into doing something less than ideal. While using indirect control can help create more intuitive situations in games, subverting it can provide interesting and entertaining results.
For more about the use of game design principles and techniques in Taskmaster, check out my blog series The Game Design of Taskmaster!
