August House

Bloodgold maples turning white.
A sense of loss and sadness that will not go away.
I would walk a thousand miles just to see you.

A heart, amplified

I know I will wake up to the dark of a winter day tomorrow with the same thought as this morning.

And I know that I will stare at the black water of the river and the endless stream of ice sheets floating by.

In the light from the dashboard, I will choose a destination, plot a course, and delete it. Again and again.

At some point this dream will collapse. It will collide with time and space, and as it is with all things timeless, such as a thought, a prayer or a dream, it will burn. But right now I am not willing to let it slip into the unknown. Not just yet.

Overture

Oh god, this hurts. 

Aetās, Universum & Omnis

"To write is human, to edit is divine." - Stephen King

The fireplace in the bedroom breathes and crackles. I have just finished the writing part of what is quickly becoming my favorite book, "Dark Zen". It has taken me a very long time to write and I have abandoned her to entertain other muses for years at a time. When doing so, she has invaded my sleep and made all sorts of ultimatums and demands. She demanded to be completed.

Now comes the process of editing (and correcting a ton of typos, I presume). I am notoriously bad at it, but I will give it a shot at first. I actually have someone in mind to edit the book, but here lies the problem: I don't actually know her. This person has a tremendously strong voice herself. She reads the same books as I do, listen to the same music as I do, and uses the same exact verbal expressions as yours truly.

Here are the last words of Dark Zen:

And here we begin the last short chapter in this collection of thoughts, arisings and reflections. I feel the need to point out that you, dear reader, should not take anything at face value, not anything I have written, nor anything else. Everything under the sun and beyond should be scrutinized, dissected, and improved if at all possible. Everything should be laughed at and ridiculed, when there is need. I find myself more and more detached from the bullshit of the world around me. Sure, I live in these constructions and function in them like anyone else. I continue to be a ghost, riding a skeleton made of stardust on a convertible spaceship hurling hundreds of thousands of miles per second through the vacuum of space. But, once I have stared at the abyss of meaninglessness of existence, shed the childish preconceptions of any meaning of man-made contraptions, I find myself metaphorically standing on the same Mediterranean beach I stood twenty years ago, staring at the rising sun, waiting for my life actually to begin.


There will be no such transformation in store for me as the autumn of my life looms already in the horizon. I know what I am, and I know my place in order of things. The wine will not taste as sweet. No sensation will be as explosive and profound, as those I have felt and left behind. I have made a journey of discovery within myself, and through that journey I found the world, such as it is.


For the first time in this existence, I feel content.


The flame of restlessness of youth is moribund and withering now, turning into a cold, declarative low fire. I am content that there will be new discoveries made every day, although every such discovery reinforces the notion that I know next to nothing. I am content that I am allowed to create something new every day. I am content that I am no longer afraid of the darkness, but the darkness is afraid of me. I am content that I have had the opportunity to experience perhaps the longest period of peace in world history, and I recognise it can end any day. I am content that I have seen the technological and scientific progress from the 80s to this very day. I am content that I have loved and been loved, and that I have made peace with sorrow and loss I have encountered.


I am content that I have learned to choose quality over quantity, reason over rage, compassion over hate, and doubt over faith.
I am content that I have learned to be quiet when any word would do.



Lost

"I am afraid that I am lost if I put out the candle tonight,
but is it in the fist that opens that has the key to what's inside?
And I didn't travel three hundred miles to find myself on this shore,
let alone buy some time I have already paid for.

This cold handsome devil, a tall image of a man,
tells you what your looking for and to leave while you can.
A teardrop, what does it tell you, is it begging you to understand?
Is it all you've ever needed? A simple way to show that you can't."

I wrote that originally eons ago sitting on a beach at sunrise in Catalonia. The text found its rightful place in a song called "No One Home in Heaven".  And, I find myself humming the melody tonight.

Free Falling

It is Tuesday January 21st. Naked trees sway in the wind turning north. I am lost in my thoughts at the office desk, absorbing the silence only broken by gentle clicking of various mechanical keyboards, an occasional muffled cough. I love my crew. They embrace this silence as much as I do.

It has been said that a standard cycle in a man's life is seven years. Most of the cells in human body are regenerated in roughly ten years, save for very specific brain cells which can last from 50 years to a lifetime. I am not the same entity I was 10 years ago in so many levels. I have learned that the things I want and the things I need are not the same thing. I have learned that nothing in this existence is truly easy. We earn our keep every day.

