One Life Left's Podcast

Sorry for the lack of a show last week, but it was in order to get you fully prepared for our summer break. Yep, we're off for all of August and will return to air on the 5th of September. So this means that we wanted to tie off our loose ends like Clive Anderson* before we go off to America / watch cricket / look for Pokemon / all three. Now if you recall, one thread that has been through all this season of OLL was David McCarthy's forthcoming soft/hard launch of BFB Champions Global Kick Off. And for this thread to be fully tied off we got David back in the studio to tell us about how it is going to be what experts (us) call "The Pokemon Go of football games". Well, Cybird are soft launching it in different countries like what Pokemon Go did so we feel safe enough to make that comparison. Tomorrow (as in Wednesday 28/07) we're doing a special Pokeoke at the Loading Bar, which is a Marioke but only about Pokemon. It's going to be a one-off special so bring your pikachu jumpers, your best singing voice and a

With Simon having booked the day off to do something special Team OLL was at a loss at how to replace him. Luckily Doncaster’s premier top-light entertainer and former market stall holder Derek Williams was passing by so he was willing to offer his help at no extra cost. Well, apart from the constant promotional considerations for his various side-projects that Derek took the opportunity to advertise at every gap in proceedings. But we highly recommend all of Derek’s side projects, as well as his above, below, front and back projects. Another project that we highly recommend is Dreadbit Games’s Seraph and – no! But yes! – we had the creator of the game Daniel Leaver on the show to promote it. Seraph is a skill based acrobatic shooter inspired by a film starring Christian Bale, but not that one where he shouted at the film crew (that inspired how we treat people on The List when we’re at GameCity). Daniel showed us what the sound effect for slowing down is and also explained what he does at Dreadbit (2% direc

It’s not often that Team OLL get to name an episode of the show after an obscure phrase in Amiga Power and – to be honest – we’d have rather not had the opportunity this week. Trust us, once you realise what this episode title refers to, you’ll never look at Ste the same way again. And it’s a shame as up to that point we were all getting on terribly well. Except for the incident before the show when Ste bumped into Simon coming out of a hotel. Apparently Simon was booking our Super-Special Guest into a room. This is the kind of treatment you can expect if you come onto our show and are not a tank. And our Super-Special Guest this week came all the way from Lithuania so the hotel was needed. It was Tomas Sakalauskas from No Brakes Games, who came in to not share a hotel room but to talk about his new game Human Fall Flat. In the game you just control your hands (unlike Joe Hart) and use them to move around the level. It’s been a hit on the mythical website called YouTube (that we still don’t understand) so as

After a week of depressing news there was only one thing that we could do: Get the Guardian's Keith Stuart on the show and gently bully him. Except we didn't even feel like doing that, so we just talked to K-Stew about his book, A Boy Made Of Blocks, that is coming out soon. Oh, apart from the time when Stew-buryness let us use his Twitter, like in that show that Katherine Ryan does on itv2. We also delayed the selling of our Marioke tickets for Develop in Brighton for gloomy reasons. However, we decided to start selling them during the show to see how the economy has bounced back since the events on Thursday. And we got to hear how the establishment is coping with the changes as Lord Sir Charles Cecil rang in (even though he should've known that we were on air). Actually it was a fairly interactive show this week. We had the latest news from Sega Badawi, did a live rendition of the Doctor Who theme and also played Dino Dini's Kick Off Revival via flow chart (which appears to be the best way to play it). Wi

You know it's going to be a great episode of One Life Left if at least one of Team OLL starts the episode with a damp groin. And boy oh boy do we have a damp groin for you! (Shouldn't that be 'great episode'? - Ed) Ann has passed her driving test and we've persuaded her to become the next Mike Bithell. She's already become a bit upset with Kotaku so she's well on the way to achieving that goal. Our Super-Special Guest this week was Sean Cleaver from the world of freelance journalism and Hertfordshire. We asked him what it was like to cover E3 from the UK and interrogated him about why we weren't included in the guest list of content creators and influencers that attended the EA play event. We also tried to find out if Peter Moore still has his GTA tattoo, which got The Caretaker confused as he thought he was currently coach at Notts CCC. Sean is also planning on producing a gaming version of the (nngh) 5Live show Fighting Talk, which should be excellent providing one of Team OLL is on it every week. Marioke

