One Life Left's Podcast

This episode was actually recorded two weeks ago so prepare yourself for vintage/retro One Life Left. Ann had a karaoke injury, Simon was in a grump and Ste was possibly replaced by an imposter so we had to use the latest in eye tracking technology to suss him out.Luckily we had an excellent Super-Special Guest in Ground Shatter's James Parker who came all the way from Bristol just to be on our show. Actually, this is why the episode is two weeks late as knowing the state of Britain's public transport he'll probably only just be getting home now! He told us what it was like to work with Mike Bithell before fame changed him, what you buy when you quit your job and - more importantly - a bit about the King of Fighters style game that he's working on.And that's not all! We also had Vlambeer's Rami Ismail and the Train Jam's Adriel Wallick dropping in. Rami talked about his games distribution helpsite / Lady Diana's dead boyfriend tribute site http://dodistribute.com/ whilst Adriel needed hashtag branding advice

One Life Left returns after a two week break and everything has changed. Or at least one thing has: the caretaker is on holiday, which means Ste is back to uploading the podcast which means it's frankly some kind of miracle that you're even reading this. If there's a second miracle and you can hear it too, here's what to expect: * Super special guest Rachael Reynolds talks Sunless Sea, Fallen London, drops some exclusive news involving another dev studio and teaches us how to do interviews * The team discuss their various engagements, including Simon's fun at Develop, Ste's adventures in Joensuu and Ann's trip to Kelis * There's some promotion for the not-at-all-confusing third #THIRDSDAY, this time on a Wednesday, i.e. potentially tonight, so see you at The Loading Bar * Reviews, news, features, letters, etc. And lots of music, talking of which... Track List: 1. Iron Ore - Sentiment 2. Klamm - Score 3. Calavera - About Us 4. Motionride - Whatever You Wish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc

After her adventures in journalism Ann is moving into new worlds. She's going to join Pip in our roster of esport athletes by winning the co-ed Hearthstone tournament. The only possible spanner in this plan is that she doesn't really know what Hearthstone is. Will she be able to learn this important information during the show?While Ann's working this out we interviewed this week's Super-Special Guest - Iain Simons from GameCity. We quizzed him about why GameCity is amazing (mostly for Iain to say why we're amazing), corrected him about the GameCity prize winners and found out about what's happening at the closing ceremony. But will the Sheriff that's attending the closing ceremony be Alan Rickman or Tony Robinson?We also brain stormed ideas for what we're going to do for this year's GameCity, then gave up and offered you (yes you!) the chance to do it for us. Not only that, but we were given an EXCLUSIVE about an attendee that has got our pushing arms twitching in anticipation. In addition to all this amazin

It's pretty tiring work curating the latest and more important video game news. Which is generally why Ann (and local news cub reporter Sega Badawi) steal it from Eurogamer. But last week. Last week was an exception. Ann did some journalism and it's tiring work. She also shed a little light on her unbiased method on how she curates the news (further to the curation that Eurogamer had already done).And we needed to be on impressive journalistic form this week as our Super-Special Guest, Phil Elliott from Square Enix's Collective, used to be on Five Live. Despite previously only being used to medium wave, he stepped up admirably to FM surround sound. He told all about Collective, how it got off the ground, why it's Collective and not The Collective. Unfortunately Ste didn't get to pitch his idea for a Lara Croft karaoke card game. Fingers crossed it will see the light of day soon!In other Ann related news she invented a new unit of measurement, managed to beat Million Pound Journalist Cara Ellison to the EXCLUS

One Life Left prides itself on its news team. Ann has been with the show as a cub reporter and we've seen her grow into the excellent news journalist that you hear today. But she doesn't really get the support from Simon and Ste that she deserves. As you will hear in this week's episode where the lads don't expect her to get any proper journalism done with respect to Atari and their LGBT statement. You can expect to hear the All Apologies music next week.We didn't have to apologise to our Super-Special Guest this week who was Darren Grey from Roguelike Radio. He managed to help clear up the differences between Rogue and Roguelikes. Luckily we didn't ask him what the difference was between a Roguelike and The Like as it would have gotten terribly confusing. However, after our advice he will have to amend the name of his podcast slightly or he may be hearing from our legal team.Also on the show Simon asks a rather technical programming question. He's changed. Ann thinks of skinny jeans and Ste talks about crick