And yes, we plough through it all without giving it much thought while at it. We keep vigil at night for the hours and days wasted. We mourn this loss when we think no-one sees.  

I am not enjoying this free fall through time, through days and months. At some point I will reach the figurative escape velocity and change course. With this momentum, with one fell swoop, I will eventually crash land to your shores.

From the rooftops of Gaudi's cathedral,
saints please bless me for my heart pulls south.
No prayer can save me now,
no such word strong enough.

And I don't know what has gotten to me,
or what brought me here tonight.
I have nothing to give you but my heart
and these thoughts I claim as mine.

Now that image is no longer
and a figure forms naturally.
When you stand beside all the nonsense,
then what would you really be to me?

A portrait of a goddess,
or a painful lesson learned,
or the closest thing to perfect
in a less than a perfect world.

Mirage

And it was on January 16th around 12:50 PM, something happened. Something stilled, something quieted down. A question was answered somewhere far away.

Imagine this:
A sensation not unlike anxiety but without a trace of anguish. There are ripples emanating from the solar plexus. ASMR has nothing on this, nothing.

And then it's gone.

Now, imagine this:
Someone somewhere reads the same books as you do. Someone listens to the same music as you do. Someone uses the same exact verbal expressions as you do. Someone feels the same weight of the world, the same soul crushing pressure and suffering, this existence places on our shoulders.

What would you make out of it? Now, I am old enough to understand that all this might mean nothing. It might be a curiosity, a mirage, and a distant light shining beyond the horizon. It might be a Schrödinger's Twin Fire; a quantum state disappearing, or behaving differently, when observed.

Or, it might be a figment of my imagination. A wish upon a star. I find myself writing as if talking to a lonely candle.

"I am a railroad track abandoned,
with the sunset forgetting I ever happened."
- Jeff Buckley, "Opened Once"

A Message in a Bottle II

"My ______ don't you worry
This cold world is not for you
So rest your head upon me
I have strength to carry you…

Follow me down to the valley below
You know
Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul"

--Steven Wilson, "Lazarus", from Porcupine Tree "Deadwing"

 

A Message in a Bottle

I find myself writing this in English, because it is a language of nuances and I can get those shades of meaning just right.

I am placing this —whatever this is— like a message in a bottle here. I don't want to shove this in your face in a private message, and I don't dare to make the assumption of what I have to say is of any importance to you. If it is, I am content. If not, I apologize.

***

There are times when 160 characters is not enough. And, this is one of those times. Now, I don't know you, I mean really know. I've had the privilege of making your acquaintance in the digital domain through exchanging a few words and thoughts. If I understand correctly, you are a writer. That means we have a common language. I understand that you are a parent, which means that you know what fear actually is. And, then you know love, the deepest kind.

If I have one sole purpose, one true meaning in this existence, it is that of decreasing and minimizing  suffering. How I'm doing with that job description is up for debate, but I try. You wrote a few words along the lines of "the darkness within and the darkness without" you have experienced during the last few days. I felt something in me move restlessly. It may have been your choice of words, hell, I might be even imagining things, but I felt genuine worry, and I was compelled to at least try to do something about it, although I have nothing to give you but my heart and these words I claim as mine.

A friend of mine described my philosophy and interaction with the world as "Dark Zen", because I can be a rather brooding and serious individual at times. I believe compassion cultivates compassion. I believe in common decency and goodwill. I believe in kindness. I want to. I have to. There are those who mistake my stance and beliefs as weakness, something that can be exploited and something that can be taken advantage of. There are those who think that my train of thought stems from pseudo-Buddhism and borderline New Age garbage. But...

We are spiritual beings on a human journey. We are skeletons made of stardust on a convertible oblate spheroid spaceship hurling through space thousands of kilometers per second. All the chemical elements in our bodies were generated by stars exploding as supernovas, as one of the most violent and dramatic of cosmic events. It is a miracle that we are here, as we are now.

So, all that which ails you and broke your heart, it will pass. Whatever hardships and suffering this life, this existence, throws at you, know that someone cares.

The light will prevail, it always does. Then fight, my dearest fight, if not for anyone else, but for what could be yours. 

Aurora

(So that I won't forget.)

