In 2007, the gaming world held its breath as it counted down to the release of the final episodic instalment to the main Half-Life game series. Gordon Freeman and game-developer, Valve's, story came to prominence with the release of the original Half-Life in 1998, the release of the sequel, Half-Life 2, in 2004 and then 2 more episodes continuing Gordon's story set to end with the final Half-Life 3, or Half-Life 2 episode 3, in December 2007.

But that game has never been released! The story ends on a cliffhanger, press releases were made to hype the Christmas release of that final instalment, but Valve devolved into silence and not a whisper has been heard about the fabled Half-Life 3... Will it ever get released, and why hasn't it been? Where will the story go? Matt and AJ speculate... for far longer than is strictly necessary!

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Y0Y is created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. The Y0Y theme tune is written and recorded by Matt Hartless. The Y0Y logo was designed by Shelli Le Fay. The episode art was created by AJ Hill. All copyright belongs to the creators.

Sources and further reading:

The Half-Life Iceberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LryI-0Fe4T8

The Half-Life Iceberg part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdmFuSRGogU

History of Valve: https://www.gamesradar.com/history-of-valve/

Interview with Gabe Newell: https://web.archive.org/web/20111126125407/http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/story_type/site_trail_story/interview-gabe-newell/

Spanish article about Half-Life containing references to Akira: https://as.com/meristation/2018/08/29/noticias/1535543681_545901.html

Article about the release of Half-Life: https://web.archive.org/web/20100308234131/http://uk.gamespot.com/features/halflife_final/part34.html

Review of the original Half-Life: https://archive.org/details/NEXT_Generation_32/page/n107/mode/2up

Valve's design process: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131815/the_cabal_valves_design_process_.php

Article about the release of Half-Life 2: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-final-hours-of-half-life-2/1100-6112889/

On the 10 year anniversary of Half-Life 2: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-11-16-half-life-2-10-years-on

Article about the hacker who leaked Half-Life 2: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article

Another interview with Gabe Newell: https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/publishing/the-valve-manifesto/

Why HL2E3 was never made: https://www.ign.com/articles/valve-explains-why-half-life-2-episode-3-was-never-made

Mark Laidlaw's "Epistle 3": https://www.businessinsider.com/half-life-2-episode-3-story-marc-laidlaw-valve-2017-8?r=US&IR=T

Half-Life Alyx release: https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/18/20970733/half-life-alyx-vr-release-date-valve-announcement

Cancelled Valve projects: https://www.ign.com/articles/half-life-3-left-4-dead-3-details-cancelled-valve

HLA review: https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/games-apps/game-review-vr-only-alyx-is-a-triumphant-return-to-the-half-life-universe

Production of HLA video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9K0eJEmMEw

Article about Valve giving Black Mesa its blessing: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-20-valve-gives-black-mesa-permission-to-be-a-commercial-product

In 2015, a mysterious YouTube channel appeared and began uploading videos at an alarming rate. Some were only a few seconds long, some lasted hours. Some were silent, some had audio soundscaping, some contained the muffled voice of a man reading out numbers and letters. The sequences of images were seemingly random selections of what looks like abstract computer art...

What does it all mean, if anything? What's with the connection to Greek and Roman mythology? Why does Matt sound suspiciously like the muffled voice in the videos? None of this will be revealed in the podcast, but we'll speculate about it all the same!

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Y0Y is a podcast created by AJ Hill and Matt Hartless. The Y0Y theme tune is written and recorded by Matt Hartless. The Y0Y logo was designed by Shelli Le Fay. The episode art is created by AJ Hill.

In the Spring of 2010, the small English market town of Wisbech suffered a spate of deliberately started fires in vacant buildings. Nobody was harmed in the fires, but plenty of the buildings were listed as part of the town's signature architecture dating back to Georgian times. With most of the fires situated on main roads within the town, rumour soon started to spread that a single culprit was responsible, but nobody has ever been charged in relation to these specific fires.

Join AJ and Matt in discussing the bizarre, little-known history of the town Matt grew up in and hear Matt nearly incriminate himself in the fires (if you're listening Cambridgeshire fire and rescue service, Matt was provably not present at these arsons!)

Y0Y is a podcast created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. Please support us by buying a coffee and/or subscribing to us on YouTube or your podcast app!