The gang is finally back together. Although Ste was still shaken after the grilling he got from Chef Scanters in last week's episode. Luckily Simon was back to interview this week's Super-Special Guest - David McCarthy from Cybird and Japan via France. He could finally reveal the game that he refused to tell us about last season, but perhaps we shouldn't discuss it in this episode intro out of spite. Nah, that doesn't sound like us does it? It's BFB Champions Global Kick-Off (all the cool kids call it BGBCGKO), which is a football management game for smart phones. We find out what early noughties football game BFBCGKO is most like, when it is coming out, whether it is in a hard or soft launch form and also what BFB stands for. Other than a great quality football game at a decent price. Still related to football we all try to become voicemen in Dan Marshall's Behold The Kickmen. That is, if the Caretaker hasn't deleted our attempts out of the podcast out of spite. Nah, that doesn't sound like him does it? We

After a week off due to the bank holiday (which the caretaker forgot to tell us about) we came back at full strength. Er, except Simon was off to sunny Spain. And Simon is usually the one who books the guests. So who do we know that has a new game coming out (and two others in development) and has a golden spring on his microphone? Yes, instead of an SSG this week, we have a SS-Ste. We find out what our SS-Ste was doing ten years ago, spoke about his new game Chime Sharp, how stressful kickstarters are and don't get any exclusives. Once again, Ste has let us down. Away from our guest, we find that videogame fans annoy us and cheer us up in equal measures, say goodbye to Videogame Nation (and try to work out if they're on The List (High Def)) and Ste man-reviews Scanters as well as nearly becoming a Truther due to F-Zero. There's also Sega Badawi, who gives us some local news that was slightly more topical a week ago, but he forgot about the bank holiday break. We normally have three paragraphs for each epis

We're back from a mid-week trip to Nordic Game and managed to get Scanters successfully through customs, although she did come back with something that she got from a boat trip (congrats Ann - congrannts). Because it was so hot on Monday (unlike now) we had the window open, which means this week's show is naturalistic/noisy depending on your perspective/quality of headphones. There was also a dog in the studio before we went on air, which has now raised all kinds of questions that we need to ask of the people at Renaissance. This week's Super-Special Guest is - dilly ding dilly dong - Becky Jowsey from Gamehub. And also from Leicester, which hopefully means that the dilly ding dilly dong reference now makes sense. Becky's taken on the incredibly easy task to explain videogames to parents who know nothing about them. This has involved playing lots of games for very long periods of time, with over 150 data points needing to be investigated for each game. The times when you just needed to know graphics, sound,

It's not a new season of One Life Left if at least one of us can't make it to the second episode. And Scanters was very happy to take the hit for the team this episode to go boozing on the way to Oslo. It's a hard life being head of HR and News for Europe's leading videogame radio programme. Ann was so on top with her HRing this week by managing to arrange a news-reading substitute, although he did let her down slightly by having a bit of a Network moment. True newsreaders would never do that. Frederico Fasce from ETT was this week's Super-Special Guest. He gave a very good reason as to why he wouldn't be able to attend our next Marioke event, which meant that we were prepared to ask him about Game Happens - the Italian gaming event he runs with his girlfriend - and the work that he does for ETT. As a result we confirmed how intelligent we were and also learnt about how games are useful in psychological testing (we'd have needed more than an hour for us to do that one). We move into a fascinating sphere of

Hey everyone, we're back, Back, BACK. And you know that the show is going to be a great one when before it even starts two thirds of Team OLL gets kissed by Nunhead's own Lewis Schaffer. Although it doesn't help that we forget what number season we're on. But you know this as you can see it in the episode description. If you can't be bothered to scroll up, we've finally hit our teens. While we were away Ste watched cricket, Ann became a Twitch superstar and Simon went to PAX. No surprises there then. What was a bit shocking (after all the talk at GDC) was that Ste is into VR - how could he turn on us like that? Wait, he's using it to make a cricket game? Ah, all is right with the world. The Super-Special Guest this week is Simon Haynes, who is making Super Arcade Football. It's already in Steam Early Access and is an attempt to bring videogame football back to its fun arcade roots. We try to find how he has altered the rules of football to make it more fun as a videogame, what's it like to be a friendly riv