The OLL recorded before a #THIRDSDAY is fraught with danger. This one is no exception. Especially as we had World Cup (and Cricket (and hen do)) Fever. Could we do our usual exceptional radio show whilst knowing that commentators could be confused by goal line technology as we spoke. SPOILERS: Of course we could, we're (unpaid) professionals.And Simon is still making steps towards becoming a professional games programmer / designer (Up, Down, Left, Right available for Android devices) so we went to someone with more experience in that area. Even though he's twelve years old. We got Sam Smith from Boxface Games in the studio to talk about his game Spacepants, what it's like being our grandchild and why Terry Cavanagh won't return his calls.We also found that Ann can't whistle, that Simon can now make really good jokes about programming and try to figure out what's in THQ's bins. And as Ste was in charge of curating the music we had Sega Badawi making a return. It's an excellent show and one that you will show

You may find this week's show lacking in something. You see, because Ste was making his way back from Sheffield's DocFest and Ann was moving house it meant that Simon had to curate the music and features for this episode. And Simon wasn't told if there were any features for this week. So there's no Sega Badawi, Dr. Avatar, Shipping Forecast or Super Roger World in this show. But that does mean that you get around four to five more minutes of interviewing time with our Super-Special Guests Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon! Sam and Steve came in to get advice in advance of their appearance at Georg Backer's Radius Festival and also to tell us about their Go 8Bit event. We in turn told them about our gloriously terrible attempt at doing Videogame Stand Up in Nottingham. Unfortunately they then outdid us by remembering the John Barnes rap from World In Motion. They then dropped our former Karaoke King Rob/Weaselspoon in it by telling us how Rob made a game for them. Where's our game Rob? Ste and Simon get confuse

One Life Left is well known for keeping its promises. Managing to brand a certain day of the week for our karaoke event? DELIVERED. Making a superstar of Mike Bithell? DELIVERED. Promising not to mention 'that thing' we all know about Simon 'Parko' Parkin on air? DELIVERED. So when we promised that Georg Backer would come on the first episode of our tenth season and he'd bring along his PA then you knew there would be only one all caps word we'd write: DELIVERED.Not only did we talk about Georg and Keith's new festival - Radius Festival - and how it will cope being placed against OLL Thirdsday, but we heard about Georg's dream location for a festival. And soon regretted hearing about his dreams. As usual we told Keith what to say to senior figures in the games industry when he'll meet them at E3, something which has made him reach the high levels he is currently reaching. And Ann got ejected by her chair. Which was the one Keith was meant to be using.We got Sega Badawi detailing the latest local news. And als

One day we'll learn. Never allow the number of guests you have to equal the number of presenters. Keep the number advantage. This week we forgot this rule, mostly because we've just made it up for the purposes of this intro, but now it is enshrined in a podcast intro it is now legally binding (NOTE TO SELF: Check this with our lawyer).So yes, we're back, Back, BACK. And this week with three (count 'em - three!) Super-Special Guests. If we were to pick one of the SSGs as a main SSG then we'd have to say that it would be Fuzzy Face Studios' Chris Thomas. He came to the studio to promote his new game Crobble, which is an excellent blend of Tetris and Scrabble. We tried to make him release the game on air, but Shane in Canada let us down. We hope you're happy Shane.The other two sub-SSGs were the returning Georg Backer (who will also be returning in two weeks) and Michael Frederickson. They helped get us banned in Russia, swooned over Parkin's new Linked In photo and signed us up as the preferred media provider t

Recorded on the afternoon of the 21st of March 2014, live from the Moscone Center with shattered voices and weary hearts, One Life Left presents OLL vs Gamasutra Show #5: FIVE STARS. Hosted by @byronicman, @steishere and @scanters, with a jovial @krisgraft fully representing the Gamasutra side of things, and starring Benedict Fritz (Dudeski), David Laskey (Tetrapulse), Adriaan de Jongh (Game Oven), Teddy Diefenbach & Alex Preston (Heart Machine), Nels Anderson (Campo Santo), Tadhg Kelly (Ouya), Rami Ismail (Vlambeer, still), Cindy Au (Kickstarter) and Steve Gaynor (Fullbright). Music from Rade (Under The Stars), Mister Beep (Hypervelocity Stars), Ocean Palace (Key of the Exiles), Brink (Aurora Borealis). That's it for GDC 2014. We had the best time, and huge thanks to everyone at the conference and at Gamasutra for continuing to tolerate us. We'll be back on our regular Monday night schedule shortly, so do subscribe on iTunes to keep up (http://bit.ly/OLLtunes) -- until then you can find us at @onelifeleft o

