ABOUT
KLANG IS AN ENTERTAINMENT STUDIO EXPLORING THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY THROUGH VARIOUS FORMS OF MEDIA. WE AIM TO PRESENT DEEP, MEANINGFUL SUBJECTS IN A WAY THAT'S CAPTIVATING, EASY-TO-DIGEST, AND ENTERTAINING FOR ALL AGES.
At the heart of Klang is Seed, a large-scale, persistent virtual world that we believe will redefine the MMO landscape and have a positive impact on our species.
We aspire to bring people together through engaging media experiences and by building strong communities.
ODDUR SNÆR MAGNÚSSON
CTO / Co-Founder
Oddur oversees the technical implementation of the virtual worlds Klang creates, whether that means guaranteeing back-end scalability, or the implementation of the clients used to access the studio’s game services - he’s affectionately known as the code janitor.
Throughout his career, Oddur has delivered over 70 software products, ranging from small integrations to large multi-million dollar enterprise billing systems. Oddur also played an integral part in the shipping of numerous game expansions and improvements to the critically acclaimed MMO, EVE Online.
ÍVAR EMILSSON
CCO / Co-Founder
Ívar Emilsson (b. 1984, Iceland) is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Klang Games, based in Berlin. Working in the domain of vision execution and as a creative team leader, he has over 17 years of experience in the game industry. Since 2013 he has applied his lifelong interest and focus on virtual worlds and economies into SEED, the life simulation project currently in development by Klang Games. Between 2005 and 2013 he worked for CCP (Reykjavik and Shanghai) on EVE Online and DUST 514.
MUNDI VONDI
CEO / Co-Founder
Mundi has been running his own creative business since he was 19, working in almost every creative field there is. From fashion design and production, graphic design, and directing short films, to painting and performance art.
As CEO, he's responsible for overseeing daily operations at Klang, and corresponding with partners, stakeholders and investors. He has the “gift of the gab”...seriously, he does.
Lead Community Manager
SABRINA SELTENREICH
Sabrina has been working with video games since 2008. Starting out as a QA Tester, she worked her way up and sideways, first to QA Manager and now to Head of Player Relationships. She sees the players themselves as a vital part of not only the games she works on, but also as essential contributors to the development process, and aims to be the bridge that connects developers and community.Sabrina loves her Switch, comics, cats and being in places with lots of trees and beautiful views.
Game Engineer
MARTIN MACZKOWSKI
Born and raised in Berlin, Martin's interest in making games began in the 7th grade when he got to grips with the programming language, Turbo Pascal. Since then, his ten years' experience has led him to work on numerous commercial projects, including Forge of Empires, and Settlers of Catan 3D.
Technical Director
RAINER BERNHARDT
Rainer has been involved in all aspects of game development for nearly a decade - from initial concept design and software architecture, to implementation and post-release-maintenance.
Rainer believes that proper polishing is essential to achieve a harmonious gaming experience… and we certainly agree with him.
Game Engineer
ULRICH KAMINSKI
Ulrich has been working in the games industry for more than a decade. After developing a MMO for five years he created mobile games in a Berlin based games studio. At Klang he joined the DevX team and contributes to continuous integration, tools development and testing.
Head of Editorial Content
JOHN HOLTEN
Writer and novelist, John Holten is working with Klang on developing the backstory and folklore of Seed, as well as acting as a storytelling consultant. He co-produces and co-hosts The Life Cycle with Eva Kelley, exploring the world and themes of Seed.
Besides this, John is the Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief of the Berlin-based publishing house, Broken Dimanche Press, which has helped to launch over fifty publications and related projects, including his own novels, The Readymades, and Oslo, Norway.
Game Engineer
ARTEM DYADICHKIN
Straight outta university with a B.Sc. in Media IT, Artem – a.k.a. Archie – is bringing his fresh programming and 3D ideas to the team. Archie has always wanted to be a part of developing a game and what a better start than working on Seed!
When not coding or playing video games, he's writing the best guitar riffs known to mankind.
Producer
JELLA DEHN
Jella started her career path at Klang as an associate producer in the Media Team, working on video production, sound, editorial and communication disciplines for Klang and SEED. She recently got promoted and is now a Feature Team Producer, developing the game.
Jella graduated in academics and holds a BA and Masters in Linguistics, Literature and Arts and gained international experience through various jobs in the public culture and art sector before moving to Berlin.