I just love how the low angle light hits the landscape at this time of year and the long shadows it casts. There is something fundamental and unforgiving about the cold, declarative low light.

I am not a photographer, and I don’t aspire to be one since my domain is that of words and sounds, but I like to point my lenses where ever I find something aesthetically pleasing. Like everyone else, I guess, I try to make sense of the world, and perhaps find something of value. Something delicate, something that is not tainted by human hands. 

Letters to the Unknown (Eunoia)

The sun announced itself, godlike and golden. Flakes of snow sail past the window unhurried. The view from this window is that of timelessness; without a technological contraption or any man-made material object in sight. There are just naked trees in deep slumber, dreaming.

I fall through pages of political chaos and corruption. I fall through fruitless conversations and semantics, irreconcilable -isms, and political half-truths. I don't think I have anything to give to such. I see fascism, intolerance, even hatred. I see the other side of the isle succumbing into a totalitarian fever dream. I see both ends of the spectrum attempting to force a model of what to think and how to live on me. No, you don't get to do that. I see here reenacting and evoking something that should remain unearthed. The demons of yesteryear, that is. I see terrible oversimplification of multifaceted issues.

And, I feel it again. The ghosts of dolphins, the needle, the twin lakes, and the white water.  

Season's End

I've been reading a certain manuscript lately, actually two manuscripts, of yet unpublished bodies of work. Both share, in broad strokes, a similar perspective, and there are a lot of interesting parallels between the train of thought of both authors. To my understanding, the difference between these two bodies of work is that one of them is a journal of actual events, and the second is, to a degree, a fictional book, but dealing with real life characters. I enjoy both works immensely, and feel very privileged to be among the first on the planet to read those words in front of me.

In the wee hours last night I fell through pages discussing work ethics, unfinished work, and generally what do we do with our time. I swear I already hear someone retorting that "time is an illusion", but whatever time is, it does not change the fact, and the fundamental laws, of causality and repercussions. I started thinking about all the unfinished projects lying around in hard drives as ones and zeroes, and of course, those in real life.

I can always rationalize my underachievement with my real life responsibilities. I can always tell myself that "one day" I will have the time to finish all the work pending. The fact is, I do not have the time, and that "one day" will never come, and to suggest anything else is utmost stupidity. That is, unless I make the time. In less than ten weeks, a season comes to an end. My own world will tilt a little closer to the sun, as a time of unprecedented qualities arrives. The question is for me personally, what do I do with the time and freedom given, well, actually, "taken". The last four years have been plagued with a clusterfuck of unfortunate and unnecessary events, soul destroying consequences, and general dissatisfaction. A time of great disappointment. I cannot, and will not, attribute these failures to anyone but myself. With my shortcomings, and goings, the fault lies nowhere else. I have always taken great pride that I will not succumb to common human fallacies, therefore I must take the blame and carry the cross I have placed upon my shoulders. The question is whether I get myself nailed to it or not.

Letters to the Unknown (The Distance to Here, Redux)

"Spooky action at a distance."

Albert Einstein dismissed somewhat colorfully the phenomenon we now through observations know to be "quantum entanglement." I come from a long lineage of scientific background. One of my noted forefathers, Ioannes Nauclerus, was the first Rektor of the University of Tübingen. His father, Ioannes Nauclerus Sr, was one of Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian II's trusted advisors. I am one node in a string that is one thousand years of rationality, philosophy and thought.

That is why I find it so difficult to process this storm inside, breaking against my frame. My attention, my very being has turned towards the city that has a needle, a lake and a river. I hear a voice and I do not know whereof it speaks. I see a face but I do not know who she is.

And then, I woke up into the dark of a winter day from a dream of Catalan sun, the heat and the humidity. I still can taste the salt in the air brought by the wind from the Mediterranean and my heart beating to the pulse of the city. I remember running my fingers on the surface of sun-soaked rocks that constitute the walls and cathedrals of stone. I remember the shade of Carrer del Paradís and the soaring height of the walls forming a canyon of sorts.

The aforementioned was constructed from memories upon memories, overlapping and intertwined. What I am —what I think I am— is reconstructing these lifelike simulated experiences, but not due to happenstance. It tells me what I need to know. And, I know why this voice inside begs me to hearken. 

