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Updates, Announcements, and Idea Solicitation!
🕑 Added 2019-12-01 20:00:02 +0000 UTCGoals: We reached our $40/month goal! This means that you'll be hearing from us soon about the process for Season 2. Obviously, still a long way to go before we start recording that, but it's good time to drum up ideas and announce the selection process, which of course, will include input from patrons. More to come on that!
We've added a new $100 goal, and when (if) we reach that, we're going to do a patron-only series on the Perfect Works.
Feedback Episode: After Episode 11 (Recapture Aveh + Desert Despair) is released to the public, we're going to do a free episode based on feedback and corrections we've received to this point. This will not replace the weekly show, so you will have the opportunity to hear from us multiple times during that particular week. Lucky you!
Time of the Bonus episode idea solicitation: For Ominous Foreshadower tiered patrons ($5) and above, please message or comment below with your idea of the month. Other patrons are welcome to give ideas as well, but only the $5 tier suggestions are guaranteed to make an appearance at some point.
Previously submitted ideas include:
- Big Joe
- Citan
- Psychoanalysis' influence on Xenogears (Jung, Freud, etc.)
- Zohar
- Gnosticism & Xenogears
- The Tournament of Gears
Mouth Notes, an off-topic, behind-the-scenes mini-podcast: We never formally announced it, but you may have noticed by now that we've started dropping some behind the scenes off-topic banter as a mini-episode. It's mostly stuff that gets cut out during the process of getting the weekly show down a to tight 45-65 minutes.
Oh, and it's called Mouth Notes because we discussed the idea while I was at a bourbon tasting event and they use bougie terms like "tasting notes" and "mouth feel".
Subscription Changes: This does not impact existing patrons at all, but in the spirit of transparency, December will be the last month where we don't charge new patrons until the following month. Starting in 2020, new patrons will be charged as soon as they sign up.
Comments
Seth Who Talks Too Much
THIS YES
I'm going to request this w/o spoiling anything but this would be something to talk about once the game has been completed: Talk about where the relics came from. Like what Ft. Jasper actually is, what the Tower of Babel actually is, what Mahannon actually is, etc... Another idea in addition would be to go in depth about the Zeboim civilization and its history and complications
Chris
This is a really good idea for some additional framework for the Bonus Episodes. For example, certain episodes (like Episode 1 with the Eldridge crash) definitely deserve a re-canvas after we've re-discovered the appropriate lore. Individual character studies might be pretty interesting, too -- we're already planning on re-contextualizing Citan's entire arc once we reach that point in our playthrough. We'll see how that one goes and then plan on other character studies as we can. The Perfect Works series we want to do down the road would also be a good framework for some of the lore that's not actually in the game itself. Thanks and welcome aboard!
Seth Who Talks Too Much
I'm all for that!
Matthew Jernberg
I love this podcast, especially because it combines a spoiler-free commentary, the nostalgia of thinking your first play-through of Xenogears back in the 90s, as well as extra features and alternative translations from secondary sources. It's a real piece of work. Over the course of the episodes, there are many times in which foreshadowing can't be fully discussed because of the spoiler-free presumption of the show. I wonder if secondary, spoiler friendly episodes could be released that tries to tie all of these threads together. Theorizing about partial information in the primary show is a lot of fun, especially to consider alternate paths the creators could have made. But I'm not sure that all of the foreshadowing and threads make sense. In particular, the complete timeline of Fei's childhood and pathway leading up to Lahan and Citan's possible involvement. There are a lot of fan theories on the Internet and fan analysis videos that could be referenced or discussed, too. It'd be great to have such secondary episodes centered around Lore, perhaps organized around a central theme, like one on Fei's past, one of Grahf, one on Elly, etc.