You can find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and follow us for more updates...

Y0Y is created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. The Y0Y theme tune is written and recorded by Matt Hartless. The Y0Y logo was designed by Shelli Le Fay. The Y0Y episode art is created by AJ Hill. All copyright belongs to the creators.

Sources and further reading:

Article about salvage volunteers at Peckover House: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cambridgeshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8682000/8682968.stm

Article about the school fire: https://www.wisbechstandard.co.uk/news/arson-attack-fenland-school-was-just-90-seconds-from-burning-5461696

Police confirmation of fires being arson: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8678947.stm

Initial article on BBC news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/cambridgeshire/low/people_and_places/newsid_8672000/8672690.stm

The burned out shell of Constantine House: https://wisbech.ccan.co.uk/content/catalogue_item/wisbech-constantine-house-fireformerly-the-belfast-linen-co

Article about restoration of the Phoenix Hotel's facade: https://www.wisbechstandard.co.uk/news/new-life-breathed-into-wisbech-fire-damaged-hotel-5642406

The site of the Blackfriars Pub: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2058648

Jason Brammer jailed for arson: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-17291526

Wikipedia page for the town of Wisbech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisbech

Article about the more recent fires at Ely House on Wisbech's Lynn Road: https://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/yet-another-fire-at-wisbech-historic-house-5637504

Billy Mitchell was an arcade gaming superstar, as synonymous with the craft as Pele was with football, and he held the world record for the high score on Donkey Kong for nearly twenty years. Mitchell was the poster boy for Twin Galaxies, a company organising competitive arcade gaming and paving the way for videogames to become the lucrative tour de fource we know them as today.

But in the mid 2000s an unassuming man from Washington came out of nowhere to beat Billy's record. Steve Wiebe had no idea of the can of worms he had opened and in the decade and a half since, the layers have been peeled back on an industry as obsessed with status as any competitive sport.

What on Earth is going on in arcade gaming? Who really holds the world records for classic games? Whom is filing litigation against whom? Will Y0Y be dragged into a defamation lawsuit for reporting on the curious and strange history of videogaming? Listen on to find out!

Y0Y is a podcast created by AJ Hill and Matt Hartless.

You can find us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and please become a supporter and buy us a coffee!

The Y0Y theme is written and recorded by Matt Hartless, the Y0Y logo was created by Shelli Le Fay, and the episode art was created by AJ Hill. All copyright belongs to the creators.

11,000 years ago, our ancestors were still in the stone age, and had yet to develop agriculture. So, how did they come to build a massive stone structure overlooking the plains of the cradle of civilisation in modern day Turkey?  

Göbekli Tepe is impossibly old, given our understanding of civilisation, but there it stands for all to see. Who built it and what for? Most intriguingly of all, why was it deliberately buried about a thousand years after its construction?  

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Y0Y is created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. The theme tune is composed by Matt Hartless and the episode artwork is created by AJ Hill. The Y0Y logo is created by Shelli Le Fay. The desert stock video is by Philip Chan from Pexels. All creators own the copyrights to their material.  

Sources and further reading:  

History of the Fertile Crescent: https://www.history.com/topics/pre-history/fertile-crescent#:~:text=The%20Fertile%20Crescent%20is%20the,and%20the%20use%20of%20irrigation.  

Periods of ancient history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_periods  

Smithsonian articles about the site: 

About the comet swarm possibly depicted at GT: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-carvings-in-turkey-show-a-comet-hitting-earth-changing-civilisation-forever  

Theories on deliberate internment: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/monumental-cover-why-did-gobekli-tepe-end-dirt-008355  

Tepe Telegrams: https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/faq/  

The Genesis Secret: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Genesis_Secret.html?id=1jRoSgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

For over 200 years, Japan had a strict isolationist policy where natives were not allowed to leave and foreigners were not allowed to enter. The one exception was Dejima; an artificial island off the coast of Nagasaki, built to allow traders from a select few nations to do limited business with the mainland. But why was this in place, and what was the legacy of Dejima?

AJ tells Matt all about the period's politics and the hosts discuss what it's like to live in an island nation that cuts off its access to the rest of the world to its own detriment...

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When football came home in 1966, England suffered international embarrassment when the Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen from an exhibition in London. The trophy was later recovered by the dog Pickles, one of history's goodest boys, but nobody knows who stole it and where it went during that time!

