Ryan Kelly
Software Engineer - Game Designer - Composer
Who am I?
Hey there, I'm Ryan Kelly, and I'm a Software Engineer. I currently work for Persistent Systems as a consultant working for IBM. I have a M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University with a focus in cybersecurity, and a B.S. in Computer Science from Stony Brook University.
My two loves are for video games and music. It's rare to find me spending my free time on anything other than one of those. I enjoy creating and playing both music and video games, and hope to one day make a living off of it. I'd be just as happy making a game as I would be writing its soundtrack.
Résumé
Games
Over the last couple of years I've created many different games, both physical and digital. Here are some of my more noteworthy projects:
Unity 3D Games
Falling Simulator 2014
My project for CSE 381: Advanced Game Programming, Falling Simulator was the result of a joke that me and my partner Alice Quiros ended up turning into a full experience. With randomly spawned objects to avoid and powerups which range from helpful parachutes to harmful twisters which send you spinning out of control, Falling Simulator is an unpredictable game that I like to describe as "stupid fun".
The game was taken to the 2015 Stony Brook Game Programming Competition, where it took 3rd place.
Graduation Game
A game I made over the course of about 2 days as a graduation gift for my friends. The goal is simple: collect all of the cubes hidden around the level. However, every time you grab a cube, a sphere spawns in the sky above you and begins to hunt you down. Can you avoid them long enough to find every cube?
Card/Board Games
Align 4
A simple card game I designed, based on the famous game Connect 4. Players take turns playing cards, trying to line up 4 of their cards in a row while flipping their opponent's cards to stop them from winning.
Music
When not playing games, I like to spend my free time listening to and creating music. I use a variety of tools from GarageBand and Logic Pro X to Famitracker and even Audacity to make both arrangements of existing songs and entirely new music.
Arrangements
A good portion of the music I've made are arrangements of video game music. This piece is a medley of songs from NES games I used to play on the old system in the basement, created in Logic Pro X. More arrangements can be found on my YouTube channel.
I also made several arrangements for my college's all-male acappella group, the High C's. I've arranged classics like Isn't She Lovely by Stevie Wonder and Build Me Up Buttercup by The Foundations, as well as lesser known songs like Here We Go by Dispatch, or this one, Spin Me Around by Patent Pending.
Original Compositions
I've also composed original music, including the full soundtracks for the 2 games I worked on for class projects, C[Lock] and Falling Simulator 2014.
A song I made in Audacity for my Computer Music class. Every note is made by manipulating a single recording of me blowing into an empty beer bottle, while the percussion comes from modified recordings of me slapping my chest and knee.
The first level theme from the side-scrolling beat-em-up Chromatic Lock (C[Lock] for short). We were going with a retro art style, so chiptune music made in Famitracker seemed like a good choice.
The song used in levels 1 and 2 of Falling Simulator 2014, this track was made in Logic Pro X and was meant to sound very light-hearted and happy, like a typical "first level" song.
Sharpeez
