In the ever-evolving landscape of game design and immersive storytelling, Adam Oikonomopoulos stands out as an accomplished environment artist and world designer, bringing his unique vision to life through engaging world-building. From sketching comic book heroes in his youth to crafting intricate virtual worlds for both indie and AAA games, Adam’s journey is a testament to the creative spark that drives artists to continually reimagine what’s possible.
In this interview, we explore Adam’s fascinating approach to world design, where visuals and sound are seamlessly intertwined to breathe life into his creations. We dive into his experiences with major gaming studios, his personal projects, and, of course, his recent experiments with Echotopia, a tool that has changed the way he builds immersive soundscapes and enhanced his creative process.
Whether you’re a game developer, a filmmaker, or just beginning your journey in creative media, Adam’s story offers inspiration and insight into the art of constructing worlds that feel both familiar and fantastical. Read on to discover how he brings his vision to life - and how Echotopia plays a key role in turning his concepts into fully realized, multi-sensory experiences.
Pan: Tell us a few words about yourself. How did everything start?
Adam: I started out drawing comic book heroes and monsters at around five years old. Up until my mid-teens, I was creating rough comic illustrations for friends at school events, though I never considered it as a career path. That hobby faded a bit in my late teens, until my compulsory military service, where I met a fellow artist who introduced me to 3D computer graphics - back then, it felt like stepping into the future.
Right after my service, I enrolled in a computer graphics course at a vocational institute and began my journey as a digital artist. My professional career kicked off in a creative studio in Athens, Greece, producing 3D animations and visualizations for local documentaries and educational videos. Driven to deepen my craft, I went on to complete a Master of Arts in Computer Animation at Bournemouth University in the UK.
After graduating, I wanted to stay in the UK and aimed to enter the movie industry, so I sent out applications to various studios. At the same time, my documentary work had sharpened my skills in modeling buildings, a skill that was in high demand in the gaming industry back then. Transitioning into game design turned out to be a revelation; it was something I’d come to love deeply and didn’t expect to find so fulfilling.
Pan: Sounds like a fascinating journey! Can you share more about your experience in the gaming industry?
Adam: I spent several years in the UK, moving between different game development studios and refining my craft as an environment artist. I was focused on virtual worlds and immersing players in environments that felt alive. My first project with complete creative freedom was Ghost Master with Empire Interactive, where I worked alongside Gregg Barnett, known for his work in the Discworld series. From there, I went on to work with several notable studios like Criterion Games, Climax, and Dogfish Entertainment.
Eventually, I returned to Greece to work as a world designer on Darkfall Online, a massive MMORPG by a Greek company, Aventurine. By then, I had shifted from 3D art back to my roots in 2D, using it primarily as a conceptual tool in my world design. Designing the vast, open world of Darkfall taught me a lot about the synergy between visuals and audio in creating a cohesive player experience. I discovered the essential role of virtual acoustics in game worlds - something that really enhances immersion.
Around 40, I transitioned from Aventurine to teaching, sharing my skills in technical colleges. Teaching not only gave me the chance to network and mentor but also sparked the journey of launching my own studio.
Pan: I’m glad you mention sound as part of the complete audiovisual experience, a sector where many indie games struggle. We’ll definitely dive into that later, but first, can you tell us more about your work with your personal studio?
Adam: Having my own studio has been an ongoing lesson in balancing passion with the realities of business - a skill set I didn’t fully appreciate at first. My debut project was Skaramazuzu, a 2D point-and-click adventure with a strong narrative focus and a priority on immersive audiovisual aesthetics. In Skaramazuzu, I took on the world design, game design, story, art, animation, and dialog - essentially, every creative aspect. Overseeing the audio to align with the visuals and world was also essential; it taught me how powerful audio can be in creating a sense of place.
Alongside Skaramazuzu, I collaborated on several casual hidden-object games, which gave me practical experience in world design. Now, I’m channeling that experience into a new experimental project that’s laying the groundwork for my next creation. It was through researching audio tools for this project that I discovered Echotopia, which turned out to be a perfect fit for the level of immersive soundscapes I aim to achieve.
Pan: I was going to ask you about that! How did you discover Echotopia, and why did you choose to create the soundscapes for your worlds yourself?
Adam: As a world designer, you often have the entire experience - sights and sounds - fully imagined in your head. But budget constraints don’t always allow for audio and visuals to be developed in parallel. For me, as soon as I sketch something, I can already hear the sounds in my mind, so having the ability to design those sounds in real-time is invaluable. There’s something incredible about hearing a virtual world as you’re creating it; the sounds often inspire new visual ideas, creating an immersive feedback loop. Echotopia’s real-time acoustic world-building capabilities make that possible. It’s the first time I’ve had complete control over both visuals and audio from the very start, and it’s been transformative.
I stumbled upon Echotopia while searching for ways to integrate sound design seamlessly into world-building, and I realized how rare high-quality, license-free sounds are, even in paid libraries. Sound quality and compatibility can be a struggle - especially when different libraries introduce various reverb qualities that don’t match the materials or spaces in your world. That’s where Echotopia stands out; its vast library of in-house sounds are recorded in an anechoic state, meaning they’re free of reverb and can be tailored perfectly to your world’s acoustics with Echotopia’s real-time processing. For a visual designer like me, this eliminates the steep learning curve of traditional sound editing, letting me shape the soundscapes with professional detail, right within my creative flow.