The Trophy seems rather coveted as it was stolen again from Rio De Janeiro in 1983, never to be found. Has it been melted down or destroyed, or could it still be out there, waiting for a canine detective to discover it once more?

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Y0Y is created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. The theme tune is composed and recorded by Matt Hartless. The episode art is drawn by AJ Hill. The Y0Y logo is created by Shelli Le Fay. All rights belong to the creators, unless stated otherwise.

Sources and further reading:

Guardian article about the Brazil theft: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/13/world-cup-mystery-what-happened-jules-rimet-trophy

Where we did calculations for inflation: https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1966?amount=15000

Article detailing what happened when the trophy was stolen in England: https://www.historytoday.com/archive/england-loses-world-cup

Guardian article from man who claims his uncle stole the trophy: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/24/world-cup-theft-gangster-and-brother-stole-trophy-in-1966

Wikipedia entry on the Trophy itself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup_Trophy#Jules_Rimet_Trophy

In 2012, a seemingly innocuous online puzzle blossomed into a worldwide scavenger hunt. The person, or organisation, behind the puzzles is known only as 3301 accompanied with a cicada logo, but their ability to create the puzzles with such complexity, which include an automated phoneline, real-life locations for some puzzles and a mysterious coded book has lead to people questioning who they are and what exactly are they trying to achieve with all this?

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Y0Y is created by Matt Hartless and AJ Hill. The opening theme is written and recorded by Matt Hartless and the episode artwork is drawn by AJ Hill. The Y0Y logo was created by Shelli Le Fay. The creators hold all the rights to this recording.

Sources and further reading:

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In this bonus episode, AJ and Matt chat about their favourite representations of aliens in films, as a bonus to the Fermi Paradox episode. This episode was recorded remotely as AJ had to self-isolate and doesn't have the quite the array of recording tech Matt has, and neither host has a spectacular internet connection...

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AJ and Matt attempt to answer the biggest mystery as we come up to Valentine's Day; why are we alone?

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, has been around for billions of years, and given how (relatively) quickly life was able to develop on Earth, it should be teeming with extra-terrestrial life. But despite that, we, as a species, have never seen conclusive evidence life, much less intelligent life, exists anywhere else, so what might be hiding it from view?

Are they too far away, too alien, too stupid, too clever or are we really alone in the Universe? The possibilities are endless, but AJ and Matt discuss some of the main theories and argue about the best way to communicate with alien species and whether the Prime Directive is benevolent or racist.

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Listen to Supernovas by Matt Hartless on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/1PlnX1qGld7e2A21JDTzBZ

Sources and further reading:

Kurzgesagt video summing up the Fermi Paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhhvQGsMEc

Wikipedia article with concise list and links to further reading on the minutiae of solutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

John Michael Godier video on the Wow Signal: https://youtu.be/aseyBWZa3pY

Excerpts from Professor Brian Cox documentary: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zdhtg

Wikipedia article on the Wow! Signal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

Radio/podcast discussion between John Michael Godier and Dr Stephen Webb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8eklCtMbbc

Netflix Alien Worlds series which goes in depth on what alien life might be like: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80221410

Isaac Arthur video on stupidity unlikely to be seen in alien life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXWe8g0zziw

NASA article on Oumuamua: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/comets/oumuamua/in-depth/

Lemmino video on one of the more likely UFO candidates: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpeSpA3e56A

The Week article on Roswell Incident: https://www.theweek.co.uk/us/59331/roswell-ufo-crash-what-really-happened-67-years-ago

Frontiers article on the Hessdalen lights: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2016.00017/full

Unsolved Mysteries episode on people who believe they've been abducted: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11229146/

Interesting Engineering article on bizarre ancient technology: https://interestingengineering.com/7-ancient-inventions-that-were-way-ahead-of-their-time

This is a Disaster Podcast episode on the Fermi Paradox: https://www.thisdisasterpod.com/episode/we-are-alone/

Playlist of Lemmino videos on space (they are excellent!): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ7XwKXhDhDhT__-GEXwlRcFSYRL-pmtF

Arthur C Clarke's Space Odyssey series: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bookseries/B00JQMHHD6/ref=dp_st_0453002692