Pax Dei

Pax Dei Reveal trailer

Discover Pax Dei—a vast, social sandbox MMO inspired by the legends of the medieval era, with community and emergent gameplay at its heart. Pax Dei is the game we’ve been dreaming of making for longer than we care to remember. We can’t wait to see how players will engage with our world, and watch as their stories come to life.

https://playpaxdei.com/

Announcement video with interviews
Asmongold Pax Dei Alpha testing

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:

  • 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.

  • Echoes Of Somewhere demo release on itch.io
    by Jussi Kemppainen on December 21, 2023 at 09:04

    I have been actively working on the project for one full year now. And to celebrate this milestone, I am releasing a short Echoes Of Somewhere demo of the game for Windows & Mac OS! The post Echoes Of Somewhere demo release on itch.io appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Preparing for demo release
    by Jussi Kemppainen on December 16, 2023 at 23:06

    The beginning part of the game has been almost ready for release as a short demo for quite a while. But it was missing some polish that I am working on now. The post Preparing for demo release appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Talking about Echoes of Somewhere
    by Jussi Kemppainen on December 4, 2023 at 14:39

    I have an Echoes of Somewhere presentation I have done a couple of times around Europe. You can now watch it here in full. The post Talking about Echoes of Somewhere appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Magnific AI
    by Jussi Kemppainen on December 1, 2023 at 08:46

    The lower resolution background images for the game are upscaled with Magnific AI to massive 4k+ resolution. The post Magnific AI appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

Iron Danger – Shard of Time

A release trailer I created for my game Iron Danger

Iron Danger is my debut PC/PS5/XBOX game as a game director.

It is a game all about maximising your actions in combat with the help of infinite redos and intuitive trial and error. It is basically a gamified combat sequence animation tool (so cool)!

Play Experience

Gamescom 2019 Best experience: Winner

Finnish game awards 2021

Best creative achievement of the year 2020: Winner

Big screen game of the year 2020: Nominee

Finnish game of the year 2020: Nominee

TechRaptor

Best of E3 2019: Nominee

Rock Paper Shotgun: The best game you missed in march: Iron Danger

A lot of games market themselves as being built around a “unique” mechanic. And while 90% of the time these mechanics are not in fact unique, every so often you get one that’s the real deal, and this tactical RPG with functional time travel is certainly one of ’em.

Iron Danger for consoles

Iron Danger was released for PS5 and Xbox S/X in 2023. Gamepad controls were finally added to the game and I think this is the best way to experience the game.

Soundtrack

Iron Danger main theme cover by Game Music Collective

Screenshots

Info about the game

Gameplay

Iron Danger is a tactical combat game with a unique time manipulation mechanic. A never before seen combination that blends the tactical depth of turn-based games with the exciting action of real-time games.

Tackle challenging encounters with your party of two characters, using a variety of skills and highly interactive environments.

Maybe you will set an enemy on fire and kick them into a grain field for a proper barbeque, or set up a trap and fell a tree on top of them. The options are endless and it is you who will be deciding your own approach!

You have control over time

You have control over time

The core of Iron Danger is its unique time control mechanic. You can rewind time for up to 5 seconds whenever you want, trying different strategies and combinations of moves until you find the right one for the task at hand.

The time manipulation allows us to combine real-time combat gameplay with controls from more traditional, tactical turn-based combat games. This gives tactical combat a puzzle-like element, as you can continuously keep trying new approaches to turn impossible odds to your advantage and synchronize the actions of your characters for the perfect outcome.

You will die, but you will not fail!

World and Story

Iron Danger is set in a world of lofty fells, primeval forest, and placid lakes… as well as living gods and monsters of steel. The city of Kalevala, home of the humans who rebelled against the gods and forsook their protection, shines in the middle of this world, surrounded by towns, sea lanes and and woodlands under its protection.

