Today, indie publisher Headup has revealed Pumpkin Jack for Nintendo Switch, a "comically creepy" 3D platformer.
The game, developed by Nicolas Meyssonnier, has players taking part in a battle of good against evil, jumping, dodging, and carving their way through challenging enemies and puzzles. It's been developed using Unreal Engine for ultra visual shininess, and should apparently appeal to fans of games like MediEvil and Jak and Daxter.
Here's some PR and a feature list:
The peaceful Boredom Kingdom, with its happy citizens, monotonous calm... and adorable little bunnies, has sent the Devil himself into a flying rage! With dreams of turmoil, torture, and bloodshed on his mind, he unleashed the dreadful Curse of the Eternal Night upon the land. Not in love with the idea of a change in their peaceful lifestyle, the humans summon their saviour — a mighty wizard with the power to put an end to the evil curse.
In order to stop these party crashers from ruining his fun, the Devil summons the spirit of Jack, the Pumpkin Lord, to fight against the wizard’s army of beasts and destroy the killjoy wizard! You, as Jack, will be tearing your way through fright-filled levels as you punish those who dared defy your master!
Features include:
- Colorful Cartoon Setting: Travel through lurid landscapes in levels featuring alluring atmospheres, each crafted with vibrant colour palettes, and high-quality lighting effects
- Fight For Your Life: With challenging beasts lurking around every corner, players must master the art of combo attacks, dodging, and timing to survive dynamic real-time battles! Players must unlock weapons and choose wisely in order to strike down all who oppose them!
- Don’t Lose Your Head: Solve puzzles that focus on physics, gravity, and reflection as Jack, or ditch the skinsuit and just use your flaming head to burn books, hammer some moles, create paths for magic spheres, and more as each level introduces new and exciting challenges
- Find Friends to Fight at Your Side: Helpful companions are there to assist Jack in his journey, including a haughty hooty owl to guide him along, and a snarky crow, itching to assist with long-range attacks
The game is set to launch on Switch in Q4 2020; we have it on good authority that it'll arrive "around Halloween".
Like what you see? Will you be keeping an eye on this one? Let us know in the usual place.
Comments (31)
Looks cool! I definitely want more 3D platformers, although most end up being okay-at-best.
Maximo vibes... I like it!
This one has MediEvil written all over it.
I’m in love.
Why does this website want me to say more than that?
Somehow this reminds me of the old Filmation's Ghost Busters. But I don't know why.
Hell yeah, I've been keeping up with this one on Twitter and just asked the dev not too long ago if it would be coming to Switch so I'm STOKED big-time for this one.
This game is completely my style. I am hyped!
@AlexSora89 My thoughts exactly.
@AlexSora89 My thoughts exactly.
Edit: Times 2 lol
This looks good - really promising... BUT ... currently not a lot of actual platforming on show. It's more of an action adventure with a bit of platforming thrown in.
So if the devs are listening don't skimp out on the actual platforming sections please!
Otherwise it's just another 3d run-around combat game, and we're swimming in those.
This is Halloween, this is Halloween.
It looks like MediEvil meets Darksiders.
Reminds me of medievil and that death jr PSP game
I'll wait for the reviews but this looks very promising. I think it's the music but does anyone else get Banjo Kazooie vibes from it?
@Rob3008 Kind of with how cartoony it is.
@Shiryu @ThanosReXXX @Spoony_Tech @AlexSora89
Demo on Steam for those w/ a Steam account and controller hooked up to their PC.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1186640/Pumpkin_Jack/
I'll be trying it out mostly b/c Jak & Daxter is still my all time favorite game and this, to me, looks nothing like J&D at all. I agree w/ the Medevil comments, though I was never a huge fan of that game it was fun enough. I feel like I could play through this entire game, enjoy it, and never have Jak & Daxter cross my mind even once. Though I'll have to see the final product.
@rjejr Thanks for the tip, but I don't have a Steam account. I either only play physical games that I actually own, or hacked/downloaded games on PC. If I play on PC, that is, which is very little, these days.
On a side note: why they did the Jak & Daxter comparison/reference is beyond me, because it doesn't even remotely remind me of that, besides it being in the same genre, to some extent, so agreed on that one.
Pumpkin Jack...where have I heard this before....
@Jokerwolf Darksiders is a really good gameplay comparison from what I've seen. Obviously this is on the lighter side. Kid friendly Darksiders.
@ThanosReXXX I watched my son play the demo - easier than doing it myself - and Pumpkin Jack does move similar to Jak, but the comparisons end there, much closer to Ratchet and Clank.
Though to be fair Jak and Daxter 2 and 3 were even less similar to the first game than this is. I'll probably play it, the fun is what matters.
@rjejr That's true. All in all, it looks like an okay game, so it doesn't really trigger me all that much. I'll keep an eye on it, and maybe I'll ultimately end up adding it to the back log...
@rjejr Definately, it seems more linear too but there is nothing wrong with that.
Looks like it could be fun. I’ll have to try and remember about it come Oct.
This and Bloody Bunny
Looks like a typical 90’s/ early 00’s platform adventurer, in good ways and bad. It looks like it might suffer from similar problems to Yooka Laylee—great art and assets, but uncompelling, listless gameplay in large, empty feeling worlds.
Hopefully it gets a little more density in terms of content.
@rjejr
J&D being your all-time favourite is completely out of the blue for me.
@Spoony_Tech @ThanosReXXX
Which speaks volumes of how much the creator nailed it.
@AlexSora89 Yeah, I suppose so, because it's the first game I thought of after having seen the trailer, and I only saw it being mentioned in the article itself afterwards.
@AlexSora89 @ThanosReXXX Funny as I didn't read any of it and just watched the trailer lol
@Spoony_Tech Well, that's pretty much what happened to me:
I watched the trailer and thought: hey, looks like a MediEvil clone. And only after that I saw it being mentioned in the article.
@AlexSora89 Yeah, it's barely hanging in there, at this point it's probably just a nostalgia thing, though I did replay it recently for the 4th or 5th time and finally got the platinum, on the PS3 or PS4 version, my 1 and only platinum out of about 1,300 trophies, so that's gotta mean something, right?
Though if anyone asks 2 and 2.5 (what we call 3) weren't that good, and X was a racing game and I'm nto very good at those, so it sin't my favorite series or anything, just that first game was a perfect mix of platforming, puzzle solving, comedy, story, graphics, physics and voice acting. Then they turned my favorite perfect platformer into Grand Theft Auto and destroyed it. 😢
My 2nd favorite is now a tie between FF7 and XC (on Wii). That's the first time I've ever said tie, ti's always been FF7 followed closely behind by XC, but the more I think about it the closer XC gets, so I'm calling it a tie now.
Starfox Adventures is right after that - games graphics held up for 3 generations - but mostly I think just to mess w/ Starfox fans who hate it.
Definitely inspired by Medievil. Speaking of wich: We want the remake on Switch, dear developers!
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