One Life Left

It’s difficult when you have a decision to make and both options are fantastic. On one hand we all had an invite back to Lewis Schaffer’s where we would have discussed how great both of our shows are and possibly someone would have understood Simon’s t-shirt reference. On the other hand we had a show to make and produce. And if we didn’t make the show would Lewis have invited us to his place? Luck...

It’s the first show of a new year (4AL* if you’re keeping note) and all the team is back. Ste returned from his overseas holiday to the Caribbean and Ann came back from Spain. Jamaica? Yes, otherwise she’d be hearing from our HR director. To ease us into the new year, we got a guest in who is always willing to talk to us on numerous topics. Well, as long as that topic is the game that his company...

It’s a Christmas special with lots of surprises so we don’t really want to spoil them in this intro (although the links bit does give it away a little). We guess we can tell you that Luke Williams from Bossa Studios was in to talk a little bit more about Worlds Adrift and what it’s like making a game where people are generally nice to each other. But any more information will affect your enjoyment...

This week’s Super-Special Guest is John Vega who works at Curve Digital as a business developer. Luckily as Simon was away, there was no conflict of interest in the interview section. Unluckily as Simon was away, there were lots of questions we could ask John about working with Simon. We found out what it is that a business developer does, what the success rate of the game pitches Curve receives i...

It’s a Christmas miracle: Simon’s back! He did forget to bring Sega Badawi or a Super-Special Guest with him but made it up by managing to get Skype working in our studio. This meant that we managed to get Gary Plowman on the show as our Super-Special Skype Guest. Gary spoke about his ZX Spectrum Code Club book, which is a good stocking filler for all family members (depending on the size of the s...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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. A...

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 Nottin...

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...

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 w...

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 bo...

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 i...

We suppose we should start with the major news this week. Resonance FM now has beer mats. It is this promotional machine that has got us another GMA nomination in the category that keeps changing its name and has currently decided that it is Best Radio/Podcast Team. As we call ourselves Team OLL we're quietly confident that a team full of lads will win it again. Actually, that wasn't the big news...

As is standard with the second episode after a break One Life Left is an Ann down. But if you're the HR director what is the correct process for sick leave? How long do you talk about it on air? And how do you cover radio's best videogame news reader? The answer to that last question is how Ann feels: poorly. Our Super-Special Guest were actually Guests as we welcomed James Parker and Tony Gowland...

Summer break is over, but One Life Left is back, Back, BACK! And it's been a long hot summer, being a three-button Monday. So what did we do over the holiday? Simon walked past Hugh Dennis, Ann had too much coffee and Ste did something that may get mentioned during the show. We also guested on other podcasts in an attempt to become videogames answer to Sean Paul/Ludacris. Except in most cases we w...

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 thi...

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 advert...

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 wh...

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 al...

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. Ou...

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 spi...

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 wh...