Accessibility is a cornerstone of Scallywag Arcade’s approach to game design - it is important to us that our games can be played and enjoyed by as many people as possible, without ever making anyone feel as though they are getting a compromised play experience. This has been of particular importance when adapting Taskmaster for VR - a platform where individual accessibility and comfort needs can vary wildly between players in a way that might not happen with a traditional controller and screen!
We set out with the express goals of making Taskmaster playable no matter what your particular needs might be, or your home environment. All our tasks are benchmarked to be playable when seated and standing, as well as if you play stationary or at roomscale.
We also recognise that accessibility needs are a spectrum, and so we resolved to offer as many as we could to all players in as flexible a manner as possible. Let’s take a look at a list of some of the accessibility options you can use to tailor your Taskmaster experience…
Multiple Movement Options
Whether you would prefer to move your own body, teleport around, or use a controller thumbstick for Continuous movement, our Tasks will work with all three. Our teleport setup allows for fine tuning of direction, and additional customisation options for each movement mode are available - including snap vs smooth turning, dominant hand selection, and the choice to use your head or your controller to dictate continuous forward movement axis. However you prefer to move in VR, we’re hopeful that we’ll support you.
Height Management and Adjustment
For seated play, we have a height calibration tool that will help ensure you are comfortable and able to reach those all-important watermelons Alex keeps leaving around the place. The tool is also available in standing mode, in case you want to make some small adjustments to your in-game height.
Dynamic Crouch Toggle
A simple one, but a small one - not everyone is able to crawl around on their hands and knees trying not to knock over towers of tin cans, so we have implemented a button press crouch.
Force Grab
Will we get sued for this one? Let’s find out! If you’re finding that grabbing the things you need from certain heights or angles is difficult, players can increase the distance that they can grab interactive items by selecting their target and pulling it towards them. Some of the contestants could have used this on the show…
Colour Vision Deficiency Support By Design
Our Tasks (and the game as a whole) have, wherever possible, taken into account various CVD conditions to ensure that your experience is minimally impacted without the need for specific filters or vision modes. The game uses a colour palette specifically chosen to help support this! There are certain popular Taskmaster items or set dressings that we have chosen to make small changes to as well - the Red Green, for example, is referred to as a “Red Circle” in Taskmaster VR - as we found in accessibility testing it was not clear to CVD users what item we were talking about, or that it got lost when placed on the grass in the garden. You can see this visual language throughout the game, where use of colour is supported with shapes, patterns and symbols to aid baseline readability.
Vignettes and Tunnelling
Tunnelling is a technique where a vignette is used to reduce the player’s visibility when making particularly fast movements like turning or teleporting, as an anti-sickness measure. In a physics based game like Taskmaster where the player has a real presence in the world, this becomes even more important. Tunnelling in Taskmaster VR is activated on a feature by feature basis, and also offers an intensity slider so that you can tailor it for your specific needs!
Grip Toggle
Another simple one, but powerful - you spend a lot of time grabbing stuff and waggling it around in Taskmaster. This setting allows you to either press and hold the Grip button to hold an item, releasing it to let go - or to use a single button press to “toggle” the state of an object from grab to release. This setting is mostly useful for anyone with any kind of motor challenges or chronic pain.
Menu Distances
A floating menu can often be a hard thing to get right, so we ... allow you to adjust the distance at which it's displayed from your face. We’re also working on allowing you to adjust the size and scale too!
Audio and Subtitle Controls
You can adjust and mute various aspects of the game individually - music, sound effects and dialogue. In addition, the game offers subtitles designed for readability and clarity - there are visual indicators of who is speaking, and the direction from which the speech is coming from!
Arachnophobia Mode
This one was actually really easy for us to implement, as there are no spiders in the game at all. You’re welcome, world.
Accessibility By Design
Why is accessibility so important to us? Firstly, we’re a diverse studio with a team from all walks of life, and we’re making the games that we’d like to see, without compromising the silliness and chaos of Taskmaster. As a studio, we work with a number of charities to champion awareness of Accessibility By Design, and to help share the incredible world of videogames without barriers - we’re patrons of both Special Effect and Safe In Our World - and we regularly invite them to our studio to check out all our fun toys, and to give us advice and guidance on how to build better games.
We’re always looking for new ways to improve our accessibility offerings in game, so we’d love to hear from the community what we can do to help you with mastering these tasks. Hit us up in the comments or on Discord!
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