Ben Prunty's Blog

Color Sky album – The inspirations

September 22, 2014 by Ben

For the last year I’ve been working on standalone electronic album in my spare time. The basic concept is this: dreamy, thoughtful and groovy electronica made for those who like that kind of thing. Something you might listen to while you work or study. Some of it might be good road trip music. Here’s a preview track: There are more tracks like this, some minimalist synth tracks, some trance-like stuff, and stuff that sounds a little like my soundtracks. I’m […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Color Sky

Here’s what I’ve been up to – New music!

September 3, 2014 by Ben

It’s been about a year, so I figure it’s time I wrote another update on what I’ve been up to. Here are my projects! Star Crawlers Star Crawlers is a first-person, procedurally-generated RPG. Think Legend of Grimrock, Eye of the Beholder, or Lands of Lore, but on derelict space ships. It’s coming along nicely. Here’s a track from the game. FranknJohn It’s a goofy beat-em-up roguelike where you swing your head on a chain and smack enemies with it. It […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Color Sky, FranknJohn, game music, games, Gravity Ghost, Scale, Star Crawlers, UCSC

FTL music rearrangements!

June 8, 2014 by Ben

I absolutely love music rearrangement. OC Remix is one of my favorite sites and has been a huge influence on my own work. When a melody is strong enough, (or the arrangement artist is simply good enough) it can be used pretty much endlessly in different forms and contexts. After FTL came out, there have been a number of really cool rearrangements made by awesome artists, and I’m going to share them with you here. I honestly still can’t get over […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: FTL, game music, remix

The most important advice I can give to an aspiring game musician

March 3, 2014 by Ben

As you probably know, I made the music for FTL, Gravity Ghost, Star Crawlers and a bunch of other games that are on their way. I am what you would call a successful indie; I get to write music full time and make a comfortable living doing what I do. I’m going to tell you a little about myself and the things I learned, because I think the information might be useful to an aspiring indie, musician or otherwise. First, […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: advice, career, game music, story time

4 underrated games that I love and you might like

February 17, 2014 by Ben

Dissidia 012 I’ve discovered that I love a game that can give me indefinitely long sessions of heavy action followed by indefinitely long sessions of thoughtful, deep customization and tinkering with stats. This is an extremely specific sub-genre that Dissidia fits nicely. The punchy yet tactical fighting game portions never get old for me, and the tweaking of characters with equipment, abilities and accessories is such a deep rabbit hole I imagine I could keep playing this till I die. […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: games, notmusic, recommendations

UPDATE – My new hardware setup

January 14, 2014 by Ben

Since the release of FTL, I’ve made some upgrades to the studio setup I wrote about a while back. For the sake of completeness, here are the details on the new setup. Check out the original article first, then read this for the updated stuff. Computer My PC is a Windows 7 machine I built myself. I’ve always built my own desktop PCs and I get a lot of enjoyment out of it. Here’s the exact hardware, because I know […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: hardware, music production

Making Computer Music – A Buying Plan for Dabblers and Absolute Beginners

November 23, 2013 by Ben

I get emails from students and other folks who want to dabble in computer music. They don’t know where to start, or at least they read this FTL article and cringe at what the bill probably was. If you’re not really sure where to start and don’t want to spend a whole ton of money, what should you do? Dabblers and beginners, this article is for you. The cool thing about modern music production is that you don’t need a […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: advice, hardware, music production

Ben’s Reading List: all the best books I read on my way to becoming a game composer

October 30, 2013 by Ben

Sorry video games and music; the written word is my favorite medium. Thankfully though, my prodigious appetite for more words fits well with my tendency to teach myself everything. In the last 15 years or so I’ve digested a lot of books in my journey to become a musician for games. Here are the best ones. They don’t all involve music or games, but I found them all invaluable. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory – I pimp this […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: advice, books, career, game music, recommendations

Here’s what I’ve been up to lately – music samples included!

September 8, 2013 by Ben

I’ve been pretty busy lately, and so I thought I would gather everything in one place so you can see it all. In no particular order: Gravity Ghost Gravity Ghost is a handmade, radial puzzle-platformer made by game design wizard Erin Robinson. It features hand-drawn artwork, gravity physics, a bittersweet story, and music and sound effects by me. You can preorder the game and the soundtrack at gravityghost.com. Here’s a track from the game we’ve given out for free. · […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Curious Merchandise, Gravity Ghost, remix, Scale, UCSC

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