Task Time

The big picture

Task Time is a suspiciously sensible name for something designed to ensure your friends accomplish as little as possible. It sounds like an app that reminds you to water a plant. Instead, up to eight people compete across six rounds of physics-driven tasks, discovering that a simple instruction becomes considerably less simple when another human has taken a personal interest in ruining it. There will be one winner. There may be several competing explanations for why that winner doesn't deserve it.

ReadGraves' party game, published by Wired Productions, entered Early Access on April 16, 2026 for Windows PC on Steam and the Epic Games Store. It remains in Early Access as of October 18. The appeal is friendly interference within a clear competitive structure, rather than a perfectly controlled test of skill. If your group can enjoy somebody's carefully considered strategy collapsing into slapstick, that is useful information. If the evening requires a tribunal after every disputed result, perhaps start with something less combustible.

The sofa doesn't have to choose sides

The publisher's product page confirms a particularly useful arrangement: four-player split-screen can combine with online participants in a lobby of up to eight. People in the room and people elsewhere can join the same session. This is the sort of feature that solves an actual social problem instead of asking a group to reorganise its living arrangements around the software.

It also preserves the special joy of being close enough to see the expression of someone you have just inconvenienced. Online friends needn't be excluded, and the local group needn't become four separate headsets sitting next to one another like an unusually tense call centre. Of course, sharing a screen brings its own practical considerations. Make sure everyone can comfortably see their part before mistaking squinting for lack of competitive spirit.

Online play uses Epic Online Services and requires an Epic account, as the official service information explains. Sort that out before the group arrives. Nothing drains the momentum from a party quite like watching somebody search for a verification email while three controllers sit accusingly on the table. These are Windows releases on Steam and Epic; storefront compatibility isn't an announcement of a console version.

The funny hat is included

Unlockable cosmetics and emotes come without microtransactions. The launch announcement confirms that model alongside Twitch integration, which allows viewers to interfere. Both features suit the premise in different ways: outfits give players a little continuity between sessions, while an audience can introduce another source of mischief for streamers who want it.

Keeping the wardrobe away from extra purchases is welcome. A character looking ridiculous should be part of the entertainment, not an opportunity for someone to calculate the financial consequences of owning the correct hat. Unlocks can supply a small reward without requiring the whole group to discuss another spending system. They are still decorations, though. A splendid outfit cannot make you enjoy a game whose central form of chaos irritates you.

Twitch features are similarly optional to the appeal. Viewers meddling with a session can be fun for a broadcaster who likes that relationship with an audience. People playing privately can focus on the perfectly adequate supply of trouble already holding controllers. Your friends do not need a supporting crowd to make questionable choices. They have years of experience.

Leave the roadmap outside the party

April's launch included an initial 48-hour free promotion with progress carrying into the purchased game. That was the Early Access release, not merely another earlier playtest. The current Steam page lists five maps in its Early Access description, with further maps, tasks and items planned. An old estimate for how long development might take does not mean version 1.0 has arrived.

Judge what is available now, especially if your group devours party games quickly and demands fresh material the following weekend. Planned additions can't entertain tonight's guests. Task Time makes its clearest case through the combined local-and-online lobby, structured sabotage and uncomplicated cosmetic model. Bring people who enjoy laughing at the same kind of disaster. The game can provide tasks, but it cannot persuade a deeply offended friend that being knocked off course was actually very funny.