One Life Remains » ABOUT US

ABOUT US

One Life Remains is a frenchie experimental game collective.
Based in Paris, France, One Life Remains develops weird games, produces events and try to host a blog – not the easiest part.
Feel free to contact us, we are always happy to meet new people.

-> contact@oneliferemains.com

THE TEAM

B. – Achievement completed: burn a pot each time he intends to make coffee.

A. – A true dictator. Favorite quote: “Shut up and go play!“.

K. – Crazy enough to code on Android.

F. – Noise = Music. Or something like that…

S. – A true mentalist with fake magical powers.

Published on 10/15/2010 5:02 PM.
Filed under:

No Comments

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Arcade didn’t have keyboards : No Stick Allowed

Some weeks ago, the Théâtre de l’Agora asked us to make a small arcade thing with a selection of indie games of our choice and gave us a “Carte blanche” to do so. Among a first list of weird and great indie games, our glance stopped on this game by Sophie Houlden: Dinosaurs didn’t have keyboards… A real UFO, who gave us the idea of the exhibition : to build a serie of five cardboard arcade cabinets with sticks and buttons replaced by keyboards. To give them a very special look, we’ve decided to remove and destroy every useless keys for each game. This idea was not only for the visual aspect of the device, it was also a great solution to offer the users/players a good affordance of the controller: all the remaining keys have a purpose and are used to play the game. So is born Arcade didn’t have keyboards. With such a name we had get a relevant selection of games which only require a keyboard and use it in a very specific way : Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf by Cactus Because this is the future of MTV video music clip.

Because each new steps in game use the keyboards differently with only 6 keys. Because the music is crazy and the visual novel makes no logical sense when you tried to link both. GIRP by Bennet Foddy Because this is what e-sport should look like. Because it makes you “girp” you keyboard just like if you were climbing it. Because the challenge is accessible to any kind of users. Dinosaurs didn’t have keyboards but it they would, they wouldn’t break it (just like you are about to) by Sophie Houlden Because it explains why the dinosaurs died and disappeared form earth.

Because the way it request you to use the keys makes you feel you are running like a dinosaurs. Because even if the game can be hard to beat, the concept pleased everybody. Chase Goose by Hideous Because we wanted a really hard challenging game in our selection for the tough people. Because it requires endurance from the player and we knew people will play it together (to beat the high score! Because the graphics are rad, the music is cool and the ton is quite funny. pOnd by PeanutGallery Because we wanted something quiet and relaxing after all those challenging games (yes we know this is a lie). Because it only use the space key and we wanted to have a one button game. Because we like turtles (and purple squids). If you are around Paris this month, come pick a look. The exhibition held at the Théâtre de l’Agora in Evry is extended until 24^thMarch. The access is totally free and you can play as long as you want.

Published on 03/06/2012 2:19 AM.
Filed under: Miscellaneous

Indie games exhibition incoming!

We didn’t post a lot of news on our blog since a couple of months, however this doesn’t mean we aren’t active. We are working on several projects and in january we had the opportunity to build a new version of Dive on a big multitouch table. This experiment was pretty nice and a lot of people enjoyed the display and the tactile interface. We will try to post some video and pics on our website as soon as possible, but this is another story.

Today we are working on the build of a coming exhibition which will take place at Evry (France), in the Théâtre de l’Agora, on Tuesday, February 7 at 18:30 for approximatively one month.

We have been asked to work on a special “expo” by selecting 5 indie games of our choice. The only requirement was to keep the model of the “arcade cabinet” made of cardboard as an exhibition device. Currently we are installing the controllers and preparing each computer to be plug-and-play, ready to be launched and shown.

We don’t want to spoil you any surprise effect about the games selection, but we’ve based our decision on a very special concept! Everything is in the title: “Arcades didn’t have …” It’s up to you to guess what arcades didn’t have! Or myabe you could wait until next tuesday and join us during the event to discover what we did.

Oh, by the way, the picture we’ve put on this blogpost is a clue to find out the mysterious artistic choice of the exhibition!

Published on 02/03/2012 9:17 PM.
Filed under: Events

Incoming: Two performances

In a couple of days we will be present at Stereolux! The event takes place at Nantes (France) and is about mediums convergence and new kind of artistic expressions. We’ve been lucky enough to be invited to make two performances next Friday evening. We are currently working hard to finish a new version of Dive, specially designed for a performance act. We have improved several things such as sound design of the environment and the graphics atmosphere. We still have some slight modifications to provide on the level design part because it will have an important impact on the show.

Along to the Dive show, we will attend to perform a super play of the excellent T.E.C. 3001 (by the serbian indie studio Phoenix Games). To watch a (very good) player perform a perfect play is always nice, but we’ve wanted to be a little bit more innovative and creative on this part. As a performance, we will have a on live musical mix performed during the play. This means that our sound designer will have to play according to our player performance. We’ve made some try at our headquater and the results was pretty convincing. There will be two game in once. While one of us will play a game by mastering each control and knowing each level of it, another one will try to follow and forecast what is happening in game and play (interpret) it using sounds and rythms.