"The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some old forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, 'Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you'

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had"

Winter is coming

Snow fell for the first time this weekend. Massive snowfall has cut out power and internet connections throughout Finland. We have been mostly unaffected, but connections have been rather shoddy during weekend. Tyre changing operation (to those who live in warmer places than we do: winter tyres are not only compulsory here, but also something you cannot live without) is always fun, especially when one happens to leave to the last possible minute.

We here at Dark Amber Softworks have been designing (and implementing) a new weapon system into Avenging Angel. The concept is called "Battle Glove". It is essentially an extension to the data gathering/SoulFire interface Vincent/Amity wears on his/her left hand. Our idea is not only to "weaponise" it, but it can be also used (with appropriate in-game upgrades) to siphon health. Wearing the glove will also give a small damage boost to melee weapons, even to GunBlade. As per usual, this glove can be modified to suit individual gameplay styles and it can be worn with both melee and ranged weapons.

To those who might have missed this: there is a sample of new music in Soundcloud. This particular piece was written an opening music when entering Greenhouse Valley.

Finnish Broadcasting Company (our version of BBC) interviewed us last week about Avenging Angel and game industry in general.

It is Monday morning here in Finland. The crew starts to arrive to the office. Time to get back to work...

Listening while writing

Isaac Hayes: "Hot Buttered Soul"
Steve Hogarth + Richard Barbieri: "Arc Light"
Mokoma: "Elävien Kirjoihin"
Steven Wilson: "Hand.Cannot.Erase."
Ghost: "Meliora"

The Land of Strange Gods Releases

Avenging Angel (PC Game) - Pain & Despair Early Access Update - September 2015
Bad Water (Novel)  - December 2015
Avenging Angel Full PC Game - January 2016
Avenging Angel - God Seed Chronicles (Novella) - A companion to Avenging Angel - January 2016
The Land of Strange Gods I (Novel) - Q2/2016
The Land of Strange Gods II: Borderline (Novel) - Q3/2016

Dance like nobody's watching...with firearms

The Power of Three (Part Two)

In the muddy and murky waters of game design, at least in the way we do it, there is constant change. When I look at Avenging Angel Demo v1.0 and compare it to what is now on the desktop, the difference is huge. I tried to keep track of how many “darlings I have killed” for my own amusement, but that ludicrous wank proved itself utterly and completely unnecessary and foolish. A lot of stuff was discarded they didn’t fit the world or the story we were trying to tell. A lot of bad ideas thankfully died in their sleep. The most difficult ones to discard, for me personally that is, have been the ones we simply didn’t have the resources to do. The ever-present guideline of “does this make this game better” has proven its usefulness time after time. Do we need Quick-Time events? Can we deliver a particular piece of story, or story-related information through gameplay? Can we trust the player to understand the mechanics? 

We did a few public outings of Avenging Angel demo in 2014, and we observed how people played the game in that environment. Well, it has to be noted that a crowded, noisy and hectic “expo” is not the best case scenario for gameplay testing, but all those hours of gameplay, with the three of us looking over the shoulder and making notes, were highly valuable. We quickly found out that the average player has the attention span of a gnat. The “god finger” pointing where to go and what to do is expected. Even the really underpinned visual clues were largely ignored. Mind you, these expos were gaming events and the audience were players. We were not tucked at the back of a local mall, somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the cheap “fashionable” rags, plastic bead jewellery, bikini wax joints, and catering the game to a completely off-the-mark target group. I am not going to make a lament about the contemporary game mechanics. The audience dictates what is expected. Period. Some game designers go against the tide and fight those windmills, and I salute them all, however, it is a boss fight I will gladly pass. If a player wants an in-game nanny, so be it. If the sense of accomplishment of figuring something out on your own is out of the window, can we make good use of those mechanics to something perhaps more innovative and interesting? Our take on the subject were the “Bird Drones” in the sky indicating areas of interest, and “Goggle Glass” (By the way, it is not Google Glass), an in-game augmented reality monocle providing basic HUD information and objects player can interact with. 

