the game design of taskmaster: meaningful choices
In my previous post in The Game Design of Taskmaster series, I wrote about the probability of two contestants making the same choice. This post will take a step back and focus on the concept of meaningful choices.
A game is a system that responds to a series of choices made by the player. Here, I will use the term “meaningful choices” to refer to choices that affect the state of the game. This rules out choices of a purely aesthetic nature, like the appearance of a player’s character in Diablo, which has no impact on any of the quests or abilities.
The same can be said about a contestant’s chosen outfit in Taskmaster. And though choices like these may be deeply personal and meaningful to the player, they are not strictly meaningful to the game.
Looking at the meaningful choices in Taskmaster from a game design perspective, I’ve separated them into three categories. Each presents its own game design challenges and considerations.
Blind Choice
A blind choice is a choice made by a player who doesn’t know how it might impact the game.
In Taskmaster…
Taskmaster is notorious for tasks that consist of two parts. In the first part, the contestant is asked to make a choice without the context of how their selection will be used in the second part. Because Taskmaster is meant to be entertainment, this strategy often works by creating unexpected and hilarious problems for contestants based on their blind choices.
Examples of blind choices in Taskmaster include:
- Series 6, Episode 7 (team task):
- Part 1: “Write down as many obscure animals as possible.”
- Part 2: “Guess the animals your teammate has on their list. Your teammate must only use mime. They may not write anything down or show you the list.”
- Series 7, Episode 6: “In the lab, there are 10 pairs of glasses. The pairs of glasses may not leave the lab. Without breaking any of the pairs of glasses, put all the pairs of glasses into the smallest of these boxes. You must select your box before leaving the caravan, and may not then change your mind.”
- Series 9, Episode 4:
- Part 1: “Say a letter of the alphabet.”
- Part 2: “Put the most things beginning with the letter you just said on this tray. The tray may not leave Alex and Alex may not leave the lab.”
In these situations, the choices become more interesting later, when the contestants have to deal with the consequences. With entertainment value as a priority, blind choices are very effective in the design of Taskmaster as a television programme.
In game design…
On the other hand, blind choices are difficult to use in games. This is because a blind choice is meaningful in unpredictable ways. It strips the feeling of control and the ability to strategise from the player. Blind choices are simply guesses based purely on luck. But, when a player doesn’t get lucky in a blind choice and has their game proceed in a bad direction, it feels worse than if they had strategically picked the wrong choice.
These limitations on blind choices in gameplay narrow down their usefulness to situations where the choices are less meaningful. An example is awarding rewards for completing a level, where a player might be asked to choose between three treasure chests. This pulls the blind choice out of the main gameplay, providing items that are cosmetic or inconsequential to gameplay for that particular level.
Randomisation is common in mobile and casual games. As a matter of fact, the reward is often pre-determined behind the illusion of choice presented to the player. To that effect, loot boxes found in popular games like Overwatch improve the player experience of feeling helpless by skipping over blind choice entirely. Thus, game designers can control blind choices by making them not a choice at all and simply presenting the results.
Strategic Choice
The most straightforward type of meaningful choice in games is a strategic choice, one where the player chooses the best way forward based on the options available. This can be based on some choices being objectively better than others, or on the players’ personal preferences.
In Taskmaster…
Taskmaster is especially effective at presenting strategic choices when it provides a diversity of items available for performing a task. It’s likely that different sorts of contestants with different strengths will go for different options, providing the viewers with an entertaining variety of attempts at a task.
Examples of strategic choice in Taskmaster include:
- Series 5, Episode 1: “Get Alex onto dry land as elegantly as possible. Alex must remain dry.”
- Series 2, Episode 5: “Make a bridge over the river using only items on this table. Highest self-supporting bridge wins. The bridge alone must support the potato. You must not touch the Taskmaster’s house.”
Strategic Choice Becomes Blind Choice
An interesting case study is the strategic choice presented in Series 8, Episode 9: “Bounce one of these balls so that it lands in that bin. After propelling the ball, you may not touch or strike it on its way to that bin. You must use the ball you touch first.” For two contestants, this strategic choice became a blind choice because they inadvertently selected their balls by touching them by accident.
Therefore, the type of choice and the resulting player experience can sometimes be changed simply by the actions of the players. While this is fine for the television show as blind choices tend to add interest, it’s probably undesirable for a game where designers want to give players a feeling of autonomy.
