[The Man]

We get feedback:

Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 11:05 AM
Subject: Incoming Message From...
To:

Calibrating Translator...

Thank you. I've just finished Marathon: Eternal, and it's been a fantastic experience, one which I've found very inspiring, and rekindled in me a fire I had found lost in my own small works. The level design is fantastic, the sound and music flawless, and your careful thought turned toward the intricate story crafted over the quarter-century that has passed since December of 1994 has been an unspeakable joy to watch. The final terminal moved me to tears, a feat few works are able to accomplish. I wish your whole team the best in future efforts, and hope that I may have the honor of experiencing some of those efforts myself.

See ya star-side,

-Alex

(Despite the sent date, we didn’t get it the first time – it only came to us yesterday)

We’ve gotten quite a bit of praise for our work before, but getting praise this high still kind of threw me for a loop.

and also, from the Rampancy.net Discord:

[19:54] XaleManix: So, thanks again @pfhorrest and team for the highly awesome Marathon Eternal scenario!
[19:55] XaleManix: It moved me to tears, which was something I hadn't had in a long time and didn't know I needed until I got there.
[19:56] xahldera: On that note, @pfhorrest I've said it many times before but you and the other team members should be proud of Eternal. Really. You have managed to do what many current day games fail to do. That being create an engaging storyline and elicit emotions in the player. And to top that off, using nothing more than text at that.
[19:58] xahldera: The graphics in Eternal were fantastic even taking into account the engine it was on but you managed to craft an amazing story without the use of any fancy tricks that most modern games squander. Hell, I would argue it worked better because you had to use your imagination a bit when reading the terminals

(XaleManix is the same person that sent the email; xahldera is someone different.)

On that note, I’ve put together a new package of Eternal 1.2.1. There will probably be a more “official” build in the next few days (check the development page at eternal.bungie.org), but for now, you can grab it from my OneDrive.

I may also have pledged myself to helping finish another project. In my defence, this one is basically Marathon meets Super Metroid (or Metroid Prime) – there wasn’t the slightest chance of my resisting this one.