Well folks, it's the final day of GDC 2016, and what an amazing time we've had. We've spoken to dozens of guests, hosted two epic Marioke sessions, experienced more virtual realities than we ever dreamed possible AND learned how to pronounce HTC Vive. Incredible scenes.But before we go, join One Life Left, Gamasutra and super special guests Fred Wester from Paradox, Eric Zimmerman, Jesse Schell, Riot Games Kimberly Voll, Martine Spaans, Kanye Zone superstar Stephen Barlow, Robert Yang, Positech's Cliff Harris, Henrik Johansson from Mediocre Games, Dan Adelman, Robert and Peter Curry, and Anna Kipnis from Double Fine as we see out GDC in style.Cheerio!Team OLL x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Stories! Awards! Pink Pants! Join One Life Left, Gamasutra and twelve more super special guests as we guide you through the ins-and-outs of GDC 2016. On today's show we're joined by Matti Larsson from Zordix, Joseph Humfrey and Tom Kail from inkle, industry legend Lorne Lanning, Steve Meretzky, Tadhg Kelly, Scott Brodie from Heart Shaped Games, Zach Gage, Chris McQuinn from DrinkBox Studios, Steve Gaynor, writer Chris Kohler, and Frank Cifaldi from Digital Eclipse.Cheerio!Team OLL x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's day three at GDC, and now the expo's properly underway it's time to find out if this VR stuff is any good. Luckily we've got a small army of super-special guests to help us work that out. Guests include Tommy Refenes from Team Meat, Ryan Burrell, educator Kerry Turner, Lee Perry, Robin-Yann Storm, FourbitFriday’s Tyriq Plummer, Jake Birkett from Grey Alien Games, Luuk van Aggelen and Bram Simonis from Pillow Games, Katie Goode of Triangular pixels and Gamasutra columnist Katherine Cross. Cheerio! Team OLL x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Show two from GDC, and the first from the convention floor! Join us and twelve super special guests as we talk about what's coming up this week, how many VR panels can fit into one lineup and we continue to ask the all-important question 'How do you pronounce Vive?'Featuring John Warner from Over The Moon Games, Andy Nealen from NYU, Tarn Adams from Bay 12 Games, Kongregate co-founder Emily Greer, Fullbright's Nina Freeman, Henrike Lode from Lohika, Romana Ramzan from Glasgow Caledonian University, Professor Mary Flanagan, James Portnow from Snow Cannon Games, composer Laura Karpman, and Mare Sheppard & Raigan Burns from Metanet Software Inc.Cheerio!Team OLL x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One Life Left is back to present the official GDC podcast with our good friends Gamasutra. We thought we'd take it easy with our first show by having a relaxed recording in a hotel room, but what we ended up with was a bumper show packed full of more people than we've ever had on before.    Join us as we talk to TWENTY-SIX (26) amazing guests, hear from developers new and old, chat about game jams and game collectives, discuss how to #network, and get into the big debate about how to pronounce the HTC Vive.    On the show were:     Charles Cecil - Revolution Software Martin Kvale - Independant Tim Garbos - Triband Joel Nyström - Ludosity Hannah Flynn - Failbetter Harry Tuffs - PixelTrickery Lottie Bevan - Failbetter Martine Spaans - Tamalaki Game Publishing Jonatan Van Hove - Independant Matt Boch - NYU Sarah Brin - Autodesk Simon Parkin - New Yorker/Gamasutra Brandon Sheffield - Necrosoft Games Rami Ismail - Vlambeer Grant Shonkwiler - Epic Games Dave Evans - Playcanvas Brian Francis - Gam

