Developer Quits EA with a Game

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A software engineer at EA’s Tiburon studio quits his job with an interactive farewell to all the people he met at work.

EA Tiburon in Orlando, Florida is best known as the makers of Madden for the EA Sports brand, but that doesn’t mean that some if the employees there might have a more creative bent. Ben Burbank was a software engineer at Tiburon, and he worked with some amazing people during his time there. Burbank decided to leave his position today and he commemorated his experiences in a mini flash game reminiscent of the iPad game Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery. Burbank said “So Long, Old Friends” only took him around seven hours to code, but the effect will last forever.

Play So Long, Old Friends here.

The game is equal parts touching and slightly disturbing. I won’t ruin the experience for you, but it’s worth clicking through Burbank’s friends and colleagues and learning what they taught him along the way. There’s even a bit of a tear-jerker at the end.

I do not possess the programming chops for something like this, but if I ever depart a company on good terms, I hope I can leave something as meaningful as “So Long, Old Friends.”

I’m not sure where Burbank will end up, but I wish him the best.

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