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Semih Bertuğ Benim

hi, I'm

Semih Bertuğ Benim

Lead Game Developer & Designerbased in Malta

Ten-plus years in slot, free-to-play mobile and VR games. I lead a six-person Godot team at Top Gaming that has developed 35 slot games, and I design free-to-play economies.

Credit500
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About

the short version

I've been making games for more than ten years, working between code and design.

At Top Gaming in Malta I built the Godot framework behind our slot games and lead the six-person team that has developed 35 games on it. Before that I designed the economy for Racing Kingdom, which now has over a million players, shipped four slot games in TypeScript, built three VR sports games for players with paraplegia, and taught game development at two Istanbul universities.

Semih leaning on a seafront railing in Istanbul at sunset, with the Maiden's Tower behind him.

Interests

  • Board game design
  • Inclusive and accessible play
  • Teaching game development
  • Games and politics
  • Free-to-play economies
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Claude Code
How I work

Selected Projects

Four projects across the work I do: a slot framework, a free-to-play economy, VR games built for paraplegic players and a board game design workshop.

  • 150 Ships key art: a Viking shieldmaiden holding a glowing stone on a longship in a storm.
    Book of Desire key art: an adventurer in a fedora holding a golden book between Egyptian statues.
    La Modelo key art: scarred prison inmates around a table of improvised weapons.
    Yin Yang Legacy key art: a panda, tiger, monkey and boar warrior around a golden coin tree.
    Greedy Miner: Hold or Fall key art: the game on a phone between purple and green crystals.
    Greedy Miner: Hold or Fall, built on the framework, won Best Game Mechanic 2026, SiGMA Awards Italia.

    iGaming · Slot Games · Since 2023

    The shared Godot framework every Top Gaming slot starts from: 35 games built on it so far.

    ReleasedLead game developer · Godot 3.5
    iGaming · Slot Games
  • A blue and silver police-liveried BMW, number 3, drag racing two rivals down a wet night street under a Racing Kingdom billboard, speedometer reading 202 km/h.

    Mobile F2P · Midcore Racing · 2024

    Free-to-play online drag racer for iOS and Android; I designed its economy and balance.

    ReleasedLead game designer · Unity
    Mobile F2P · Midcore Racing
  • A low-poly Boccia court in a suburban park: blue balls on the grass, a white jack and a red ball near the centre cross.

    VR · Inclusive Design · 2020

    Three Paralympic VR sports games, Boccia, Handcycling and Sledge Hockey, for players with paraplegia.

    ReleasedLead game developer & designer · Unity
    VR · Inclusive Design
  • A hand-drawn grid board prototype with coloured room outlines, wooden cubes and a key card.
    The Campus Challenge prototype: a hand-drawn campus map with compass points, a Start arrow, accessibility icons and coloured cubes.
    Students and instructors seated in a circle in a bright studio during the workshop.
    Students around a table playtesting a paper board prototype, with pens, sticky notes and rule sheets.

    Workshop · Inclusive Design · 2019

    A five-day game jam in Florence where 35 design students paper-prototyped seven inclusive board and card games.

    CompletedMain instructor
    Workshop · Inclusive Design

Work Experience

Roles since 2017; the full history, back to 2013, is in the CV.

  1. 2023now

    Dec 2023 – Present

    Malta

    Top Gaming

    Lead Game Developer

    Leading the six-person team behind the studio's slot games, on a framework I built in Godot.

    • Built the production pipeline and the shared Godot 3.5 framework every new slot game starts from.
    • Developed 35 slot games on that framework, from first build to launch.
    • Lead a development team of six, myself included.
    • Godot 3.5
    • GDScript

  2. 2022

    Nov 2022 – Dec 2023

    Istanbul, Türkiye

    SuperGears Games

    Lead Game Designer

    Lead designer on Racing Kingdom, a free-to-play drag racer for iOS and Android.

    • Designed the game economy and balance, and wrote the documentation for both.
    • Ran project management for the 13 months before launch.
    • Ran the art asset pipeline between art and development.
    Show detailsfor SuperGears Games

    Achievements

    • Racing Kingdom launched in 2024 and passed 1 million players by June 2025.

  3. 2021

    May 2021 – Aug 2022

    Mudio Games

    Lead Game Designer

    Designed new features for Evox, a live mobile game, over 15 months.

    • Designed and specced new features.
    • Set up the team's Agile process (sprints, backlog, planning) and ran it.
    • Rebuilt the UI and UX of the game's menus and core flows.

  4. 2020

    Oct 2020 – Jun 2022

    Istanbul, Türkiye

    Bilgi University / Bahçeşehir University

    Instructor

    Taught game development to undergraduate and master's students at two Istanbul universities.

    • Taught game development courses for two years.

  5. 2019

    Jun 2019 – Jun 2020

    Istanbul, Türkiye

    Bahçeşehir University

    Lead Game Developer

    Built EU-funded research games, including three VR sports games for players with paraplegia.

    • Designed and built three VR Paralympic sports games for VR4Inclusion (Erasmus+): Boccia, Handcycling and Sledge Hockey.
    • Ran playtests with disabled and non-disabled players in Istanbul and Ankara, and reworked the games from their feedback.
    • Led the art and programming teams on the EU-funded PUDCAD project and designed its UX.
    • Unity3D
    • C#
    • Mobile VR

  6. 2017

    Oct 2017 – Dec 2018

    Spinmatic

    Game Developer

    Designed and coded four slot games: Cosmo Mix, Galacnica, Baby Blue and Wild Cat.

    • Designed and coded four slot games in PixiJS and TypeScript.
    • PixiJS
    • TypeScript

Expertise

Four disciplines I move between, from the balance sheet to the code that ships.

  • 4.1

    Game Design

    Features, UX and documentation that developers and artists can build from directly.

    • Feature design
    • UX design
    • Design docs
    • Board games
  • 4.2

    Game Development

    Slot, mobile and VR games built in Godot, Unity and PixiJS, plus the frameworks that let a team ship the next title faster.

    • Godot
    • GDScript
    • Unity
    • C#
    • TypeScript
    • PixiJS
    • VR
  • 4.3

    Economy & Balancing

    Free-to-play economies and progression tuned so players keep a reason to come back.

    • Game balancing
    • Game economy
    • Monetization
    • Free-to-play
  • 4.4

    Leadership & Production

    Leading developer teams, setting up agile and asset pipelines, and teaching game development at university level.

    • Team leadership
    • Agile
    • Asset pipelines
    • Teaching

Contact

Looking for my next game design challenge, on any platform and with teams of any size. If systems, balance and the player's experience matter to your game, let's talk.

Emailbertugbenim@gmail.com
Download CVPDF
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