Taskmaster The Escape Room Game | Review

The Taskmaster Escape Room | Step into the iconic Taskmaster House and lock yourself into a brilliantly chaotic Taskmaster escape room game experience. Solve puzzles, crack clues, and outwit the absurd challenges that stand between you and freedom. Can you escape and earn the ultimate prize – The Taskmaster’s respect?

Date Played: March 2026
Time Taken: 1 hour 40 Minutes
Number of Players: 3
Difficulty: Easy to Moderate

The Taskmaster franchise attempt at world domination continues apace with the latest instalment.  After the TV show and its junior spin-off, the live experience, the board game, clothing line, books and Christmas crackers, the escape room enthusiast world can rejoice because we have – ta da – ‘Taskmaster The Escape Room’.

Fresh from Ginger Fox games, this is a table-top boxed game where absolutely everything you need (except maybe a pen and paper) is included in or (maybe, just maybe) ON the box.  It is entirely self-contained with no outside knowledge required, not even the Taskmaster TV show.  So even if you’ve never watched Taskmaster (you haven’t?  Why the heck not? It’s hilarious.  Go and watch some now.  Go on. I can wait.) you’ll still be able to play every aspect of this game without a problem.  Of course, for fans of the show there are a zillion tasty little easter eggs, callbacks and references, but nothing that pulls you out of the game with a ‘huh?’ if you’ve never even watched an episode (still haven’t? What are you like?)

Also worth pointing out that it is very much an escape room game.  It is not like the TM board game or card game where you are expected to carry out tasks similar to those in the show.  At no point are you be asked to transport a banana across a room using only your nose and a pencil, after hearing the traumatizing phrase, “Your time starts now”.  This is a boxed puzzle game and I’m going to say it early on, a damn fine one.

What’s In the Box?

In terms of gameplay, it is similar in style to the ‘Exit’ series of games – a set of small cards provide the clues and directions as to how to complete the puzzles, and once solved each puzzle will result in a symbol or letter, for which you can find a matching card in the set of solution cards, to check if you’re correct or not.  One big advantage over the ‘Exit’ games, is that you can play Taskmaster without damaging or destroying any of the elements.  This means it is also all completely replayable, so you can play, laugh and pass on.  There are a few things you have ‘pop out’ of the puzzle cards but doing so is purely practical and doesn’t impact on the puzzle play in the slightest.  There are also a few sections that you might want to draw on but you can find your own tech workaround for these (we took photos and edited those on phone screens) or the game provides the option of downloading worksheets of all those parts you might want to scrawl on.  This is all a huge testament to the thoughtfulness and skill of the game design – they clearly know that many players want to pass on games after completion, and unlike the often wholesale destruction required by games like ‘Exit’, here you can fully engage with every bit of the puzzling and be left with an intact, undamaged game.

Another strong plus point is that this game can be played entirely analogue and offline.  There are optional QR codes where you can enter and check your answers (if you play this way, you remove the need for the solution cards) and where you’ll get videos from Little Alex Horne himself telling you what to do next.  There are also online hints and solutions.  But if you’re playing somewhere without access to the internet (plane/train), you simply want a 100% off-line game to make the family take a break from doom-scrolling for an hour or two or you need entertaining during a power cut brought about by the current mad downward spiralling of world crises, it’s entirely possible to play without any online interaction.  Massive thumbs up for this Ginger Fox! Even in the midst of an armageddon we can still play Taskmaster the Escape Room.  Hurrah.

What about the actual gameplay?

After you’ve opened the iconic Taskmaster scroll of doom (disclaimer – not an actual scroll or doomy), you’ll be instructed to take the first cards from the puzzle cards pile and once you’ve read those your game is afoot.

Unsurprisingly (and totally not a spoiler) one of the early tasks is to construct the Taskmaster house.  This is an ingenious bit of construction that turns the game’s whole box into the iconic house.  And it’s not just pretty – the newly constructed house is covered with ‘stuff’ that’s going to help you solve puzzles during the game.  The box, and the additional parts needed to construct the house, are fairly sturdy (although we did manage to break a small bit so best to be cautious until you’ve got the feel for how it fits together.  As everything is made of card our break was easily fixed with a bit of Pritt stick so no need to panic if anything does come undone)

Once started, you have 15 puzzles to complete in order to escape the Taskmaster compound (a chart at the back of one of the included puzzle books helps you keep track of where you are).  To solve those puzzles you need to make use of various combinations of the items included – the puzzle books (a nice callback to Little Alex Horne’s permanent clipboard companion), the puzzle cards (each a mini TM scroll), the TM house you’ve just built and some ‘extras’ which will come into play at certain times.  Every single puzzle interacts with the house in some way – it may be purely observational, noting things depicted on the walls, or you may need to manipulate or interact with the house in some physical way.

What about the Puzzles?

The puzzles are a fantastic mix of ‘quick wins’ where the solution can be found fairly easily, and more layered puzzles, which require several steps towards the solution.  Every puzzle asks you to think in different ways requiring visual observation, logical thinking, understanding of maths and wordplay (though nothing overly taxing) and the ability to think, both literally and metaphorically, out of the box.  I can honestly say we, hardened veterans of both IRL escape rooms and table-top/digital games, loved every one of the puzzles. They are fun, quirky, ingenious with gorgeous ‘ah-ha’ moments and the level of wit, humour, (and let’s be honest) snark, you’d expect from a Taskmaster game.

The deeper you get into the game the more clever puzzle dynamics are revealed.  I am always totally in awe of puzzle designers for their ability to create smart, fun, solvable puzzles. How anyone manages to create a complete multi-puzzle, multi-hour game which has everything needed for puzzling in one small A4 sized box is beyond mind-boggling.  As we played through we often stepped back for a few minutes to admire the artistry of the puzzling design.  Honestly, as well as being gorgeously constructed, it’s also just a whole lot of damn fun.

To go into any more detail on the puzzles themselves would just spoil the fun of the discovery, but I genuinely found this to be a funny, clever tabletop game that is accessible for all levels of gamers – from newbies to hardened veterans. It’s also entirely suitable for solo play, or with the whole family.  We played as a team of three and there was certainly enough for us all to do, although I suspect more than four players might make it difficult for everyone to see and interact with everything on offer. Finally, it is exceptionally good value. £20 for 90-120 mins of entertaining, witty game play.

The Taskmaster Escape Room | Final Verdict

Table-top escape rooms can be a bit hit and miss, especially if you’re escape room fans or enthusiasts – they can either be targeted at a general audience and prove far too simplistic, or they’re created for the hardened puzzler and can feel overwhelming, with chapters that take days to complete.  Ginger Fox’s Taskmaster the Escape Room is the perfect little box of joy – challenging but not impenetrable, genuinely funny and witty, a masterclass of puzzle design and interaction – all in a completely self-contained box and, to top it all, stamped with the TM seal of approval by the Taskmaster himself.

The Taskmaster Escape Room can be purchased from the official Taskmaster store.

This game was gifted. This has not affected the content of the review.