One Life Left

Once again it’s another episode without Simon Byron and Sega Badawi. Actually, we’ve never seen Simon and Sega in the same room. Could they be the same person? We’ll try to find out by next week.

But anyway. This week’s episode started with a remixed version of the OLL theme due to a dodgy cd, luckily it wasn’t a portent of future issues to come as the show had absolutely no problems (assuming we remembered to edit them out). At least we started to make inroads into a special relationship with the other One Life Left (not that one). And Ste set a new world speed run for Braid.

Our Super-Special Guest this week was Stella Wisdom from the British Library. She was in to talk about her Off The Map competition which combines actual historical documents with actual interactive games. We found out about how it got started, what the theme for the next set of games is and about the Wordplay festival, which recently took place at the Library. And we didn’t make any sssh jokes. We’ve become so professional recently (assuming we remembered to edit out our mistakes).

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/miss_wisdom
https://twitter.com/BL_DigiSchol

Track list:
1. burryleak - interruptune
http://chipmusic.org/burryleak/music/interruptune
2. Kazzy - blip
http://chipmusic.org/Kazzy/music/blip
3. ClipHead - ihc
http://chipmusic.org/ClipHead/music/ihc
4. toasterpastries - SPOOKS
http://chipmusic.org/toasterpastries/music/spooks

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We have two rules for our guests. No swearing. No banging. But, as you’ll find out on this week’s show, those rules do not apply to Team OLL. Obviously it’s because Simon wasn’t on the show so the rest of Team OLL felt we could break the rules. Worryingly this may mean that Simon is the responsible one of Team OLL.

For instance, Simon is responsible for booking our Super-Special Guests and he came up trumps this week with Ben Nicholson from Cape Guy Games. Or should that be Ben Nicholson, who is Cape Guy? We tried our best to work this out, but as usual we got incredibly confused. We’re blaming the incredibly quick studio changeover from Lewis Schaffer’s Nunhead Radio - which we now have to a fine art and shall be teaching our techniques to F1 pit crews across the world.

Anyway, Ben was on the show to talk about his new game Ski Three, which is a match three game crossed with an endless runner. We found out about who the game was aimed at and why that could have caused problems if it wasn’t good enough (luckily it was). Ann gave us all a live skiing lesson and Ste got confused between piracy and friendship.

We also had to commence dealing with our lawyers thanks to a tip-off from Jimmy at Loading Bar. Can any of our listeners in Norwich help us?

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://capeguy.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/CapeGuyGames
https://twitter.com/capeguyben
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/one-life-left-friends-christmas-party-tickets-29372236149

Track list
1. Veenomn - Dreamin
http://chipmusic.org/veenomn/music/dreamin
2. Defensem3ch - Fruit Punch
http://chipmusic.org/defensem3ch/music/fruit-punch
3. Kazzy - Plank of Wood
http://chipmusic.org/Kazzy/music/plank-of-wood
4. DEgITx - Machine Paradigm
http://chipmusic.org/DEgITx/music/machine-paradigm-sega-genesis-version

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To paraphrase Adam and The Ants: Don’t bang. Don’t swear. Obey these two rules and you’ll do fine as a Super-Special Guest. And as Darren Wall from Read-Only Memory was on for his fourth appearance there’s no way that he would break those rules. Right?

Darren was promoting Read-Only Memory’s latest book which is about the Bitmap Brothers universe. After a brief history lesson for Ann we started to find out more details about them and tried to determine if the Bitmaps produced the first ever cool games. And how did Woolworths play into their creation? Unfortunately Darren failed to announce the next book that he’s working on, but we give him some great ideas. Mostly involving us.

Away from our SSG we named a bear (using a joke that The Caretaker made about a year and a half ago in a podcast description), Ste had a gym induction, Ann got a great gasp from one of her GOOD NEWS stories and Simon got distracted by the smell of the book. And Sega Badawi failed to get the GOOD NEWS ONLY memo.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/iamdarrenwall
https://twitter.com/romalerts
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/one-life-left-friends-christmas-party-tickets-29372236149

Track list:
1. Kazzy - Defragment
http://chipmusic.org/Kazzy/music/defragment
2. This Is Embr - Sixteen Bit
http://chipmusic.org/this-is-embr/music/sixteen-bit

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The first OLL after bonfire night saw Team OLL one member down and slightly deflated after we got bored by fireworks. If only we knew what would happen in America on Tuesday!!!! (SATIRE) Anyway, with Simon away we forgot to do one of Simon’s Important Tasks. Luckily we didn’t forget to book a Super-Special Guest as Tom Cole came on the show to promote Adventure X - The Narrative Gaming Convention.