This week's episode is a Denmark special. And in order to celebrate Denmark we got the programmers of James Pond, 3D Construction Kit and the amazing International Rugby Challenge in to talk about it. Oh. Wait. We were thinking of Domark, not Denmark. Luckily our SSG booker didn't make such a mistake and, after Sandi Toksvig and Sofie Hagen refused to return our non-existent calls, we got Jacob and Simon from Gameswing on as our Super-Special Guests. They were there to talk about their new (and first) game Stikbold, which is coming out on XBox One and PC on 1st April and on PS4 a few days afterwards. We asked them about how the game developed from its early start as a Dodgeball game at the Nordic Game Jam to its expertly published current state. We also found out that we really don't like the word sunsetting, fingernails being left in the studio or not being allowed booze on trains like they are in Denmark. This is our last episode before we go to GDC (which will be podcasted) and when we return we will be t

Welcome to episode 280 in One Life Left's quest to understand how Twitch actually works. This week's person trying to show how the video streaming service actually helps people understand videogames is Sam Murray - Coceo from Senshudo tv. He tells us about how he avoids all kinds of handers - both front and back kinds and possibly even side ones - to provide an unbiased set of reviews using Twitch. As well as that he got us annoyed because we never actually got any bribes when we worked at videogame magazines. OR MAYBE THAT'S WHAT WE WANT YOU TO THINK. More importantly, as it was a Leap Day, Ann had the pick of three men to choose to propose to. Or would the patriarchy hold her back (again)? Simon's son had learnt a new swears and Simon learnt what his wife gets up to when he's not around. Sega Badawi dropped some local news on those assembled, we had some Conker chat that didn't involve K-Stew and we figured out how Tomorrowland affects reviews. It was a good show. Cheerio!Team OLL x Links:https://twitter

Psst, don't tell anyone, but this week's show is a gossip special. Unfortunately we don't quite know what this actually means, so we're not actually sure if any real gossip gets spoken during the show. If there is it's almost certainly scurrilous and without foundation, which is our favourite type of gossip (it usually involves conkers). Our Super-Special Guest was Dan Simpson, who is a videogame poet (which sounds like a great idea for a feature - hint hint Craig The Rage). We asked Dan how he got into poetry, what proportion of indie developers like poetry immediately and also if there is anything that Kieron Gillen isn't prepared to introduce. Dan also created a crowd sourced poem for the National Museum of Scotland which sounds like something we'd do, if you replaced 'poem' with 'karaoke song' and 'National Museum of Scotland' with 'pub'. We also found out what Belgium was like, turned down the London Games Festival, Ann went around the studio and Simon's wife isn't going cheese tasting. Sega Badawi pro

It takes a lot to be someone that Mike Bithell wouldn't be prepared to kiss. This week's Super-Special Guest - Tony Gowland from Ant Workshop - is just that person. Could it be because Tony has managed to make a game with a genuinely interesting idea and that has made Mike jealous? If anyone knows anything about jealously it's definitely One Life Left. If there were no jealousy in this business then we'd have a lot more GMA awards. Anyway, Tony's game is called Binaries, it's out on the 4th April and he was only too happy to tell us the main colours of the game. And in Binaries knowing the colours is actually a key factor in the gameplay. Honestly, it's like our apparently stupid questions are actually incredibly clever. We also found out why Tony changed the name of the game and what's it's like to be championed by Mike Bithell. John Life Left tried monetising his feature whilst Sega Badawi still did his purely for the benefit of news. In addition Ste gave some useful advice on running a Kickstarter, as we

It's always good to have gaming royalty on the show so we were happy to have Lord Sir Charles Cecil CBE on as our Super-Special Guest this week. He showed his experience by managing to get the most plugs ever within the first minute of his introduction. You don't run a software company for 25 years without developing some good promotional skills. And next month Revolution Software will indeed be 25 years old, so we took an audio tour through the history of Revolution discussing classics like Lure of The Temptress, Beneath A Steel Sky and their little known game called Broken Sword. Charles also spoke about if the point and click game is still dead, announced a special version of Broken Sword that's available next month and also defended videogame journalists against ("The Hateful Eight" - ed). Not only that but he managed to offend Simon as well, which was bound to happen at some point. The bromance is over. John Life Left and Sega Badawi provided us with some features (and we're always open to new ideas fo