To me personally, a game is essentially like reading a book. The story and gameplay blend into a seamless experience and I find myself (hopefully) swept away by it all. While I understand the business model and importance of mobile games, they are not my cup of any beverage as a consumer. That is right, I used the “C-word". Mobile games are like a quick, dirty hand job at the back alley, a pep-bar, or a consumable. Well, most of them are. I did enjoy Deus Ex: The Fall on iPad and Republique is a great game. The long forgotten Shadow Cities was also something great, but I never considered it to be a “game”. It was a great chat that happened to have game-like features as well. More importantly, the chat was filled with great people (I knew and know most of the heavy hitters and usual suspects personally in real life). One would do very well in remembering that this is my personal view on games. I am mirroring my own attitudes towards them. I have absolutely nothing against mobile games per se. I have been tapping the screen of my iPhone lately playing Fallout Shelter. Is it a good game? No. Is it fun in five minute dosages? Yes. Is it an effective marketing tool? Hell, yeah.    

The greatest games ever made have been true epics and their genetic code can be derived, more or less, from JRPGs. Again, my opinion and my opinion only. If someone thinks that Flappy Bird is the greatest shit ever to come out of entire game industry, that’s fine too. At some point, I would like to take a crack at mobile. I have already been a part of a team designing utility apps for Android. I think we have only scratched the surface of the true potential of mobile application. On the educational side of things, augmented reality and virtual reality applications paired with mobile solutions can not only help re-structure and prioritise resources, but can also elevate the standard of education. If that is “gamification”, then sign me up. 

But games, as consumable things, are an entirely different beast to me. They are more than consumables or utilitarian frameworks. They are worlds within a world. They allow extraordinary things to be experienced. From sniffing flowers to playing tag with bazookas, the games allow you to be what you want to be in that context. Someone recently complained about the sheer volume of games being published. What the fuck is the problem? I say “thank you” repeatedly to Valve’s Steam and other publishing platforms. Sure, with these volumes the hit-to-miss ratio with games also shifts. Somehow I manage to find interesting content and good stuff. Business-wise, yeah, it is really hard to get your message across. As an indie, one does not only compete against other indies, but the triple-A titles as well. All game development companies are after your time and money. The only solution I find is to make “better” games. If “better” means giving an audience what they want, bring it on. If it means innovative and new ways to re-invent gameplay, even better. Combine the two and we should have something interesting. Easier said than done? Yeah. Something to strive for? Definitely. We set out to make a good game and that goal has never wavered. 

While we have looked at other games for inspiration, we have tried to find our own voice by making Avenging Angel. I think we have a distinctive design language. It does not feel like hundreds of other titles I have played. Whether these are good or bad things, that is up to debate. It most definitely looks like us. It took me twenty odd years to dream and write that world. To see Dark Amber Softworks crew breathe life into it, is a dream come true. It feels wonderful. It feels like fulfilment.  

This is my personal list of influences, in no particular order:

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Fallout franchise

Final Fantasy VII

Dishonored

GTA III-V

Deus Ex (The first one on PC)

System Shock I & II

Bioshock

Myst 

Riven

Stephen King’s “Darktower"

Mika Waltari: “The Etruscan”

Mika Waltari: “Johannes Angelos”

Anthony Bourdain

David Simon

Ronald D. Moore

Anne Rice

Every single Quentin Tarantino movie

Battlestar Galactica (original and re-imagined)

Caprica

The Wire

Generation Kill

Tremé

Opeth’s entire back-catalogue, “Ghost Reveries” in particular

Everything by Devin Townsend

Everything by David Sylvian

Everything by Steven Wilson and Porcupine Tree

Everything by Danny Vaughn

Robert Fripp and King Crimson

Jeremy Soule

Harry Gregson-Williams

Cliff Martinez

Bear McCreary

Lustmord “The Word as Power”

Puscifer

Tool

Peter Gabriel’s “New Blood”

Celtic Frost

Triptykon
Steve Hogarth + Richard Barbieri "Not The Weapon But The Hand" (The single most powerful and important album of the recent times)

H.R. Giger

Gustave Doré

Charles Rennie Mackintosh

Eliel Saarinen

Martin Bircher

Lasse Hoile

The Daily Grail webpage for fringe activity. This is a treasure trove of really interesting (if sometimes cooky) stuff. An endless source of inspiration.

Cruzine webpage

Inhabitat for design ideas and inspiration

Automatism, a blog by Lori Langille, which is also an endless source of inspiration when it comes to interior design, lighting, and all things aesthetically beautiful

I, Turms

I, Turms, had woken to the sounds of spring approaching. 

Walking among the naked and snow-covered trees in my garden, I finally remembered myself as the iron taste of immortality overwhelmed my mouth and the terrible thunder of undying deafened my ears. I turned my eyes to meet the sky to see the light-bodies of sylphs perform their eternal dance, naked and beautiful. 