Tom told us who had been announced as Super-Special Guests at Adventure X and it was an impressive list containing the European-Cup winning John Robertson (we might have got the wrong J Robertson). The band that will be playing at the event sounded a little familiar, but Tom managed to talk us around and there may be logistical issues regarding the fireside chat. And it’s free so what’s stopping you from going?

Ste gave some incredibly useful advice for videogame journalists as well as being unbelievably happy about catching a Porygon. Ann is getting her photograph taken next week, Sega Badawi dropped some Local News and Rob Beer made his final Confession. We nearly missed out on a Proust reference, but Tom helped us make the connection (it turns out it’s an old arcade game that Atari made where you fly around on birds).

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/advxconf
https://twitter.com/tommakesgames
http://adventurexpo.org
http://IGGI.org.uk

Track list:
1. Kazzy - Cliffs
http://chipmusic.org/Kazzy/music/cliffs

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to our bizarre way of numbering episodes we believe (excluding Ann Life Lefts, No Continues, GDC Specials, OLL Knights and LITERALLY UNBROADCASTABLE SHOWS) that this is our three hundredth episode. A number so special that we typed it out in words. And how did we celebrate it? The same way we celebrate every episode: By getting Ann to make Kieron Gillen cry uncontrollably through fear.

And what better way to celebrate our special anniversary by getting Flavourworks’ Jack Attridge in as a Super-Special Guest? It was a rhetorical question, but there is no better way. We tried our best to get Jack to announce the game that he’s been working on, but he claimed that he couldn’t do it due to ‘contracts’ and ‘legal agreements’. So instead we found out why the entire Attridge family hates Heavy Rain, why he was filming Ste in the studio and why he keeps making his lovers cry. Jack is also trying to make games less external and more internal, which we think means he’s doing a reimagining of Microcosm from the CD32.

We have some spooky news from Ann, talk about the dangers of social media and hear about the dangers of eye herpes. Sega Badawi provides some more local news with a Sooper-Special Guest and we try to find out where Google stick their doodles.

Happy 300 everyone!

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/JacksFlavour

Tracklist:
1. Hide Your Tigers - Forever Come Tomorrow
http://chipmusic.org/Hide+Your+Tigers/music/forever-come-tomorrow-lsdj
2. Skolskoly - Bit Battle
http://chipmusic.org/Skolskoly/music/bit-battle

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For some reason there was a piano in the corner of the Resonance FM office and we felt it was a sign for Team OLL, not least because it had its top off. Two thirds of Team OLL had just flown in from Sweden (boy were our arms tired!) so we were still a little giddy from hosting an awards ceremony and giving hotel lobbies the gift of karaoke. Which reminds us: Come and see us this Saturday in Nottingham GameCity.

This week’s Super-Special Guest was Jamie Firth, who was on in his role as one half of Monkey 99 - the hot new company to help indies (and majors) produce their videogames. We find out if all publishers are evil, where indie game developers go wrong and if Jamie knew everything about his business partner before they joined forces. He really should have spoken to our HR director before he made the leap - it would have helped him immensely.

Next week is our three hundredth episode - expect us to forget and not do anything spectacular. But we’ll probably have the dependable Sega Badawi providing us with Local News as he did this week. We’ll also find out if Simon’s PSVR has finally made its voyage to the bottom of the canal where it will join his Wii. Fare thee well, Simon’s PSVR.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/Monkey99_
https://twitter.com/mrjfirth
http://sched.co/8Xxn

Track list:
1. Duck Boy - Going Down in Smoke and Flames
http://chipmusic.org/Duck+Boy/music/going-down-in-smoke-and-flames
2. Bryc - Swellv2m
http://chipmusic.org/bryc/music/swellv2m-farbrausch-v2-softsynth

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sometimes we think we go a bit too obscure with the titles for our GMA-nominated podcasts. This one was inspired by our Super-Special Guest Gary Burchell, who is in the middle of creating the pirate game (but not the pirated game) Abandon Ship. See? It’s quite a clever title really. Gary told us all about Abandon Ship, which has been described as FTL meets Master and Commander and has been used by games journalists as an opportunity to do lots of poor puns. We asked Gary about what it was like to go indie, why he hasn’t put his name in the title and why water ships are better than space ships.

It’s also the week after the GMA awards so we EXCLUSIVELY reveal if we won and who managed to avoid putting their name on The List. We also remembered an incident that we’d really like to blank from our memories.