Pan: By the way, here’s a reaction video Adam sent us when he started using Echotopia in one of his projects:
Pan: I’m glad you enjoy using Echotopia in your creative process! Can you tell us more about how you work with both visual and audio elements simultaneously?
Adam: Think of it this way: a successful game needs engaging gameplay, but for me, creating immersive worlds where players can truly lose themselves is the priority. The experiences I want to craft aren’t fast-paced shooters or high-energy platformers; they’re meant to be calm, story-rich, and visually and sonically immersive. I want players to feel fulfilled by the world around them, whether they’re playing on a laptop, a big screen, or even a mobile phone, and to be able to lose themselves in that world for an hour or two. If I, as the creator, can’t immerse myself fully in my world, how can I expect players to?
When inspiration strikes, I can instantly visualize and hear the atmosphere of a scene, and it’s crucial to bring that to life while my connection to the idea is fresh. Echotopia makes it effortless to load presets and layer sounds on a draft map of my world. It’s incredibly intuitive to add behaviors to sound groups so they play at varied intervals or respond organically, which brings a natural quality to the soundscape. I can even set up environmental acoustics - such as reverbs for different spaces or occlusions that muffle sounds behind walls. Echotopia’s engine calculates all these aspects in real-time based on distance and physics, allowing me to hear exactly how my world sounds from any virtual location, complete with nuanced changes in reverb, occlusion, and spatial adjustments.
What’s groundbreaking for me is the ability to listen to my world from different perspectives. I’ll have Echotopia open on one screen, drawing in the visuals on my main screen, and I can hear how acoustics change with each element I add. The revelation for me is that sound animates the static drawing; I feel as if I’m seeing my concept art come to life, animated by the environmental sounds that Echotopia brings into the mix.
Pan: I’m intrigued by your approach! In fact, I don’t know many concept artists who incorporate sound into their creative process. I understand you recently published a demo using TyranoBuilder and Echotopia. Was that part of your experiments in audiovisual world design?
Adam: Yes, absolutely! I wanted to explore how seamlessly Echotopia could integrate into my workflow, so I put together a small experimental project. This demo includes just six scenes - three above ground and three in caves below. My goal was to test how easily I could craft immersive environmental audio that feels natural in both open and enclosed spaces. It’s been a fascinating way to experience firsthand how sound can enhance each environment’s mood and atmosphere.
Pan: And how did that go?
Adam: After drawing those six scenes with some minimal animation, I was honestly amazed at how easy it was to build each scene’s soundscape and to quickly go through different iterations. The workflow was so intuitive and fast that, for the first time, sound design felt as fluid as visual design. I could make adjustments without ever leaving that creative zone, never losing sight of the atmosphere I aimed to create. I was so immersed that, despite it being my first time working with audio, I found myself completely "in the zone."
There was a bit of a learning curve, but that was just a day spent playing around and skimming the manual to get familiar with the basics and where things are in the app. Working with Echotopia even expanded my understanding of sound design. Now, when I draw, I have a clear idea of how reverb and echo should work in my environments, how materials affect sound filtering through walls, and how distance changes what you’d hear.
A revelation for me was discovering the noiseprints in Echotopia’s library - loops that capture the ambient "noise" present in every real-world location, even the quietest places. By layering a noiseprint with the right reverb, you have the foundation of your scene’s mood, and then it’s just about adding other sounds to bring it to life. Noiseprints are invaluable for immersion because they fill the subtle audio gaps, preventing players from being pulled out of the game by sounds from their real surroundings.
This project was a major learning experience in soundscape design, and you can check it out by downloading the demo, or watch the walkthrough video below:
Pan: Awesome stuff, Adam! Do you have any final words to share with our audience, especially those just starting out in world design?
Adam: Start by really observing and listening to the world around you, and don’t be afraid to dream of worlds beyond what you see. It’s the most enjoyable exercise for stretching your imagination. Dive into anything that sparks inspiration - architecture, fabric design, photography, and entertainment media. Personally, my favorite world designers are Junji Ito, Tim Burton, and Guillermo del Toro, but I’m also constantly discovering amazing upcoming artists on social media who inspire me and get my creative ideas flowing.
Pan: Excellent advice, Adam, and what an experience it’s been to interview you! Thank you for sharing your wisdom on our blog. We hope Echotopia continues to inspire you in crafting unique, immersive worlds.
Adam: It was truly an honor - thank you for developing such an incredible tool that makes my life easier and continuously sparks my creativity.
Pan: We hope you enjoyed this deep dive into the world of creative design with Adam. His journey shows us the powerful impact of tools like Echotopia in expanding the horizons of what’s possible in world-building and sound design. Whether you’re a seasoned artist or just starting your journey, Echotopia provides a unique platform for experimenting with real-time acoustics and enhancing your creations with professional-grade soundscapes. Ready to see what Echotopia can do for your projects? Visit the Echotopia page and bring a new layer of life to your worlds!