But from the frozen north, a witch queen is leading her army on a quest for vengeance against the lords of Kalevala. Ancient ruins from the days when gods dwelled on the earth are opening to unleash forgotten powers, tempting humans and striving to overtake the world.

You’ll take on the role of Kipuna, a sharp-witted village girl, who becomes imbued with an ancient power that grants dominion over time and death. You must use your wits to control it as you’re drawn into the midst of a war between the city of Kalevala and the armies of the Northlanders driven by their witch queen Lowhee.

Your task is to master the power, in order to use it for mankind’s protection, while your enemies will seek to harness it in the service of total destruction.

Features

Use unique time-rewind mechanics and experience a new take on tactical combat combining best aspects of real-time and turn-based combat.

Use highly interactive environment for your advantage to succeed against impossible odds.

Adventure in a world of steampunk fantasy and meet its unique inhabitants inspired by Finnish folklore.

Fight epic boss monsters on the path to fulfill your destiny.

No grinding; character progression pace is controlled by the story and every fight matters.

15+ hours of gameplay

Reviews

PC Invasion – 90
“Iron Danger is a fun game that takes us to fantasy Finland and lets us play with time. This is a surprisingly good combination before you take interactive environments and the vibrant art style into account. If you want to play a fantasy RPG that’s lighter on the RP and heavier on G(ameplay), try this one out.”

DarkStation – 90
“From its inception to the execution, Iron Danger showcases a rare, coherent vision where everything comes together to form a unified experience, not least because of truly novel gameplay that holds it all together. I’m afraid that Iron Danger has spoiled other games in its genre for me. I can no longer imagine playing formulaic fantasy tropes with rigid combat and eternally repeated, tired systems.”

Player2 – 83
“Iron Danger feels like a breath of fresh air for CRPGs. While not a perfect game, its unique, time-based combat system is a pure joy to play with and worth the price of admission alone.”

Iron Danger Dev blog

  • Friday Rewind #27: What’s going on?

      15.11.2019 – HP Noronen Woah, it has been some time since last post! After miserably failing our once per week – cycle, let’s try to get back to track. This time it’s more progress report kind of thing. The main reason why we haven’t been posting anything is that our hands have been even The post Friday Rewind #27: What’s going on? appeared first on Irondanger.

  • Friday Rewind #26: Community heroes

    13.9.2019 – JP Lyytinen Community Challenge We held a small challenge in our Discord server rewarding the most active weekly member with a “shard”. Everyone with 10 shards (10 weeks of being most active) would get a character with their likeness in the game! And as it turned out two heroes came out on top: The post Friday Rewind #26: Community heroes appeared first on Irondanger.

  • Friday Rewind #25: Skills and more skills

    13.9.2019 – HP Noronen   One of the major things we’ve been working lately is to polish character skills, add some new skills and rework on our skill upgrade mechanics. Let’s take a look at main things on that work.   Gaining new skills When adventuring in the world of Iron Danger, our playable characters The post Friday Rewind #25: Skills and more skills appeared first on Irondanger.

  • Friday Rewind #24: UI elements in After Effects

    5.9.2019 – Jussi Kemppainen Using After Effects for UI artwork For the longest time I tried to fight back the tropes of fantasy game UIs, but now after a lot of push-back from the team I have succumbed under the pressure and am now redoing the UI artwork. I wanted to go all in crazy The post Friday Rewind #24: UI elements in After Effects appeared first on Irondanger.

  • Friday Rewind #23: Gamescom conquered, now it’s time for Pax West!

    30.8.2019 – HP Noronen Gamescom conquered Gamescom, the biggest consumer event in gaming industry, and we survived through it! As mentioned earlier, we had own booth at Gamescom as well as had pile of press meetings booked. During the three days of press meetings, we showed the game to over 200 journalists. In addition, our The post Friday Rewind #23: Gamescom conquered, now it’s time for Pax West! appeared first on Irondanger.

