Professional portfolio
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.
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)!
Gamescom 2019 Best experience: Winner
Best creative achievement of the year 2020: Winner
Big screen game of the year 2020: Nominee
Finnish game of the year 2020: Nominee
Best of E3 2019: Nominee
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 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.
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!
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!
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.
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
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.”
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.
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.
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Real-Time Project: Nominee
I worked on some of the realtime VFX for the Shakira Love Rocks Game.
Also, the game is based on a prototype I worked on.
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.
| Direction: | Jussi Kemppainen |
| Illustrations: | Antti Kemppainen |
| Director of Photography: | Toni Pasanen |
Retry was the best thing I ever worked on at Rovio. A perfect game! It is a shame it can no longer be downloaded from Apple App Store. Thank god the soundtrack is available!
Retry is a free-to-play retro-styled side-scrolling video game developed by Rovio LVL11 and published by Rovio Entertainment.
Squad Command is the only PSP & Nintendo game I have worked on. I did the 3D production planning for the project and modeled many of the characters and other 3D assets for it.
The nicer part of it was that the game production was sold to Games Workshop using a prototype I produced together with Sebastian Aaltonen and Vesa Halonen.
Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command is a turn-based tactics game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, released on November 16, 2007, for the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS. It was developed by RedLynx. The game features three Space Marine Chapters pitted against three Legions of Chaos (two and two for the DS) battling it out on the planet of Ruhr III. The game features units from the tabletop wargame.
Our second Pathway to glory game. My responsibilities were the same as with the first game: 3D assets, UI, characters and terrains.
Pathway to Glory: Ikusa Islands is a tactical turn-based game for the Nokia N-Gage, published by Nokia and developed by RedLynx, released in late 2005. The game is a sequel to the original Pathway to Glory.
This was the first game project I ever worked on full-time.
I mostly worked on the 3D assets for the game: tanks, soldiers, weapons and structures. But I also created the UI and terrain textures.
World War II in Southern Europe, 1943: the struggle for Europe is at a critical point. Special forces are urgently needed, and you're going to lead a platoon of them. But be prepared for full immersion: one look at the painstakingly researched uniforms, weapon types, and locations, and you'll be itching to get on the battlefield. With intuitive controls and nearly innumerable variables in gameplay, Pathway to Glory is like any great game - it takes a moment to learn, and a lifetime to master. PATHWAY TO GLORY is the most anticipated N-Gage title for 2004, and rightly so - it's built to deliver more depth in detail, emotion, and playing experience than any other mobile game made before.
Best N-Gage game: Runner-up
Best hand-held game of the year 2004: Winner
