Echoes of Somewhere

Footage from the game in progress. 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.

Latest posts from the blog:

  • Building a Puzzle
    by Jussi Kemppainen on September 11, 2023 at 04:19

    Building Adventure Game Puzzles is fun. This is a very complete breakdown of creating a bathroom scene with its puzzle in under 2 days! (Spoiler alert!) The post Building a Puzzle appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • New teaser trailer
    by Jussi Kemppainen on September 10, 2023 at 11:14

    The original teaser trailer I did way back started to look a bit dated with old character, locations and UI, so it was time for a new trailer! The post New teaser trailer appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Custom post-process effect: Anamorphic Bloom
    by Jussi Kemppainen on September 4, 2023 at 04:26

    Anamorphic bloom is for sure the most cyberpunk aesthetic there is. I wanted to use it as a use case for learning how to create post process materials for Unity URP. This post explains the process. The post Custom post-process effect: Anamorphic Bloom appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Premortem Games interview
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 31, 2023 at 21:13

    A really interesting gaming news site, PreMortem Games posted and interview about Echoes of Somewhere. The post Premortem Games interview appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Using AI as inspiration for UI design
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 27, 2023 at 22:07

    All throughout the project, I have been slightly tweaking the UI from time to time. Now that I have a better understanding of the functionality of the UI, a more polished look and feel begun to creep into my mind. The post Using AI as inspiration for UI design appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Rendering custom shadows with URP shader graph & apartment ext location
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 21, 2023 at 00:00

    As I upgraded the render pipeline for the game, I noticed that my custom shadow rendering shaders turned pink. It was time to transition from custom HLSL shading for the environments to a more modern shader graph based approach. The post Rendering custom shadows with URP shader graph & apartment ext location appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Additional effects for the apartment scene
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 13, 2023 at 22:20

    I have been working on the apartment for absolutely forever! I have begun to approach this room as a vertical slice for the game. This post is about some of the features I added this week: simulated cool air mist and fluorescent light flicker. The post Additional effects for the apartment scene appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Footstep Audio
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 11, 2023 at 12:23

    I have actually never before done footstep audio set for a game. I wanted the system to be able to play audio from animation events and work on multiple different surfaces. Read how I ended up doing it. The post Footstep Audio appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • UI audio groundwork
    by Jussi Kemppainen on August 4, 2023 at 21:29

    For a while now I have been laying the foundations for UI audio for the game. This was more involved than I thought. The post UI audio groundwork appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

  • Article on Adventure Game Hotspot
    by Jussi Kemppainen on July 24, 2023 at 11:15

    A website focused on covering adventure games, Adventure Game Hotspot, , wrote an article about Echoes of Somewhere. The piece is very interesting as it includes reactions to the game from the adventure game developer community. The post Article on Adventure Game Hotspot appeared first on Echoes of Somewhere.

Kuuhyppy

Kuuhyppy (Moon jump) short film

A short film we created with our daughters when they were 3 & 8. Both of them also drew the characters they acted. This was a lovely little weekend project!

Animation:Jussi Kemppainen
ScreenplayMyy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen
Illustrations:Myy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen, Jussi Kemppainen
VoicesMyy Kemppainen, Ruu Kemppainen, Kiia Kemppainen, Jussi Kemppainen

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

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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.

Iron Danger – Shard of Time

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.

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

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:

Meet the Pink Bird

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

Angry Birds Toons

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

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

Meet the Pink Bird

AB Pink Bird Short

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

For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.

Angry Birds Space Intro

AB Space trailer

An intro / trailer created for the Angry Birds Space -game.

For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.

Angry Birds Wreck the Halls

AB Holiday greetings video

A fun little Christmas themed Angry birds holiday greetings video.

Another Angry Birds short I worked on. For this my role again was the technical director. I was in charge of the character rigs and the development of the full studio animation pipeline from layouts to final image.

Angry Birds Seasons Ham’o’ween

AB Seasons Ham’o’ween short film

A short movie to accompany a halloween themed update for Angry Birds Seasons.

This was my first project at the new internal Rovio animation studio. I did the technical direction, character rigs and a bunch of compositing for this piece.

Ella & Aleksi – Yllätysynttärit

A trailer for Ella and Aleksi. The whole movie was Created at Kombo (with one sequence produced at Anima).

A short behind the scenes clip of few rigs I produced fot the show.

At first, we were fully expecting to produce the show in Cinema 4D, but as the character animations needed to be 12fps but the camera animations 24fps. This was not easy to do in Cinema so I ended up creating our animation tools and rigs on top of After Effects, where this sort of time posterization was a lot easier.

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

Flora Christmas

A miniature based advert for a vegetable spread.

This ad is almost completely made with miniatures. We built a small globe and filmed it spinning. The actors were shot on a crane. 3D elements; like the cars, ships, road and water; were overlaid on the globe to add life to the scene.

The globe asset and me as a young, bald eagle.

Kauppalehti

A film to celebrate an update to the Finnish financial magazine

The animation and post production for this film celebrating an update of a Finnish financial magazine was created by me and Ilmari Hakkola in one week. We combined 3D, after effects and some filmed elements.

Warhammer 40 000 Squad Command

Gameplay footage of Warhammer 40 000 Squad Command for the PSP.

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.
A cutscene from Warhammer 40 000 Squad Command.
Squad Command on the Nintendo DS.

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