Media Producer & Sound Design
DAVÍÐ MAGNÚSSON
Davíð is the oldest (and wisest) member of the Gang, and is responsible for all in-game sound design in Seed, as well as editing and recording video footage.
Davíð’s vast experience in film and TV audio post-production, as well as the time he spent at warehouse parties during the early nineties, has helped him to get into the groove.
MATIC SORN
Senior QA Tester
Matic, born and raised in Ljubljana, grew up mostly playing games in his free time and as the years passed, a decision inevitably had to be made: what to do in life? Games were by far his biggest passion and the game development industry just made too much sense. As programming itself was not as fun as actually playing games it was quite easy - QA it was to be. Since then he has worked on many mobile titles (most known one being My Talking Tom saga), but now finally arrived at the desired destination - working on an actual MMORPG title... and one that's bound to change the future of the genre what is more!
Lead People Operations Manager
KATA NEMETH
Kata leads and supports the People Operations Team and oversees the day-to-day activities of core People Operations. Her main responsibilities are to provide support for Klangers, build processes and structures, and lead projects to create a better employee experience. She has many years of experience in operational roles at companies in Berlin and enjoys bringing creativity into this role. In her free time, she likes sewing and drawing and she has completed her studies in fashion design to level up her skills. She is also into music and just loves celebrating life with a good dance.
Senior Concept Artist
JOE CALLUM HURLEY
As senior concept artist, Joe designs a variety of 2D concept art for Seed, from industrial machines to exotic creatures.With a background in illustration and visual development for games, Joe also works closely with other members of the art team to help explore the universe of Seed and make it as beautiful as it can be.
Designer / Video Producer
SAMET KURU
Samet is from Istanbul, Turkey, and before moving to Berlin worked for several digital agencies on a variety of design projects. An autodidact, Samet is focused on learning as many design tools as he can. And Klang are the lucky recipients of this increasingly expert knowledge and skillset: he’s responsible for a bunch of our amazing visual design projects for Klang and Seed – from website design, and video production/motion graphics, to creating assets for the community.
EMIR CERIC
Game Engineer
Emir is an experienced software developer that loves playing games almost as much as making them. Always interested in the latest technologies and pushing the envelope. Moved from Sarajevo to Berlin to work on multiple MMOs at Bigpoint. Perhaps a tad too old for some of this he would perhaps rather be at the beach drinking a cold beer.
MARIJN ZWEMMER
Game Engineer
Marijn started developing games in the heart of Amsterdam six years ago. After moving to Berlin and working at Wooga for three years he was up to a new challenge: Making the Seedlings come alive with AI!
He loves everything about game development, from game jams to low-level optimizations.
EVANS THOMAS
Game Engineer
Back in 9th grade, Evans stumbled upon two things that ended up deciding his career path for him: Visual Basic 6 and Age of Empires. One got him hooked on programming and the other on games. He started his career working on embedded devices but a few years in, he decided that working on games was his true calling and moved into the games industry. When he's not making or playing games, he likes to dabble in cooking, playing the piano, or playing Padel.
Lead Game Designer
SABINE WINKLER
After finishing studying Game Design at the Games Academy, Sabine has worked as a Game Designer in different companies, such as Deck13 or Ubisoft. After an excursion into User Research at Koch Media, Sabine found her way back into Game Design here at Klang, where she is spearheading the Design Team. When she doesn’t have her head deep in design tasks, she creates her own worlds in the form of webcomics.
Game Designer
DAVID PRIEMER
Junior Game Designer
David started scribbling videogame levels in elementary school and is now working on designing the rules and content of Seed.
He formerly worked as an indie game developer and loves to explore the city by bike during summer.
PROF. LAWRENCE LESSIG
Political Analyst
Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, Lawrence Lessig is advising Klang on the political structure of Seed, creating frameworks and theoretical scenarios. He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Association.
Engineering manager
WOJCIECH DUDA
Wojtek has been working as a software developer in online services for many years before switching to leading, scaling and elevating engineering teams. He has worked on social networks, online services, IoT, music creation software and even railway electronics. Since joining Klang in early 2020, his responsibility is to work on creating and always improving a work environment where his Engineering colleagues can thrive - motivated by his love of games and the belief that the biggest challenges are only solved by groups of people together.
