Taskmaster

Taskmaster is the kind of game that you need to let yourself go and really get into the swing of the game. I'll be honest, that's usually not the kind of game that I'd find myself playing but when it came to taking pictures of the game I really wanted to lean into the theme and have it come through front and centre.

All Around The House

At it's essence Taskmaster is a game where players are tasked with doing something out of the ordinary and "pleasing" the Taskmaster to get points. Given it's a game people will play at home, the tasks are split across multiple areas, specifically the Kitchen, Living Room, Garden and Lab (which requires you to make things), with Secret Tasks being assigned at the start of the game that you have to complete without anyone realising.

It was this location theme that I wanted to play with in the shoot so people got a feel for moving around the house (and garden) and - at times - getting their hands a bit dirty!

But just taking an image of the game in a room would just look like "a box in a room" (which it literally would be!), which really isn't what I was going for, so I started to pull together the themes or common items that players would tend to have to use or interact with to play the game.

Garden's are usually nothing but dirt and soil, I did look at putting the game in the fridge for the kitchen one but fridges tend to be quite difficult to photograph and, for the UK readers, I really wanted to lean into that Blue Peter vibe that comes with a lot of the Lab tasks.

But to help players understand what this game actually felt like to play, and to tease what the tasks would be, each image came with a corresponding partner image, showing an example of a task, and how that might fit into their game.

This really helps players see and understand the diverse and tactile theme of the game, but also nudges them to image what it's like to play by giving them concrete examples.

Making sure the task aligned with the theme (doing something dirt, sticking your finger into something) helps bring the message home on what the game is really like!

A Garden In Your Living Room

As I mentioned in a previous post for Flower Cards taking images outside is not easy. Lighting, wind, rain etc. all like to scupper your best shots so you want to control as much as you can.

So yes, for these I did bring a bit of my garden indoors by digging up some soil and sticking it on our table.

For some reason, my wife was not impressed by my creativity

And I was having to process flour out of future photos for weeks after this one!