Until friday, we keep working and. . . rehearsing!

Published on 11/16/2011 3:27 PM.
Filed under: Events

As promised . . .

Published on 11/09/2011 5:48 PM.
Filed under: Hardware & Stuffs

The Cardboard Arcade Machine Prototype

In a couple of weeks there will be an exhibition with 5 of our games at Théâtre de l’Agora in Evry (France). For this nice event, we have selected the following pieces:

- PacMad

- Aura

- Chrysopoeia

- Wonderpills

- Galaxy Jumper

For each of those games, we are currently designing a cardboard arcade machine prototype that is cheap but still good-looking (or at least we hope it will look pleasant)! We are working on the build of the controller and the decoration of each prototype. Soon we will post a quick movie of our first prototype in action.

Published on 11/08/2011 7:18 PM.
Filed under: Hardware & Stuffs

And The Rhino Says at the Next Level Conference

Here comes a little info we would love to share. One of our game, And The Rhino Says, is currently exhibited at the Théâtre de l’Agora, in Evry (France) until december 17, but the game is also shown in Germany during a “Carte Blanche” held at the Next Level Conference in Cologne. We are very proud to have this nice piece of our own mad mind exhibited in two place at the same time, and especially outside of France. If you are around Cologne, you will have only two days to go there and try it!

Unfortunately none of us has been able to attend the Next Level Conference this year, but if you have any questions about the game or the collective, please leave a comment here or write us an e-mail. We are always eager to share a talk and meet new people.

By the way, we would like to thank the Cologne Game Lab for their work on the indie games selection they’ve chosen for the Next Level Conference and especially Katharina Tillmanns and Krystian Majewski for their interest in our weird work.

Published on 11/05/2011 1:03 AM.
Filed under: Events, Miscellaneous

Summer event: the Notgames Fest

Notgames Fest 2011 (15-16 August, Cologne)

At least an event that will give a spotlight to the european alternative game scene! The Notgames Fest is a two days exhibition open and free to the public where you will be invited to play games but also discuss alternative game design and meet some european weird creators! The exhibition will be curated by the Belgian interactive artists Auria Harvey & Michaël Samyn (Tale of Tales). This isn’t surprising when you know who is behind the Notgames manifesto! Anyone is invited to submit their games, but beware friends, do not send any kind of traditionnal game. Be creative and experimental! Add some inventiveness & madness to your usual creation, push up the boundaries of your imagination and try to destroy every conventional concept we can easily find in the video games industry. Here comes a short quote by Katharina Tillmanns, one of the initiators of the event and member of the Cologne Game Lab:

“We understand NOTGAMES as an avantgarde thinking towards game design. We are inviting you to submit and present videogames that stretch and/or overcome boundaries of the contemporary videogame culture. For our EXPO we are looking for extraordinary interactive works of art that do not primarily rely on competition, goals or rewards but focus on atmosphere, story, emotions, expression, meaning and beauty.”

Here at OLR, we plan to attend the event because we really believe this will probably be THE most important date of this summer in Europe for the alternative games scene and we certainly don’t want to miss it! So if you are interested to join the event, just read the official page of the Notgames Fest to know how to submit your games and if you are just curious and want to attend the exhibition, let’s meet there on August 16!

Oh, and of course, some of you will have noticed that this festival will be hold in parallelle to the Gamescom 2011 and the GDC Europe 2011, but seriously, who cares, huh? The web will give you everything you want to know about those conference, press annoucnement, and co… but for free! So, we hope to see you at the Notgames Fest in August!

Published on 06/30/2011 11:36 AM.
Filed under: Events

Agoraphily

Great news here : the national scene of Evry (aka le théâtre de l’Agora) invites us next year for a 8 months residence. It’s a pretty unique occasion, for a indie collective like ours, to reach other kind of people and work with creators coming from performing arts, such as puppeteers, actors, dancers, VJs, etc. Moreover, we intend to show up there some pieces of our current work and build a couple of weird games linked to the city of Evry. First cracker : what about a Evry Days Shooter hu ?

Published on 05/12/2011 3:47 PM.
Filed under: Events, Miscellaneous

MAKE GAMES, NOT ART: REVERSAL!

This week-end, at la Cantine, Paris, the 2nd edition of the ArtGame weekend will start. It’s a cool challenge, rather close from game jams, except for some tiny details. First, it’s a competition with a jury (check out the composition, rather amazing !) and a price for the winner. Secondly, it’s not just about making games, but artgames.

Details »

Published on 04/20/2011 11:10 AM.
Filed under: jam, Miscellaneous

Pilgrimage at the GDC (2/2)

Paint by number 2.0: In the last post we’ve talked about Metagame at the GDC, but there was another kind of partcipative event which took place at the north building of the Moscone Center. It was named Painting with Pixel and was supposed to be a participative artwork builds by the attendees. At first, we thought it was not bad at all: to give the opportunity to anyone to create or re-arrange “pixels” in any kind of images on a wall surface could have been interesting, but it wasn’t really a do-it-yourself as it seems.