Ben Kalman
Photo of Ben with blue sky in the background

I’m a Sydney based game sound designer, game developer, musician, and software developer.

As a sound designer I have studio experience plus 11+ game jams where I usually compose and program as well.

I’ve also released 2 solo iOS games, Orbie is Lost in Space and Jumpling.

I spend a lot of my non-dad energy creating and practicing sound design, and I’ve started uploading some of it to YouTube for fun.

As a software developer I have 14+ years of experience with both startups and big companies.

This is my game audio resume, distinct from my software resume. Download as a PDF.

Benjamin Kalman

Game sound designer with recent studio experience, and 11+ game jams where I’ve done the sound design, implementation, music, and usually code. I’ve also released a solo iOS game.

My pre-audio life is as a software developer with 14 years experience in application, web, and full stack development.

Games

My website lists all my games with links to play and videos. These are the highlights:

  • Swarmed In (2023), a top-down alien shooter
    • Credits: Sound design, implementation, and music
    • Built with Unity, FMOD, Reaper, and Logic Pro
    • 19 sound effects with 81 assets including variations, and 1 adaptive music loop
  • With the Grain (2023), a chill train themed puzzler
    • Credits: Sound design, implementation, music, and code
    • Built with Unity, FMOD, and Logic Pro
    • 13 sound effects with 32 assets including variations, 1 adaptive music loop, and a lot of code
  • Starmony (2022), a musical ball bouncing puzzler
    • Credits: Sound design, implementation, music, and code
    • Built with Unity, FMOD, and Logic Pro
    • 8 sound effects with 39 total assets, 1 adaptive music loop, and a lot of code
  • Jumpling (2019), an iOS infinite jumper
    • Credits: Solo developer
    • Built with Unity

Skills

  • Unity: 5 years of casual experience with general game construction, C#, FMOD integration, etc
  • FMOD: creating and implementing full adaptive audio projects
  • Reaper: for all my sound design
  • Logic Pro: for all my music
  • Creating realistic soundscapes for games
  • Recording, processing, and editing Foley
  • Combining Foley, synths, and plugins to create sound effects
  • Composing, performing, producing, and implementing adaptive music loops in a variety of styles
  • Fluency in guitar, keys, and drums
  • Many software languages and tools such as C#, C++, JavaScript, Python, git, etc

Employment

My employment history is mostly from my software career, with full details on my website. In summary:

  • Neara, Senior Software Engineer (2023), working on Neara’s power line software
  • Salesforce, Software Engineering Architect (2018-2022), working on Quip and briefly Slack
  • Attic Labs (defunct startup), Software Engineer (2015-2018), working on a novel open source database
  • Google, Staff Software Engineer (2009-2015), working on Google Chrome

Education

Other

  • One way I practice sound design is recreating audio from other games and I upload some of these to YouTube for fun, for example Deep Rock Galactic and Tunic.
  • I’ve been continuously playing music since I was 5, and at one point was quite good at French Horn.