[News] Pumpkin Jack Delivers Halloween Fun, Plus Ray Tracing and DLSS

[Agent47]

 

 

Adoption of Nvidia's ray tracing and DLSS technology is starting to pick up steam, thanks in no small part to increased support from Unreal Engine 4. Last week, Nvidia had a blog post about 12 games still set to release in 2020 that will include ray tracing and/or DLSS support. That's in addition to the maybe dozen or so games that already support the technology. Some of these games are well-known titles, like Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs Legion. Others, not so much, but one that caught my eye was Pumpkin Jack, a solo developer effort that's been in the works for four years.

First, you should know that I studied computer science and had dreams back in my younger days of creating games. Then I discovered that it's quite difficult, life caught up with me, and after working a few years as a software developer and then an IT person, I ended up as a tech journalist. So when I see a decent quality game from a single person, I'm always impressed. I reached out to Nicolas Meyssonnier to ask some questions about the whole process, particularly regarding ray tracing and DLSS support. Those are technologies that often seem to cause issues for big-time developers, so I wanted to know more about how easy/difficult it was to get them working.

Nicolas has a blog post covering some of the details, but I connected with him on Discord to dig a bit deeper. He's basically a self-taught game developer, and apparently an artist as well. Not surprisingly, the process of creating a game like Pumpkin Jack is one of iteration and refinement. What released today may not be the exact idea he started out to create, but after playing through the first few game levels, it's an enjoyable platformer and perfect for anyone looking for some Halloween fun. It's also kid-friendly, which is great for the spooky season if you've got littles creeping around.

As far as adding ray tracing was concerned, it was both good and bad. Nvidia initially asked Nicolas about adding the technology, and he was pretty excited about it. Shadows and lighting apparently didn't take too much effort, but getting reflections and transparent reflections to work was a month-long process. Part of the difficulty was that the documentation for ray tracing in Unreal Engine 4 isn't really complete right now, so there was simply a lot of trial and error. Nvidia also worked with Nicolas to help get things working, or at least pointed him in the right direction.