Taskmaster VR News

[h2]25.07.2024[/h2]

Scallywag Arcade are excited to share the news that patch 1.0.5 is releasing for Taskmaster VR! This first patch primarily focuses on addressing the display issues reported by some of our players, but also brings bug fixes, balance changes, and quality of life improvements to the table.

• A major overhaul of render pipelines, resulting in significant improvements to performance across all areas of the game.
  
• Initial adjustments to in-game physics stability.
  
• Balance passes across all tasks, improving how tasks are scored by Greg, alongside a number of mechanical changes to improve the player experience.
  
• Improved and optimised graphical assets to address issues some players were having with “blurry” GUI.
  
• And much more!
  

We’re not finished yet, but we believe this patch will help those affected by the reported issues play the game as intended. We have plenty more improvements to make, and we encourage further feedback as we move into our next phase of development support - thank you!

[h2]Game-wide Updates[/h2]
[h3]Performance & Display[/h3]

• Optimised occlusion settings to improve performance.
  
• Doors in House now automatically close over time, in order to allow for occlusion portal functionality, providing a significant increase in performance.
  
• Introduced more aggressive LOD-culling in certain house locations to reduce known framerate spikes.
  
• Improved physics solver iterations for more performant and stable physics.
  
• Widespread improvements to object LODs.
  
• Improvements to character models that reduce the number of active skinned meshes in a scene, improving performance.
  
• Modified character visemes for more natural and performant facial animation.
  
• Improved keyframe animation compression.
  
• Some alpha textures are converted to mesh in order to improve performance.
  
• Dropping the task letter will no longer result in framerate spikes.
  
• Fixed a memory leak with line renderers.
  
• Some transparent shaders were replaced with additive transparency, improving performance in key locations.
  
• Fixed some lighting artefacts, and rebaked lighting + occlusion to be more performant.
  
• Audience members are now less demanding on performance.
  
• Updated and improved backend toolsets and SDKs to improve runtime performance.
  
• Loads of small scale performance improvements across the whole game.
  

[h3]General Gameplay[/h3]

• Adjusted colliders of all “container” objects across the game to make carrying things more accurate and performant.
  
• Rattling drawers will no longer cause their contents to explode.
  
• Updated player body collisions to no longer collide with grabbable or dynamic objects unless necessary to a task. This should improve manipulation of large objects.
  
• Minor modifications to throwing objects.
  
• Performance improvements when using polaroid camera
  
• Can no longer skip past important “trigger zones” using the teleport movement when Backstage.
  
• Switching hands while a task card is opening will no longer cause the opening animation to pause.
  
• Breakable objects will no longer destroy other breakable objects they are touching.
  
• Anything with a hinge joint will now behave itself.
  
• Kitchen layout has been adjusted slightly.
  
• Video instructions in backstage tutorial made clearer.
  
• A large number of minor updates to scoring and task clarity.
  
• Alex blows his whistle at the end of tasks more consistently.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Taskmaster VR is out now! The hit TV show comes to VR and YOU are the contestant. Step into the world of Taskmaster, endeavour to complete a menagerie of challenging and extraordinary tasks and get creative in how you solve them. Your time starts now!

We can't wait to see what you do with our tricky tasks and creative canvases - join us on Discord and let us know!

We hope you enjoy our adaptation of a show we love, and we can't wait to see what's next for the game!

[h2]Taskmaster VR releases on Steam June 18th 2024![/h2]


We’re absolutely delighted to confirm that Taskmaster VR will be launching on Steam on Wednesday 19th June 2024 at 4 pm GMT +1 / 8 am PST.

The team have been working around the clock to ensure we could release Taskmaster VR on Steam as soon as possible after an unforeseen technical issue necessitated a short delay!

Thank you again for your patience and understanding; we can’t wait for you to enjoy it. Please share your gameplay experience and tasks with us! We can't wait to see what solutions you think up.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Step into the contestants’ shoes by competing in extraordinary challenges or fill the industrious boots of the Taskmaster’s Assistant by creating tasks of your own!