I felt the touch of my guarding angel on my shoulders, burning like a fiery embrace. I saw past the barriers of the physical realm, deep into the depths of soil, and beyond heaven and its shores. I felt the undeniable assurance of my immortality. I saw the well-spring of forgetting beyond the doors of death, so many kneel at and drink deeply when passing through. 

I turned to embrace my guarding angel, but my arms grasped only the nothingness of the void. I did not know her, not yet. A terrible lust and thirst filled my mind and heart, as I looked at her uncovered SoulFire body. Arms and wings uplifted she vanished and the sweet sound of her laughter, which is like a thousand silver bells, echoing in Aether. 

I returned amidst the shackles of time and the oppressing pull of gravity, yearning for more. My power bled from me like blood rushes from an open wound, and once again, I tasted the bitter ash and tears of mortality. The weight of my bones dropped me to my knees and my ribcage felt like a prison for my laboured breath and strained heart. 

There I knelt in thawing snow, in unspeakable silence with clouded eyes, although I had sworn before the most ancient ones I would not shed a tear or kneel before anyone. It was not the first oath I broke, and certainly not the last. The spring of my mortal life would bring more disappointment and oath-breaking than I care to remember, but remember I must. I will touch this orb all will be as clear as yesterday. I have traveled through countless cycles of time and space as it is felt and known on Ea, which is the true name of this plane and planet. 

I have to remember, I, who is immortal; I, the one who returns, and knows, and is known. 

***

I, Turms, meditated on a specific sigil, which is a naked tree inside a glowing circle. 

I had lived in the Northern City States for many a year like an ordinary man, eating and drinking in order to forget the things which are eternal and divine. The relentless debauchery and self-indulgence had left their mark on this decaying vessel of flesh. I was known to the people of the north as “Antero”, a man of many talents. The joyous years as a mortal man took me from the glory of war to wealth of commerce, and from the realms of art to a life of a professional beggar, but I did not mind. I always had a place to rest my weary head, walls to keep the cold outside, and a roof to shield me from the elements.

During the Summer of my life, I had grown tired of people and their mindless and meaningless games. The most delicious delicacies and glorious spirit-drinks tasted like ash and were a bore. Expensive garments and gadgets gave me no pleasure. My mortal body, and all its needs, desires, and whims, ruled over my immortal mind. During the low-points of my mortal years, I infrequently met others of my kind. I enjoyed their company, the talks of eternal and divine, but did not stay with them for too long. They could not hide their sense of pity, and although none spake aloud, they thought I was dangerously close of betraying our true purpose. I did not hear the thunder of undying or taste iron of immortality anymore. I had become a man among others, a faint shadow of my true self. I offer no excuse, nor do I ask forgiveness. Only the veiled Gods will judge me, only to them shall I kneel, but to mortal men I had to pay for my recklessness. Aye, pay we all must. We may do whatever we like, provided we can pay the cost. I had taken life before in the wars and skirmishes against the southern barbarians and troglodytes. I had taken those lives gladly. Like a harbinger of death, I, Turms, had raged in the fields of fire and destruction. The GunBlade I wielded was cursed with power not only to maim and cut, but also to rip apart and destroy any and all metaphysical existence, the timeless SoulFire residue, sending it to the deepest parts of the abyss of nothingness. 

What happens in the fields of battle, stay in the fields of battle, but the lives I ruined and ultimately took in Northern City States brought about the Fall, or the autumn of my life.     

- Avenging Angel, Pain & Despair, Greenhouse Valley Journals

The Power of Three

The origins of Avenging Angel can be traced all the way back to New York City and the summer of 1991. I had just purchased the first three books of Steven King’s hallowed “Dark Tower” saga from Macy’s. I remember the kind gentleman who sold me the books calling me “sir”. That was a first. That summer had a lot of “firsts”. I guess I was old, or mature, looking enough to be able to buy drinks in the bars. If I remember correctly, during that time persons under the age 21 couldn’t buy booze. I was barely 17. I do not know if it’s a good or bad thing, but boy, did I have a blast. I missed my Commodore Amiga 500, which was back home in Helsinki, Finland. “Carrier Command” and “Zarch” had been my favourites from the late 80’s. I clocked a few hundred hours with the first “Test Drive” as well. “Batman The Movie” game from 1989 was also nothing short of spectacular. I loved those games. I guess, I still do. 

