recommendations | Ben Prunty's Blog

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

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

The Best Book on Music Theory

June 6, 2013 by Ben

I get asked about this all the time, so here’s the best book I know of for learning music theory: It’s fifteen dollars on Amazon.com. I’ve read a lot of books on theory, but Michael Miller is the only author with the balls to actually teach the reader the actual mechanics of music theory instead of just saying, “you should just memorize this stuff because I hate math.” Trust me, this is how a lot of theory books are. Buy […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: advice, books, composition, recommendations

I Love Novels: some book recommendations

June 1, 2013 by Ben

Even though I work in the games industry and I obviously love games, the novel is probably my favorite form of media. I’ve been reading a lot of books lately and I want to share some of my recent favorites. You’ll notice there’s a definite Stephen King trend; I’ve been trying to catch up on the ones I’ve missed. King is a master storyteller, and you should definitely check out anything from his enormous body of work. So anyway, here […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: books, notmusic, recommendations