Recorded on the afternoon of the 20th of March 2014, live from a noisy conference hall with increasingly raucous GDC-goers, One Life Left presents OLL vs Gamasutra Show #4: FOUR OF HEARTS. Hosted by Curran, Scantlebury and Byron, competently complemented by Kristian Graft (EIC, Gamasutra) and starring Ian Livingston (Ubisoft Montreal), Leo Tan (Turbine), Andreas Zecher (Spaces of Play), Jason Gregory (Naughty Dog), Kenneth Yeung (Capy Games), Matthew Woodward, (CCP Games, again!), Cameron Harris (Bioware), Austin Wintory (Independent Composer), Chris Dahlen (Independent Writer), Sarah Brin (Independent Curator), John Walker (Independent Rock Paper Shotgunner), Tom Betts (Big Robot), Richard Dansky (Central Clancy Writer, Ubisoft), Keith Guerette (Naughty Dog). Music from Drexegar (Fly Away With Me), Groovemaster303 (Step to the Funk), Jakim (The Opened Doors), Jansaw (Rise). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recorded on the afternoon of the 19th of March 2014, live from the foot of the escalators in North Hall of the Moscone Center, One Life Left presents OLL vs Gamasutra Show #3: THE THREEQUEL. Hosted by Scantlebury, Byron and Curran, ably assisted by the rich tones of Kris Graft (EIC, Gamasutra) and starring Terry Cavanagh (Distractionware), Manveer Heir (Bioware, very handsome), Alex Fleetwood (ex-Hide&Seek), Peter Molyneux & Jack Attridge (22 Cans), Erin Catto (Blizzard), Matt Piersall (Gl33k), Daniel Benmergui (Storyteller / Ernesto), Sean Vanaman (Campo Santo), Rupert Loman (Eurogamer Network), Mare Sheppard & Raigan Burns (Metanet), Geoffrey Zatkin (Eedar), Chris HArvey (Drinkbox Studios). Music from Jredd (Silence), Frostbitewaveform (The Thaw), Kommisar (Caduceus), Laffe the Fox (Left Alone In Outer Space), Stinkbug (Afternoon Out). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recorded on the afternoon of the 18th of March 2014, live from the show floor at GDC 2014, One Life Left presents OLL vs Gamasutra Show #2: BROADCAST HARDER. Hosted by Byron, Curran and Scantlebury, watched over by the soft eyes of Mike Rose (GamaSutra), and starring Benett Foddy (bfod.net / NYU), Chris Cornell (PaperDino), Peter Traylor & Chris McLaughlin (Vitei), Dave Evans (Play Canvas), Anna Kipnis (Double Fine), Ben Cousins (bencousins.net), Eric Zimmerman (NYU), Winifred Philips (Independent composer), Kellee Santiago (Indiefund / OUYA), and Brenda Romero (Loot Drop). Music from Stugard (Enceladus), Mills DJ (Radio Waves), Chasingbleeps (Master Kush), Feryl (The Last Riot Grrrl) and Klamm (World Civilisation). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recorded on the evening of the 17th of March 2014, live from the 32nd floor of the Parc 55 hotel, One Life Left presents the first of its GDC 2014 shows. Hosted by Curran, Byron and Scantlebury, and starring Kris Graft (Gamasutra EIC), Adriel Wallick (Train Jam, msminotaur.com), Zoe Quinn (beesgo.biz), Leigh Alexander (Independent Woman pt II), Andy Schatz (Pocketwatch Games), Matt Boch (Harmonix), Jaime Woo (Gamergamp), Rami Ismail (Vlambeer), Michael Frederickson (Otter Spice Productions), Matthew Woodward (CCP Games).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's hard being the official King Maker of the videogames industry. Last year we crowned Mike Bithell and videogames haven't been the same since. And for that, we apologise. This means that we've been on the lookout for the new King for a few months. Now is the time of the coronation. The King is (not literally) dead. Long live the King!But who is the King we hear you ask? And what games has he made that just consist of blocks and a funny voiceover by Danny Wallace? Well, it's Luke Williams from Boss Studios and he's made the excellent Surgeon Simulator that - get this - actually involves proper graphics. We've literally looked outside the box for this choice. And Luke was an excellent guest, explaining how entering the Global Game Jam and expecting a lack of sleep makes you come up with weird (but amazing) ideas for videogames. He also officially announced One Life Left as the official partners of Surgeon Simulator, thereby allowing us to go up and collect the Bafta award when Surgeon Simulator wins and told