Then there was music. I bought The Four Horsemen’s “No One Said it Would Be Easy” from a record store in TriBeCa. Tyketto’s “Don’t Come Easy” had just been released and “Forever Young” from that record was, and goddamn, still is one of my favourites. The Cult’s “Ceremony” and “Sonic Temple” were also something I associate with that period of time. It might be because I was so excited to see the very same places portrayed in the video of “Edie (Ciao Baby)”. I remember Fishbone’s “Reality of my Surroundings” blowing my mind for good. I bought Extreme II: Pornograffitti (A Funked Up Fairy Tale) on vinyl. Those were the soundtrack of my life and times back then. It would be a year later when I discovered Ennio Morricone and the world of soundtrack music. I had been playing classical piano from a very young age, but in late 80’s, I was so fucking fed up playing something that was completely dead in my view and from an age I had no interest in. I traded the piano for another percussive instrument, namely, the drums. I wanted to play rock n’ roll. So I did and still do. 

I read the Dark Tower books during that summer and decided that I want to write. I tried. I sucked. I tried again. I sucked some more. I somehow reasoned that when humankind would run out of fossil fuel, they would turn to steam devices. My father was, and still is, somewhat of an enthusiast when it comes to locomotives and steam engines, and in this case, the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree. I dreamt of artificial intelligence. I envisioned them to be inter-dimensional and having a bio-mechanical interface to our world. I understand why fiction writers want to depict artificial intelligence with very human attributes, but in my view, it takes something really important and fundamental away from the entire concept. I know it is easier for readers/gamers/viewers to relate to something that has familiar characteristics, but I really tried to understand and comprehend how would a non-human entity with access to another reality perceive human beings and their odd metaphysical structures. That was, and still is, the premise for “Machinimus Artificialis” -machines in Avenging Angel and The Land of Strange Gods. 

I also wanted to explore what would ultimately happen if a human mind would be transplanted into a network and a machine as a form of incarceration. This thought ultimately manifested in Avenging Angel character “Antero” who was given a choice: a death sentence or to be sentenced for life. What happens in the game is that Antero has chosen life, but those who imprisoned him neglected to tell him that his “life sentence” would last literally forever. He is a being, or essence, who haunts the Thunderhead Point island network jumping from a robotic chassis to another. He is starting forget his humanity since he knows no hunger or pain. His sense of psychological time is completely different than for a human being. He wants to opt out. Badly. 

All the NPCs in Avenging Angel operate from their own selfish motives. Each character has an agenda. There is no dualistic and childish good vs. evil in play here. That makes the conflicts presented in the game much more complex and much more enjoyable in my view. We did not want to include any kind of point-based “Karma System” in the game. The game world reacts to player’s choices and that’s that. If you shoot first and ask questions later, the world becomes more hostile and you might miss a side quest. 

My deep affection for Art Nouveau, Scandinavian Jugendstil, and Art Deco architecture and style is a childhood thing as well. I grew up in downtown Helsinki in an apartment building from 1911 and my father is an avid collector of Art Nouveau. I don’t think my childhood home had a single light-fixture newer than 1930’s. Those shapes and curves are aesthetically so pleasing to the eye. They communicate something larger than life to me, which is ethereal, beautiful, and meaningful. Art Nouveau in particular had a profound impact on how I envisioned the world of Avenging Angel to be. Now looking back, these are the foundations of Avenging Angel and The Land of Strange Gods: Stephen King, New York City, music, architecture, steam engines and a very, very vivid imagination. 

***

It would take twenty years and a different format to really bring to life what I envisioned in summer of 1991. My path and career choices took me far away from the land of fiction for two decades. I would return to my writings when I had a chance, but one could hardly call it professional work. Around ten years ago I came up with the name “The Land of Strange Gods”. It felt right immediately. The title encapsulated what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. I started to bring more metaphysical and existential elements into my writing. I started to ask questions about the very essence of modern stupidity. Why is this planet such a shit-hole? Why are human beings so inescapably violent? Why the fuck are we here?  Some of that work went into “Dark Zen”, my non-fiction book, which will be released in mid-May 2015, and a lot of it bled into the world of Avenging Angel.  