THIBAULT PÉLABON
QA Tester
Thibault is born in the suburb of Paris in 1994, and arrived at Klang in 2020. While being a gamer since young age, he wasn't planning to work in the gaming industry and followed a very different academical path (Logistics!). But he is now taking care of the quality of the game, and is keen to work towards test automation.
Game Engineer
IAN BURNETTE
Ian's been an independent game developer for the past seven years and a professional game engineer for the last two. He's enjoyed every game-related discipline he's tried, from designing puzzles to programming cat AI to composing chiptune jams. When he's not putting his creative energy into developing new features in Seed, he's making small games at home or doing silly voices at the tabletop RPG table.
ALEXANDER MATSKO
Backend Engineer
Alexander started his career as an independent developer back in his student days, releasing several Flash and mobile games. After that, he spent his effort on such titles as Warface (Crytek), Game of Thrones (Bigpoint), Dreadnought and The Cycle (YAGER) as UI and Backend programmer, before finally landing as a backend engineer for Seed.
Office IT Administrator
MICHAIL KONSTANTINIDIS
Michail has been working in the IT industry for many years. He was raised in Greece before moving to Bayern. Three years ago he moved to Berlin and joined Klang in 2019. He’s responsible for making the working day easier for the team and improving and administrating the company’s IT infrastructure. Michail also has a passion for electronic music production and DJing. After his working day at Klang he likes to produce some 90s techno bangers in his music studio.
Lead 3D Animator
ALEXANDRA ZÜHLKE
The overall leading topic in Alexandra’s life is dynamic flow of life. Life is always moving and this driving force is what interests her. Why are people as they are? Where is everything coming from? How can we bring this into virtual worlds to keep the spirit of reality also in there? She likes to ask questions and find answers. She studied digital art and has worked as a Character Animator since 2004. Previously being the main animator at Albion Online for over seven years, Alexandra has a wide experience in the gaming, feature film and advertisement industry.In real life she teaches how to bring awareness and alignment into body and mind through yoga.
Head of Finance
MILAN ERDOS
Milan is responsible for Klang's finances. He grew up in Budapest and moved around quite a bit between Hungary, France, Germany and Austria. He came to Berlin five years ago and has been working in the tech-scene ever since in different finance roles. He accompanied the exponential growth of Contentful for almost four years where he learned all things finance. In his free time he is often on the go exploring interesting architecture, but you might as well bump into him in the club on the weekend.
ANDRES VALENCIA TELLEZ
Graphics Engineer
Andres is a Graphics Engineer with a long background in freelancing for companies like Amazon, StarVR or HERE Maps. Now back in games, he's in charge of the graphical features and solutions in the development of SEED (a.k.a. making shiny pixels ✨). In his free time, you can catch him looking for new vinyls, watching anime or just exploring cool hidden places around Berlin.
QA Tester
ARIA GORMAN
Aria is new to the world of games development but not Quality Assurance. Previously working in app development, she moved to Berlin to join Klang after completing a Computer Science degree in the UK. While SEED is her first professional game, she has worked on a number of game jams and small indie titles to hone her bug hunting skills. Outside of Klang her passions are producing music, drinking whisky, and digging through old jazz LPs.
Lead User Researcher
CHRISTIAN SCHANZENBACH
Christian started his career more than 10 years ago at the Games Academy in Berlin. After graduating in Game Design he joined the Ubisoft Gameslab where he learned what it takes to be a User Researcher and immediately fell in love with it. Since then he has gathered experience building and leading his own user research department at Koch Media before dabbling a little in project management and teaching. He returns to his roots at Klang where he is leading the Player Insights Team on their mission of bringing the voice of our players to life! Being a passionate gamer you will always find him spending his free time playing and researching games!
Board Memeber
Vivaan is a member of Klang’s Board. After receiving her MBA from Harvard Vivaan entered the global investing community and since then has been a partner at many leading fund dealers. Currently she is a Partner at New Life Ventures. Some fun facts about her: her favorite animal is the wolf spider and her favorite color is black.
Advisor
ADAM PHILIPPSON
With a background in physics and a roving mind, we're happy to have Adam on our side, assisting with research and theoretical advice on almost all aspects of our project!
He's like a walking Wikipedia!
Advisor
ADAM PHILIPPSON
With a background in physics and a roving mind, we're happy to have Adam on our side, assisting with research and theoretical advice on almost all aspects of our project!
He's like a walking Wikipedia!
INVESTORS