We also started a new news feature which every other GMA nominated podcast will be copying in the future and saw Rob Beer and Sega Badawi returning with their regular contributions. Ann made a special announcement and one piece of news got a little too close to home for Team OLL.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/gjburchell
https://twitter.com/GameAbandonShip
https://twitter.com/Monkey99_

Tracklist:
1. This is embr - Affection
http://chipmusic.org/this-is-embr/music/affection-demo
2. Toasterpastries - Mathluv
http://chipmusic.org/toasterpastries/music/mathluv

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After an Ann-sized absence (or Ann-sence) last week we welcomed the return of our HR director and person who reads the full news story (and not just the url). But what did she get up to in Iceland? How deep did the conspiracy go? And how were eggs involved?

This week's Super-Special Guest did not bring any eggs, but he is a Cooke! It was Robbie Cooke from Rebellion who was on the show to promote what some are calling 'the best PS VR launch game' - Battlezone. It's an official VR version of the old Atari wireframe game and sounds really good. But we were more interested in how Rebellion bought the IP rights from Atari and how we could use it to improve our own standing in the videogame world.

We were also excited as the day after recording we were going to find out if we had won our second GMA. While you wait with baited breath to find out the result, keep listening to hear what Simon's son uses the most sophisticated of voice recognition technology to do, find out the latest local news from Sega Badawi and help us find out some gossip about Bithell's new mate Perko.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/Cookie_Vonster
http://declandineen.com/checkpoints/

Track list:
1. Klamm - Nukem
http://chipmusic.org/Klamm/music/nukem
2. Veenomn - Jamn
http://chipmusic.org/veenomn/music/jamn

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After a wonderful time at the Slush Play conference in Iceland, Ste successfully made it back to the studio. Ann didn't and neither did Ste's top. Unfortunately Simon was also going through sports jet lag due to the baseball and also because of him 'be'ing Alex Hunter. Yes, it's hard to believe but a game has finally knocked Star Wars Battlefront off. Perhaps it'll be joining Simon's Wii at the bottom of the canal before too long.

Our Super-Special Guest is James Long, who created a game that is Top Secret. It is based on Edward Snowden and the events leading up to him releasing his leaks. Perhaps we've said too much just by having James on our show, but we think we can tell you that it is a real time email game where you react to actual emails that were sent out at the time. And we provide clear evidence that you can monetise your brand on One Life Left through Simon, sorry 'Alex', buying the game on air. And, if we haven't made it clear enough, the game's name is Top Secret.

We also had some Confessions of a Part-Time Gamer, a bit of Local News and an Ann Investigates From Iceland. Well, maybe not the last one but we're going to pretend we did in our next show just to check if Ann listens to the show and reads this bit. Although going by our news section this week we probably shouldn't annoy her too much.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://playtopsecret.com/
https://twitter.com/jamestyro

Track list:
1. REDACTED
2. Garvalf - Deux Saisons
http://chipmusic.org/garvalf/music/deux-saisons
3. Veenomn - Wake up!
http://chipmusic.org/veenomn/music/wake-up!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We regret to inform you that we haven’t found a use for the coin sound effect in this week’s episode. This is due to a surprisingly high level of competence from ourselves, which will never last. Iceland will be the main beneficiaries of our incompetence this week as Ann and Ste are going over to the Slush Play conference to do a Sigur Ros and Pollaponk based Marioke and to eat their body weight in Pipp chocolates. Ann is also going to be playing detective over there, hopefully she’s got a good jumper sorted out for it.

Martho Ghariani from Oasis Games was this week’s Super-Special Guest. He’d just flown in from New York and boy were his arms tired! Oasis Games is a Beijing based publisher who is bringing five Playstation VR games from China over to the west over the next few months. We heard about the developing console market in China and tried to learn even more about how VR will change the videogame industry. Perhaps with all our knowledge we’ll become the first-ever VR podcast? (Actually this is A Good Idea – Ed)

Mostly this week has been all about the hard cuts, and about us all hanging out with everyone else. Maybe they were Telegraph journalists. Rob Beer provided more Confessions of a Part-Time Gamer and Sega Badawi had some Local News. Our studio saw some action as we went through our bins, which risked annoying Digitiser 2000’s Mr. T and Simon spoke about cupping. Actually, we should have used the coin sound effect there.

Cheerio!
Team OLL x

Links:
https://twitter.com/oas_games
http://facebook.com/oasisgamesbeijing
http://play.slush.org/

Tracklist:
1. Volt 44 - Redhead
http://chipmusic.org/Volt+44/music/redhead
2. ABeardfulFate - Faint Hope Impending Doom
http://chipmusic.org/IlGudz/music/abeardfulfate---faint-hope-impending-doom

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices