Mike Berlyn, the designer, programmer and writer best-known for the creation of Bubsy the Bobcat, has died at the age of 73. Berlyn had a long career in the games industry, starting with 1981's Oo-Topos, before going on to work at storied studios including Infocom and Accolade, as well as co-founding Blank, Berlin & Co (also known as Eidetic, and which would become Bend Studio). Berlyn's other pursuits included writing novels, founding a book publisher, and starting a jazz band called Hot Mustard.
While Berlyn worked on many notable games over his time, and his credits list runs into the dozens, it was the creation of Bubsy the Bobcat that broke through during that mid-'90s period when the industry wanted mascots. Game Developer spoke with Berlyn in 2005 about the trajectory of his career, where he said "I kind of got tired of adventure this and adventure that. I saw this game called Sonic the Hedgehog and said to myself, 'Oh, I can really get into this, I can really see something.' So I played Sonic for nearly 14 hours a day for a week. I was just overwhelmed by it. And out of that came Bubsy."