As you all know, there was no official podcast of last week's show (although we hear the unofficial recordings are selling for thousands of bitcoins on Silk Road) due to us raising money for Resonance. We also announced the date and location for the first ever Spring Break Videogame Karaoke. Go to http://tinyurl.com/singwitholl for more details and buy a ticket before they sell out!Luckily this week we were back to a normal style show with a Super-Special Guest. Oh. Except the Super-Special Guest, Will from Rambo game makers Reef Entertainment was involved in a tram incident at Clacton (the Caretaker might have remembered this incorrectly) so he wasn't able to make the beginning of the show to talk about the challenges of making a game out of such an iconic film series or what physics you need to lob a tank at a helicopter. Would he even make the show at all (SPOILERS: Yes, and he was great)?Still, such things happen from time to time. At least the core trio of Team OLL would be there for the start of the sho

In this week's show we have John and Simon from Olli Olli developers Roll 7. Luckily for them we forgot to go on about the Superbowl, which we were going to hilariously rename the SuperbOLL, and thinking about it probably wasn't going to work over the airwaves. We also forgot to mention our great idea to mash up OlliOlli and The Stanley Parable to make the Stan and Ollie Parables, which would detail the black and white adventures of one thin man and one fat man in a horn factory.We did manage to ask them about working with Sony, what it's like annoying Dan Marshall (more to see if they found it different to how we find it), the colour of their new game but neglected to mention how much it would cost to use our likenesses for an OLLiOLLi spin off. Ah well. Scanters got recognised as a Twitter celebrity, gave hair and nightlife advice and the Team all decided that killing children was wrong.As usual Sega Badawi provided some local news, but Science Officer and Super Roger World made their welcome returns. We al

It's not often that we have Filey's favourite son on the show, and this week was no exception as Leo Blair (Tony Blairs' Dad) was unable to attend for some reason. So we had to settle for second best and allowed The Official Spokesperson for Videogames, Guy Cocker on as a Special Guest. Unfortunately we failed to kill Guy with kindness but did manage to maim him slightly with politeness. Guy also offered us dating advice while we told him about a further subject that he could specialise in at the BBC. We just like to offer support to those people starting in the business who obviously have lots to learn.Simon also offered us support by giving Ann and Ste advice on how to stream over the internet, whilst withdrawing support from certain people who send us letters every week and also getting rather annoyed at listeners who dob us in to indie developers. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. We also learnt how much Jon Snow knows about videogames.Doctor Avatar got some fan mail to go alongside the feature that he sent in, but i

There's not many people who get to be returning Super-Special Guests on One Life Left. Obviously many have tried. Sure, we've had bribes and threats but the integrity of our journalism is too important for us to let it be affected by these tawdry attempts. For this week's show we had the excellent Keith Stuart from the Guardian (Britain's top Newspaper) who arrived not bearing gifts, but needing the toilet. And you'll get to see if he remembered to do up his flies by looking at the recorded live stream. Yes, this was the first ever episode of One Life Left to have a live video stream (except we might have done a Google+ hangout a few years back (and maybe once over an Android phone?)).Keith didn't tell us his itunes password, but we did find out which console manufacturer he wants to be destroyed, how long it takes for him to write a news story and what he really thinks of Eurogamer. It's all shocking stuff. Ann is in the midst of a housing crisis so Ste and Satoru Iwata offered advice in varying levels of us

If we've learnt one thing over the nine seasons of One Life Left it's that the videogame industry only cares about money. Artistic integrity, great ideas, beautiful writing - none of this matters if your games doesn't sell in its millions and you make enough money to make another God game. With this in mind we were happy to welcome the first ever Million Pound Gaming Journalist - Cara Ellison - to the show.Cara dropped by to explain how Patreon works and why it allows her to stay round indie developers houses without their approval. She also clarified which of the IGF nominees were not cool, how she'll be able to cope when Simon stops investing money in her Patreon and also gives her backing to our 'Free Christian Donlan' campaign. Which we've only just started.Ann is getting tapped up again, she's been offered a new position over at the Bayside Diner and providing lunch at Lassiters. It'll be sad times if she goes. We make inroads into becoming the first Anglo-Chinese videogame radio show*, but get sidetrack