Drivers of the Apocalypse

Latest gameplay, full video

Drivers of the Apocalypse is a bonkers action driving combat game set in the apocalyptic plains. You play as Artemis, a junior mercenary working for the hottest startup, Thunder Strike Force. Your job is to help your clients overcome their “problems” but then a personal tragedy strikes…

This is a game I am developing for fun, mostly alone on my free time after work. Nevertheless, the intent is to properly publish the game once it is finished.

Echoes of Somewhere

Game trailer. Environments and characters created with the help of AI, or completely with AI.

Echoes of Somewhere is an experimental 2.5D point and click adventure game anthology series developed by a group of game industry veterans on their free time.

The project relies heavily on AI generated content and as such is an experiment in itself. We will be documenting the progress here in this development blog. For good or for worse.

Each episode in the series is about 1-4 hours of classic point-and-click gameplay in a new world with new characters. Even the art style will vary from episode to episode.

The episodes will be released for free one by one when completed.

Download the game demo:

Speech about the game project at Games Now!:

Latest posts from the blog:

  • INTERMISSION
    by Jussi Kemppainen on September 28, 2024 at 10:42

    Intermission, sweet rolls and hot drinks in the cafeteria! The post INTERMISSION appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • XR AI spotlight
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 23, 2024 at 09:41

    I was interviewed for XR AI Spotlight a few months back. here is the full interview. The post XR AI spotlight appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Games Now! Podcast
    by Jussi Kemppainen on July 6, 2024 at 16:34

    A further Questions -podcast episode in regards to my AI presentation last year. The post Games Now! Podcast appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Simple camera controller+
    by Jussi Kemppainen on June 4, 2024 at 06:26

    I had created a very simple camera controller for the city hall interior scene. But it was not very usable in other scenes. So I rewrote the code and made it universal and a lot easier to use! The post Simple camera controller+ appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Footsteps audio refactoring
    by Jussi Kemppainen on March 23, 2024 at 08:02

    I upgraded my rather simple footsteps audio system to a fully fledged surface type / character type retrieval setup that I can expand in the editor. The old system had hard coded arrays, but this new one is user editable directly in editor! The post Footsteps audio refactoring appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • AI assisted location: Hamburger restaurant
    by Jussi Kemppainen on February 18, 2024 at 16:23

    In the first big puzzle hub, one of the non-linear storylines takes you to a hamburger restaurant. There will be a big, hamburger related puzzle in there! But this week, we talk about creating the AI assisted location. The post AI assisted location: Hamburger restaurant appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Closeup camera angles
    by Jussi Kemppainen on February 3, 2024 at 12:09

    With Magnific now being able to upscale all the way up to 16x I wanted to try closeup camera angles for the game. The post Closeup camera angles appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Animated hotspot icons
    by Jussi Kemppainen on January 10, 2024 at 22:30

    I was working on the Steam Deck compatibility of the game this week and the main pain point was the hotspots. As I was fixing the code, I decided to try to make the hotspots animated! The post Animated hotspot icons appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Accessibility options
    by Jussi Kemppainen on January 4, 2024 at 14:58

    I am big into accessibility. It was now finally time to get started on accessibility options for Echoes of Somewhere. The post Accessibility options appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Project 1 year anniversary!
    by Jussi Kemppainen on December 28, 2023 at 00:43

    Happy birthday! Echoes of Somewhere has now been in “active” development for a year. Lets look back on the year! The post Project 1 year anniversary! appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

3D Characters for Sanoma Pro

I modelled, textured and rigged a set of 3D versions of 2D characters created for Sanoma Pro Educational books. They are used on AR content on an ABC book called “Ystävien Aapinen”, ”Ystävien Lukukirja” and an English language book series, “Come With Me”, with 3 installations rolled out.

I also developed the scripting for the Unity scene-flow and asset bundle loading, user interactions and the Morph-based facial animation workflow from Blender to Unity.

Character animations by Janne Roivainen.

Olavi Elää

A cool album cover for a Finnish rock album from Olavi Uusivirta. I did the layout and rendering and 3D scanned model cleanup for this project. The director of the project was Tero Ahonen.

2D Characters for Pikku Kakkonen

I was commissioned to design and create modernised versions of the classic characters in the Pikku Kakkonen children’s programming logo.

In addition to the modernised logo characters, I designed the 2D version of one beloved puppet character.

For this, I did extensive research on the different visual styles and technical solutions for different children’s TV programming. 2 versions of each character rig was created, one for realtime applications in Unity, and one for pre-rendered animations in After Effects. They used the same sprite sheets I created in Affinity Designer and the animator controls were the same. But for unity I scripted them using C# and for After Effects I used AE Expressions.

Short clip displaying the simple mount rig controls in Unity 3D

The work was built on top of my previous Angry Birds rigging, completing the “just a head” rig for the birds with full body controls.

Ainola Alive

A live visual VJ set for Meidän Festivaali celebrating Jean Sibelius and especially his wife, Aino. Together with my brother we produced visuals for 4 concerts in total.

We did not know of the performances in advance, so I built a live visual set capable of adapting to any type of music. All effects were reactive to the music being played and we could control things by hand as well during the live performance. 2 persons were required to control the visuals and keep them going at all times. It felt like playing an instrument as a member of the band. We could play off of the performers and they of us as they were encompassed by the screen.

I also designed the stage which was a first for me.

A promotional clip created for the concerts
A promotional clip created for the concerts
Timelapse of the concert stage being built. I have the bald spot and the red shirt.
The first performance at the stage we did.
Direction:Jussi Kemppainen
Illustrations:Antti Kemppainen
Director of Photography:Toni Pasanen

Stage previz renders

One of the motion graphics sequences previsualisations sent for the client

Behind the scenes

Michael

A video installation of Michael Jackson created for Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.

I worked on the face replacements for the wide shots. We painstakingly created this with Nuke & Maya well before the time of AI face replacements.

VFX Production Company:Troll VFX
Artist:Adel Abidin
Director:Sam Shingler
Technical DirectorJuuso Kaari

Website lovingly crafted by yours truly