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On this week’s episode of our bonus podcast Party Chat, we talk about…

- How to structure a hypothetical Deepest Dive for Tears of the Kingdom

- Discussing gating The Deepest Dive as a Patreon-exclusive

- Would you be okay with a sponsored episode of Trivia Tower

- Ranking the best Final Fantasy soundtracks, most underrated song

- Summer Game Fest and how games will get the spotlight

- Live reaction to DC's Blue Beetle trailer

If you want to join the Party Chat every single week and talk to us about what you’ve been playing, watching, or ask any question under the sun, jump up to the MinnMax Council tier! We’d love to hear from you. Party Chat is recorded each week in the Discord, there’s a Stage called MinnMax Party Chat. You’ll see it if you join the $20 tier. Jump in there and you’ll be good to go. Let us know if you have any questions!

Comments

Anonymous

At work and have yet to listen, but wanted to add my 2¢ on a possible Tears of the Kingdom deepest dive. You might cover this in more detail in the discussion. I know in the past, it’s been tough to do deepest dives on games where the structure of storytelling is unconventional, or where it takes a backseat to the exploration/discovery. My suggestion would be to embrace the lack of structure, and make each episode of deepest dive more “topic-based” than chronological. So instead of: - Episode 1: play until cutscene X - Episode 2: play until boss fight Y - Episode 3: play until end credits You could do: - Episode 1: Game systems and mechanics: favorite fuses, ultrahand contraptions, new abilities, what surprised you, what you still don’t understand, etc. - Episode 2: Places, regions, hidden surprises, paths through the game (where did you go first and what was your experience, etc.) - Episode 3: Characters and story (probably encourage people to reach end credits before this one) Admittedly, it’s a little trickier than usual managing spoilers and such, but the above example tries to frontload the less spoilery topics and backload the most sensitive stuff.

Anonymous

As for getting indies more coverage, what about an Indie Spotlight show that airs once every 3 months? Perhaps Jill Grodt could host or co host and the community can write in additional picks/suggestions for games?

Anonymous

Totally forgot George Lopez was in Blue Beetle. Just happy Hispanics are getting some of the spotlight with this and Wakanda Forever.

Anonymous

Okay I had a chance to listen to first 20 minutes and all the thoughts on The Deepest Dive options. Sounds like the chat was roughly aligned with what I mentioned above, but to add one extra thought now that I have the context: I know there is value in getting the episodes up quickly, as you mentioned. But then that presents logistical challenges for episode content when there are likely so many varied paths through the game. A compromise suggestion: Get episode #1 out fast...like you said, maybe it's the Monday after a Friday launch or whatever. It's a systems/mechanics-focused episode that doubles as a "launch weekend" extravaganza. Capture the hype, let everyone weigh in with first impressions. THEN, wait at least 2 weeks, if not 3, to do the next couple episodes, which could give you time to map them out better, ensure people have done most of the content, etc. By then, you might also have a sense of which region(s) are typically earlier game, so that you could have a more educated approach to the next episode or two.

Anonymous

I know I'll be in the minority, but as someone who doesn't play most games along with the Deepest Dives, but loves listening to them anyway, I strongly prefer ones with more structure. The more open world games can be a little bit of a slog without some structure to latch onto throughout the discussion. Random gameplay anecdotes are great, but 2+ hours of them strung together isn't ideal podcast material, IMO.

Mason Cowell

As far as sponsorship goes, the more the better! Honestly Ben whatever you think is best for keeping Minnmax sustainable is good with me

Mason Cowell

Also, PLEASE do a deepest dive on Tears of the Kingdom.🙏 I think it would be fun to have everyone compare notes as to what they find and do in the first 10 hours, the next 20 hours, and then up though the beating the game maybe? Or divide it up by map sections? Even if it's weird I'm fully on board for it!

Anonymous

Yeah that's fair. Part of the problem in the past, I suspect, is that they've tried to force the familiar, "play through Chapter X" structure onto more open-ended games. I'm really curious if a completely different approach (still structured based on topics, but not so chronological) could work. For example, even with something like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I remember I was really wanting more "party composition/battle" discussion. What materia did you use? What were some surprising synergies? This might be my bias as a player (love mechanics and systems), but having a deepest dive with 3-4 questions like that to guide the discussion could be really interesting.

Ryan M

I support Minnmax growing itself financially, whichever way works for you all. When you get to greedy evil mega-corporation status, we'll let you know.

Ryan M

My suggestion for Zelda coverage would be: Legend of Zelda: Tours of the Kingdom. A multi-part limited-series (maybe a New Show Plus) wherein each episode one of the persons who would have been on the Deepest Dive for the game becomes a tour guide. They show where they are in the game and all the cool stuff they have uncovered. The rest of the crew comment on what's presented to them. Each week the host changes. Theoretically, each person would go about the game completely differently, so there'd be new content each week. And if it's a New Show Plus, you can pitch viewers to become Patreon members to vote and keep the show going. I think something like that could be more engaging for an open-world type game.

Anonymous

I think charging for subsequent episodes of the Deepest Dive makes sense to me. It reminds me of some reaction YouTube channels in a way. They provide a cut down, short version of a reaction on YouTube but people have to go to Patreon to access the full version.

The Sleepy MailMan

I would honestly love a Deepest Dive on Fantasia!

Anonymous

I just thought I'd let you know that the deepest dives are the reason I subscribed. I have dozens of hours for podcast listening every week and all of the deepest dives have been a treat.