Their next game was Bozo’s Night Out – this is probably along with Super Pipeline one of their most popular games. Bozo involved going to various pubs, getting drunk, and avoiding unsavoury characters – the object was simple to get home safely! The more you drink the more points you scored and the more drunk you became!.

This game was nearly controversial because the programmer originally wanted to use beer as the drink in the game but it was later changed to wobble juice! The striking thing about this game was not only the usual quality Taskset features, but that it was such a simple and brilliant concept.

The gameplay was great with increasing levels of difficulty (the more you drunk of course!) you could easily play this game for ages. An inspired idea was the use of popular drinking tunes for the in-game music and variations on the names of well known drinking companies appeared on the high score table.

The more you drank, the more drunk you became - a clever touch was the way your character Bozo became more difficult to control because of the way he would wobble! The drinking music would also slow down as if slurred to indicate how drunk you were! This made the game more frustrating to play but it was innovative.

The game featured a number of interesting characters, like the old granny with her stick!, the policeman and even a punk rocker! As you walked Bozo along the street, various obstacles were in your way like the manholes in the pavements and an area called "Weirdo Park" where strange creatures lurked or was that the drink…
Bozo's Night Out - Taskset
Bozo's Night Out by Taskset
Gyropod Taskset
Gyropod by Taskset

Gyropod shortly followed and continued the good work. It was a “sideways” variation on the space invaders concept but with 3d graphics. A typical space shootem-up in many ways but the sideways design helped to make it a little different.

There was a neatly rendered 2d graphics part of the game, which was an escape from the hectic space battle, your space rocket would land on a planets surface, and your astronaut would come out to investigate and collect any items in the area!

This added some variation to the game which was really a trademark of Taskset, they always tried to think out of the box and not restrict themselves to the usual limited mentality of the 'make em and sell em' approach of other companies. They just had to be that little bit different.

Their next games Seaside Special and Poster Paster were graphically impressive and entertaining. Although Poster Paster was certainly the better game.

Seaside Special was a little controversial at the time because it involved throwing seaweed at top UK politicians! The idea came about because in the UK every year the main political parties have conferences usually in seaside resorts! An interesting concept, unfortunately the game was a bit hampered by rather repetitive gameplay, it just became a little tiresome, constantly going back and forth to pick up seaweed! The political aspect was not that popular, and the novelty of it soon wore off.

Poster Paster is what the name suggests. You went around town pasting posters on wall hoardings. The character you controlled in the game was Bill Stickers! It was great fun to play – as you progressed the posters got more and more complicated and took longer to put up. One of the most frustrating and difficult parts of the game was the level which featured flying flower pots that obstructed you from pasting your posters - a nightmare!. The usual gremlins were around to try and interfere with your pasting, including a nasty called a “wazzock”!

There was an arcade game around at the time called Bristles but I think you will find that Poster Paster was based around an original idea devised by Taskset and not copied from the arcade game. Besides, Poster Paster was technically superior to Bristles in every way and had far more enjoyable gameplay.

Poster Paster Taskset
Poster Paster by Taskset

Seaside Special Taskset
Seaside Special by Taskset