I don't know why I felt the need to effort post but I did. I got some good feedback on it, which felt nice because I am not in love with my own writing. I was trying to mimic the feel of trying to assemble a narrative that may or may not exist out of a collection of "codex entries". I think it more or less worked.

Some random related notes:

• I totally forgot to include a "codex entry" on my time at the gym. The idea was in my original notes which were even more ambitious. But I was taking too long to get around to finishing the whole thing so I just kind of banged something out in the end and this one got lost.
  • But I don't care about the record. I can rewrite history! I've amended the document. Look for the codex entry on "Effort".
• Quotations were verbatim from posts in the Resetera official thread, unsourced to protect the innocent. They are mostly things I thought were dumb or presumptuous or ironic or interesting. I'm lumping the entire internet into one hypocritical grey ball. (This itself is ironic, but it doesn't count if you know it!)
  • (There are about 10x as many posts in the multiple threads discussing the Steam "concurrent player count" statistics.)
• I do have to admit I would prefer it if Marathon (2026) were a simple immersive sim¹, which probably would be the most natural fit of modern genres.
• Someone mentioned that I touched on some themes discussed by Sajam which I take as highly complimentary. When I was dipping my toe in Street Fighter VI I stumbled across his YouTube channel, and remain subscribed to this day. He has a healthy mindset about this sort of thing. Some short videos I like:
  • Skillgates
  • Self-reflection - take value from losing
  • Mad through osmosis - complaint feedback loops
  • It's ok to be ok
  • Skill-based matchmaking - was dumbfounded to learn that this is controversial
  • Trying
• Some Marathon specific videos:
  • Marathon is a masterpiece, actually - Sometimes it is the children who are wrong
  • Marathon is the greatest "Flop" I've Ever Played - Review with commentary on Steam chart discourse
  • The Bastards of Maintenance - One fascinating dynamic is that, from what I can tell, the critical reception of the game is universally positive. This despite, at least from my impressions, critics are usually not very "hardcore" by nature of their job forcing them to move on to the next game endlessly. I guess he isn't really a critic by trade anymore, but anyway here's Austin Walker playing a fun session on one of the "hot spots" of Dire Marsh.
  • They Don't See You as a Person - Synthesis of the game's themes and mechanics

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1. I hate this term. ↩