In game design…
The majority of meaningful choices in games are strategic choices. Making decisions form the backbone of a player’s experience, so designers strive to include a variety of choices. This can be a range of items that are applicable to different play styles, or dialogue choices that affect players’ alignment or loyalty scores. Or, there could be choices that are clearly better than others, which test the skill of players and allow them to succeed or fail on their own merit.
Balanced Choice
In a true balanced choice, all options should be (more or less) equally useful to the player. This can be done by making all choices functionally the same, perhaps with different cosmetic skins, but that is a boring choice for the player. More commonly, achieving a range of roughly equal choices is a result of triangularity.
Triangularity, which Jesse Schell also calls “balanced asymmetric risk”, is outlined in The Art of Game Design.1 This is the idea that it is a difficult choice to make between a high risk, high reward option and a low risk, low reward one. This way, designers can maintain a sense of balance while creating a hard problem for the player that has serious game consequences.
In Taskmaster…
Clear examples of triangularity in Taskmaster include:
- Series 8, Episode 4 (live task): “Choose a hoop that you think you can throw a frying pan into. Choose a distance from which you can throw a frying pan into that hoop. If you choose the big hoop, you have one attempt. If you choose the medium hoop, you have two attempts. If you choose the small hoop, you have three attempts.”
- Series 6, Episode 2: “Get the highest score in darts. You can either throw one dart from 1 metre away, three darts from 2.37 metres away, or sixty darts from 10 metres away. When throwing, please stand behind whichever distance line you choose.”
Balanced Choice Becomes Strategic Choice
However, because triangularity is so commonplace, it’s easy to present an illusion of balance by taking advantage of this principle. Consider this task in Series 12, Episode 1: “Paint the most flattering picture of the Taskmaster in action on the canvas in the lab. The canvas will either be six inches or six feet above you. You must lie flat on your back on the creeper at all times. You must tell Alex if you want the canvas to be six inches or six feet above you within the next ten seconds.”
Although this task presented an equality of choice, there was actually a better choice, which was to be six inches from the canvas. Painting from that distance was easier, and contestants saved time by not having to assemble a brush on a pole to reach the canvas.
In this case, the balanced choice is actually a strategic choice. This is an example of how the type of choice can be deceptive to the player, whether or not the game designer intended it. In Taskmaster‘s case, this may even have been deceptive to the game designer, if it wasn’t adequately playtested to ensure that the options were balanced.
In game design…
Triangularity is everywhere in game design, providing the opportunity for interesting and meaningful choices. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a heavy two-handed sword typically has higher damage, but is a lot slower to swing, and prevents Link from handling a shield at the same time. The choice of which weapon to use is therefore a strategic and interesting one that is balanced based on triangularity.
Designing Meaningful Choices in Taskmaster
To end this post, here’s a case study of a well-crafted task that designs for meaningful choices, utilising blind choice, strategic choice and balanced choice.
In a task in Series 5, Episode 3, contestants were presented with a jelly, a Weetabix and a Twiglet along with three tasks. Alex Horne told them they could open the tasks in any order, and all the tasks would have to be completed. It turned out that the food items were to be used with each of the tasks as follows.
- “Eat one item.”
- “Balance one item on top of the red pole. The item must stay balanced until the entire task is complete. You may not take the pole out of the ground.”
- “Standing behind this rope, throw one item into the bucket. You may retrieve the item if it misses, but you must be stood behind the rope on every throw. You may not move the rope or the bucket.”
Bob Mortimer and Aisling Bea opened one task at a time, completing the task at hand before moving on to the next one. This introduced a blind choice because they were not able to anticipate how the unused food item would be used. A blind choice like this made for interesting and exciting television.
Nish Kumar, Mark Watson and Sally Phillips opened all three tasks before attempting them. Here, strategic choice played a part in determining which items they thought would best fit each of the tasks. This was a more interesting choice for the players, because it involved strategising and execution based on their individual opinions and skills.
Overall, this task is also a wonderful example of balanced choice. Together, the contestants showcased that it was possible to do each of the different tasks with a different food item. There’s also a level of triangularity that affected the players’ choices. Sally Phillips’ incredible jelly throw was impressive because of the perceived high risk, such that she was the only contestant who chose to throw the jelly into the bucket. Consequently, she ended up winning the task, completing it in half the time of any of the others.
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For more about the game design concepts in the British television show Taskmaster, check out my blog series The Game Design of Taskmaster.
