Developer Recreates Tetris as a GPU Simulation in Unreal Engine 5

Turns out it is possible to create games in UE5 without code or Blueprints.

Ludvig Lovén, an Unreal Engine developer and CEO at Arvikasoft, has recently shown that it is entirely possible to create games in Unreal Engine 5 without code or the engine's Blueprints system, using only UE5's Niagara.

Leveraging only the engine's visual effects system for creating particle FX, the developer recreated the GameBoy version of Tetris as a GPU simulation, using a Niagara emitter to handle game logic and even setting up an accurate GameBoy screen with ray-traced shadows and reflections. According to Ludvig, the showcased version of Tetris is 100% playable, although it is not perfect and has occasional bugs and glitches.

"It was not super easy to implement, as GPU programming is very different from CPU programming," commented the developer. "No loops, no objects, each pixel evaluated in parallel, no breakpoints for debugging, and so on. Still, It's pretty fun to play and I'm very happy with how it turned out!"

This version of Tetris, Ludvig noted, was inspired by a recent project from Senior Technical Artist Alon Rubin, who used UE5 to recreate Snake:

You can find Ludvig's original LinkedIn post by clicking this link.

And if you'd like to learn more about Unreal Engine 5's Niagara system, here are some great beginner-friendly tutorials that will help you get started:

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