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.

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

    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.

    Iron Danger – Teaser Trailer

    A cinematic teaser trailer I created for my game. Music by Ilmari Hakkola.

    I created this trailer from a level I made for Iron Danger. The VFX, models and animations I used we from the game, but naturally I had to create custom animators and special versions of the particle systems to create a frozen in time effect. An effect the game leans heavily on, as time stands still while you plan your next moves.

    My debut PC/PS5/XBOX game as a game director. A game all about maximising your actions in combat with the help of infinite redos and intuitive trial and error. Winner of Best Creative Achievement of the year 2020 at Finnish Game Awards.

    Iron Danger – Shard of Time

    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.

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