[Ben Lehman]

Thank you.

This is a hard thing to say over the internet, but I'm truly touched by reading this review. Polaris was a painful and complicated birth -- I have poured a lot of blood and sweat into it -- so it is an emotionally charged thing for me to read.

This review both expresses a deep understanding of the game itself, which is fantastic to read at any time, but also an insight into a lot of the stuff I struggled with while writing the game (for instance, the shape of background material is a result of me struggling with the flavor text of Nobilis: what it did well but also how it failed me.) So that's wonderful to read.

Additionally, my biggest disappointment with the game is the people who seem to regard it as an artifact or text rather than as a game. So hearing about it sitting on your shelf for three years, then finally getting played, is really heart-warming. The game is not a museum piece to be admired, it's a game, to be played and enjoyed by gamers like me, and maybe some of their friends. I can now imagine all those other copies not as seeds that have failed to find fertile soils, but instead as simply dormant, awaiting the right conditions to grow and flower.

So, all in all, it is a wonderful thing to read during a bad day. Thank you.

yrs--
--Ben