Bubsy the Bobcat creator & Bend studio co-founder Mike Berlyn dies at 73
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(opens in new tab) 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.»
The first Bubsy in 1993 was marketed well and received favourable reviews, but Berlyn had nothing to do with the sequel. Having c0-founded Eidetic by this point, Berlin returned to work on the ill-fated 3D entry in the series at Accolade.
«They had put out Bubsy 2,» said Berlyn in 2005, «and just about killed the franchise. So we came on-board and did Bubsy 3D.» Unfortunately Bubsy 3D would launch at roughly the same time as the pioneering Super Mario 64. «I took one look at Mario,» recalled Berlyn, «and said, 'Oh, crap.'»
Berlyn also co-founded Brainwave Creations in the mid-1980s, and among other games made
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