Let us fast-forward now to early winter of 2013. By then I was putting my writing skills to good use making the script for a horror game as a subcontractor. I was pulling a triple-duty in that project, since I was the sound designer and composer as well. It was in that ill-fated project, where I met Mr. Pukki and Mr. Ronimus. Mr. Pukki was the Art Director and lead designer and Mr. Ronimus was the technical director. When the project was ended in early winter of 2013, it was very natural of us to start Dark Amber Softworks. We agreed pretty much everything from the start, the communication was effortless, and we simply got very well along, despite the tree of us coming from very different backgrounds. I called the local city development company, and Mr. Mika Lammi there, for free office spaces and thus we moved our gear into the offices of a defunct paper mill. The office space used to be a machine workshop in the 1910’s and has magnificent tall arch-windows framed by red brick walls. The 30-feet main room was recently painted white and oozed just the kind of Steampunk vibe I was looking for. The facility itself was owned by the paper mill, but operated by the local development company, Kinno, and their “Protomo” program, which was an incubator for starting businesses. The Kymenlaakso (our region) Protomo was managed by Mr. Tommi Sundström (whom we immortalised in the game lore as “Alchemist Sundstroem”) and assisted by Mr. Risto Uotila. We were given keys and two cubicles. Just before the Christmas of 2013 we started to sketch ideas for a new game. We were so sick and tired of the previous project and the half-lit world of horror games (nothing against them, but at that time we just did not want to make that kind of stuff). To be completely honest, we were, and in some ways still are, noobs at the time. We did not have much experience about making games save for that horror game, which provided us useful knowledge on how not to do things. 

We had a crew of three people: a writer and sound guy (me), art guy (Mr. Pukki), and tech guy (Mr. Ronimus). We asked advice from the local “elder statesmen” of game industry and everyone kept telling us to do mobile and something small. We shrugged and thought “fuck it”. I do not remember who it was who suggested that we should do a small tower defence game. We initially kind of liked the idea and started sketching the game. We have always worked really, really fast. Since Mr. Pukki has a tendency of sketching in Mud Box, we get stuff prototyped in minutes. We kept working on it for a few weeks, but everyone felt that something was off with the whole concept. I honestly don’t remember at what point we decided that, no, we do not want to do small, and we do not want to do just a goddamn tower defence, but it was Mr. Pukki who suggested that we should do a bigger game based on the world I had created, The Land of Strange Gods. In mid-January 2014 we decided to take the tower defence idea and build something bigger around it. We all have always loved Morrowind, Final Fantasy VII and Fallout. It was pretty clear that we wanted to do something along those lines. Everyone thought that we were nothing short of insane. "One does not simply do a game of that size with a crew of three". The very first script of “Avenging Angel” had the tower defence portion as the last “boss fight” of the game. I think the entire tower defence idea was scrapped in February 2014. When March 2014 was lurking just around the corner, the current version of Avenging Angel was pretty much sketched out, but we were in trouble. Then a miracle we needed happened. 

I had been applying for all kinds of game program grants, but since we had not actually released anything, we were not even considered by most places we reached out to. The majority thought that what just the three of us trying to accomplish was not doable. We were quickly running out of money when Mr. Timo Ylikangas from Kinno pointed me to a government organisation called AVEK and their Digidemo program. I applied for the grant, and I was pretty much sure that we wouldn’t see a dime. We did. They approved our application essentially saving the entire project. 

In Summer of 2014 the first version of the Avenging Angel demo came out. We have been at it full time ever since. Along the way we have had the usual  and unusual hardship, heartbreak, financial trouble, writer’s/artist’s blocks, but also laughter, joy, accomplishment, and getting shit done. We have learned as we have trotted along. 

At the end of the day, we wanted to prove that only three dedicated individuals with the right skill set can make a good game. Yes, that is what we set out to do and that is what we want to do. A massive thank you goes out to those individuals mentioned here who helped us. A massive thank you goes out to the numerous people who believed in us and encouraged us and were not mentioned here. They are our families and friends, the folks who voted for us in Steam Greenlight, liked us on Facebook, followed us on Twitter, made YouTube videos, journalists and gamers wrote articles for various medias, sent encouraging emails and tweets, and played the game demo in various expos, and those brave individuals who invested money in our IndieGoGo campaign, which by the way tanked.  

We see you all and we hear you all. You all have our gratitude. 

(Note: stay tuned for "Part Two" of this journey in a few days)