The Marathon That Never Was

by Eric March on March 24, 2008 at 11:47 pm

Alas, poor Matthew, I knew him not, Horatio. Yep. I guess it’s just about time I put this one to bed. You may recall the various announcements here, and threads elsewhere, not to mention Matt’s blog which is still linked here, that all created a buzz for a forthcoming project known as Marathon Touch, which was to be a port of the classic Bungie game Marathon to the iPod Touch and iPhone. Matt, a.k.a. dmgmantis, was the one who was supposedly doing this conversion, and provided updates on his blog, and even went to the trouble of counting down the days to release. I even started rewriting and updating the original music, going so far as to complete the first song and start working on a second. Not that I minded — I write music. It’s what I love to do, so I enjoyed it.

And then on release day, lo there was a package, and it was downloaded, and it was installed, and it was … bunk. No one could get it to work. The techier pundits tore it apart from the inside and found lots of discrepancies and things that just didn’t add up — files that were for the Mac, not the Touch, source files that shouldn’t have been there, and all sorts of other things. It could have been explained away as simply sloppy packaging, but many remained hopeful, and Matt explained that it worked on his device, and would look into it and fix it. When I called his bluff here, he responded, adamantly refusing to cop to the idea that it was a hoax.

And then he fell off the edge of the universe. His last blog update was the 3rd of March — the same update that declared the reality of the project and even offered up the possibility of a video as proof. A video that never materialized — much like Matt himself after that post. It is therefore with disappointment that I discontinue working on any further songs, delete the release draft I made for the game’s eventual release, and call the time of death.

Rest in peace, project that never was.