His work caught my attention awhile ago when I stumbled onto his treatment of Ecco the Dolphin. He creates absurdist content relating to movies, video games, and even his own animations. One of my favorite content creators on YouTube is a guy known as Mr. Ed later ran an ambitious Kickstarter project, hoping to team up with original composer Spencer Nilsen for a spiritual successor called The Big Blue, but despite encouraging press the project never took off, and fans are left waiting for whatever Ed’s take on the series will be in the future. Ecco still waits in limbo waiting to be revived. But the story Ed had weaved in the first two games was never continued. A beautiful game marred by technical issues, it was a pretty solid entry into the series, had a wonderful soundtrack, and was just as crushingly difficult as its predecessors. Ecco is fighting an alien threat, with throwbacks such as Hanging Waters paying homage to the water tube stages of Tides of Time. ![]() It played out something like a reboot in a sense. Instead, science fiction author David Brin took the helm to develop a new story about how the values of humans and dolphins, once living together in harmony, were stolen by an alien race called “The Foe” and had to be restored by Ecco. The third title in the series, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, was by Appaloosa and did not have Ed Annunziata’s input. So when Caverns of Hope formed - a site with an aesthetic more centered around Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future for the Sega Dreamcast - Arkon was incensed and there was a bit of a “web war” (waged only by him if I’m being honest) against the site. Johnny was ambitious he had an Ecco fan game in the works among other things, and he also didn’t like the idea of competition. I worked with him to moderate forums and chatrooms, contributing screenshots and other content to the site as he refined his many engines over the years. ![]() ![]() Unhappy with some of the things going on in the community, he decided he wanted to go his own way and split into a sister site, humbly calling it. He was my first introduction to what I would call a successful “internet troll,” being young and brash and too smart with computers for his own good. One of the more outspoken members of the community was my friend Johnny, known as Arkonviox. It was the first time I took on a virtual moniker which stuck, wrote fanfiction, and generally interacted with a community of unique individuals talented and otherwise who had a single thing in common: love for a niche Sega Genesis cult classic. My first introduction to any kind of forum/fandom interaction was on a site called The Undercaves.
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