Videos of Iron Danger from around the web

Video about Iron Danger by Force Gaming
My interview by Geek-Pool
The full Finnish Game Awards ceremony 2021

Behind The Scenes

The first prototype of the game rewind mechanic from 2015

Related works

Iron Danger – Teaser Trailer

A teaser trailer I created for my debut PC game as a game director.

Iron Danger Proof of Concept

A proof of concept trailer for Sami Timonen’s Iron Danger movie.

Quantum Break

Trailer for Quantum Break, showcasing some of the work we did for the cinematics in the game.

Quantum Break is a blockbuster game with time-amplified action and a suspenseful storyline brought to life in a way never done before by fusing gameplay and a gripping live action show. Time itself becomes fractured in a time travel experiment, Jack Joyce fights the secretive Monarch Solutions to put things right before it’s too late. The actions you take and choices you make shape your experience in the show, creating a new and unique entertainment experience.

The Visual Effects Society

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project: Nominee

Angry Birds Toons Rigging

My Angry Birds rig presentation at Adobe booth at IBC

In this presentation I describe the creation of the 3D-like rigging in Adobe After Effects to produce 2D animation with hand-drawn qualities for Angry Birds Toons.

Check out the end result while you are at it:

A short movie that introduces a new bird into the flock.

Meet the Pink Bird

Technical direction for a TV show based on the Angry Birds mobile game.

Angry Birds Toons

Interviews

Adobe: How did Rovio Animation get started?

Kemppainen: After Rovio’s amazing success in mobile gaming, the company decided to expand its offerings to include more entertainment and publishing offerings. I founded a studio in 2007 named Kombo, which Rovio purchased in 2010. I then became one of the co-founders of Rovio Animation and was responsible for creating an Adobe After Effects rigging system for the characters in the Angry Birds Toons cartoon.

provideocoalition.com

Bloopers

Blooper reel

Cosmic Avenger

A short animated film about 2 mail-robots that encounter an abandoned package. I was contacted by the director duo Mariko & Ismo after they had seen my music video Pieni ja Ihmeellinen. They loved its style and wanted to create an animated movie using the same visual style.

This time we went even bolder with matching various animation styles and we introduced traditional stop motion puppet animation and servo controlled robots. We also expanded our use of costumed live action elements as parts of puppets.

Behind the scenes image gallery

Pieni ja Ihmeellinen

An AI HD remaster

A music video for Retropop.

For the longest time I had this idea of a music video with very very small planets. I tried to shop it around for quite a while without finding a great song to make it for. Then Universal luckily had a song about small planets as well and the rest is history!

Original video on YouTube
Direction:Jussi Kemppainen
Screenplay:Lauri Konttori
Puppets and Miniatures:Lauri Konttori, Jussi Kemppainen, Antti Kemppainen
Wardrobe:Mirkka Kallio
Gaffer:Toni Pasanen, Lauri Konttori
Grip:Antti Kemppainen, Jyrki Kemppainen
Drawings:Lauri Konttori, Tommi Ojala
Thanks:Jyri Sääksjärvi, Tero Ahonen, Riitta Kemppainen
Roosa Saarinen, Alex Keskitalo, Vanessa Riki, Markus Kallio
Topi Kemppainen, Anna Kemppainen, Mikko Haapala, Arttu Kotisara

Muuvi 2007

Audience Choice Winner

Behind the Scenes

These photos are from my archives from all the way back in 2007

Costumes

Miniatures

Principal photography

Huudetaan

An AI remastered HD video on YouTube

In memory of Markus.

A music video for Zarkus Poussa. A story about a couple who can not stop fighting but can not break up either.

The first music video I have ever directed. This made me quit my then on-going game development career and go into video production for almost 10 years.

Direction:Jussi Kemppainen
Screenplay:Jussi Kemppainen, Zarkus Poussa
Actress:Minna Puolanto
ThanksJyrki Sukula, VIA ravintola

OMVF 2006

Honorary Mention

Website lovingly crafted by yours truly