As a contestant, you'll complete a series of amusing and bemusing challenges with the aspiration of becoming Taskmaster champion - these tasks are puzzling, physical and designed to allow for outside-the-box thinking with multiple solutions!

In Creative Mode, you become the one creating the tasks. An extensive array of tools and toys makes task creation and experimentation easy, with hundreds of in-game items that can be picked up, piled up or used in just about any other way you want. The creatively minded can build custom tasks and surreal scenarios, or explore the Taskmaster House and its many nooks and crannies. Players can then challenge friends and family to complete their fiendish tasks in local play.


Taskmaster VR comes to a headset near you on June 13th and is available to wishlist on SteamVR now!

[h2]How Can I Find Out More?[/h2]
Join the discord! This is the best place to chat directly with our developers and other Taskmaster fans about Taskmaster VR and our work on the game. You can also follow us on our social media, such as twitter/x or instagram!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Aspiring assistants take note - we’ve just announced that Creative Mode is coming to Taskmaster VR!

Your journey into the world of Taskmaster doesn’t end when you lift that glittering golden bonce in triumph - Creative Mode lets you slip into Alex and Greg’s shiny shoes and create your own tasks! Wielding hundreds of oddball objects and an arsenal of useful tools, you can get creative and let your inner Alex shine - perfect for challenging your friends in local play.

[h2]What is Creative Mode?[/h2]
Creative Mode is a custom sandbox feature that we’ve developed for TMVR that allows players to design and set their own challenging and extraordinary tasks. You are given the run of the Taskmaster House, as well as access to a number of useful tools and toys that can be set up in almost any configuration of game objects that you like. Then, all you need to do is set up the starting position, save and pass it to a friend to make a fool of themselves with!

[h3]Key Features[/h3]

• Create your own tasks and challenge your friends in local play!
  
• Hundreds of unique items, furniture and fruit to play with.
  
• Save and share in local play - perfect for Taskmaster parties.
  
• Making tasks isn’t compulsory - Creative Mode is also great for exploring the taskmaster house, coming up with new task strategies, or just making a big mess.
  

[h2]What Inspired the Development of Creative Mode?[/h2]
Taskmaster VR is a labour of love for us, and we’ve always been very open about listening to the community of the game and the show, and what they want!

We saw the huge outpouring of requests for modding support, but we wanted to take things a step further and create something uniquely Taskmaster. The team have been so inspired by all the stories our discord community have shared with us about Taskmaster parties they’ve thrown for friends and family, as well as by amazing initiatives like Home Tasking during the difficult covid lockdowns and School Tasking - which is helping to bring the joy of Taskmaster to schools and colleges in the UK.

Creative Mode came naturally from there. We’ve built all these fun toys when designing our tasks, but why wouldn’t we let you play with them too? Sharing is caring, after all.

We asked the team behind the feature what they're most looking forward to.

“I grew up playing creative games like minecraft, and I love that if you give a player the right tools, we can let our creativity run wild and make stuff you never imagined! I’m really excited to see what people make with this.” - Cory, Developer




[h2]Roadmap & Next Steps[/h2]
We can’t wait to see what you’ll build with Creative Mode, and we’re desperate to see your creations on launch day and beyond - but things won’t be stopping there.

Creative Mode 1.0 is an intentionally simple, minimalist feature - but it won’t always be that way. We have an exciting roadmap of updates that we’re excited to share with you over the coming weeks and months. We’re exploring new additions like enhanced sharing, more interactive objects and locations, crafting - and more, even more exciting things. It's still early days on these - some of them may not work out. Which is why we have a task for you, the community.

What do you want to see?

Tell us how you would use this feature, what tasks you would like to create, and how best we can work together to build the #VRTasking community! (Catchy hashtag, right?)


[h2]How Can I Find Out More?[/h2]
Join the discord! This is the best place to chat directly with our developers and other Taskmaster fans about Taskmaster VR and our work on the game. You can also follow us on our social media, such as twitter/x or instagram!