“Here Comes A New Editor-In-Chief!”

If you’re reading this, then you’re already aware that The-Pixels is BACK ONLINE and ready to publish more great content in 2024! After taking a break for health reasons (and the website breaking for no reason at all), we’re finally ready to resume our regularly scheduled program buuuuuuuuuuuuuut…. we do have a special announcement:

*record scratch sound effect*

I’m delighted to welcome Jordan, aka Linguistic Dragon, aboard as our new Editor-In-Chief! As the reigning EIC, Jordan’s drawn up an introduction which you can read below. I hope you look forward to hearing more from the dragon of linguistics in the coming days as he takes on a practical role in assisting with publishing Pixels content. I’m so glad Jordan was interested and available for this role!

Wade, aka ProfNoctis, is one to whom I also owe a deep debt of gratitude. Wade was our Editor-in-Chief for just over a year and in that time he brought about a Renaissance of publishing, theme-ing, direction, and vision. The-Pixels would not be where it is today without him. We’re super happy to see him take off like a rocket on YouTube and I’m indebted to the work and love that he lavished on Pixels while he was EIC! He’s staying onboard in the honorary role of Creative Advisor, so this isn’t good-bye! I’m excited to find more opportunities to work together in the future.

Many more announcements are coming early this year, so get excited and stay excited! Meanwhile, here’s a word for our new Chieftain.

-Red

Salutations, everyone!

I’ve been in a mostly-behind-the-scenes role as a deputy editor here at The-Pixels for a little over a year now, but now that I’m taking a bit more prominent position, it’s high time I gave a proper introduction – so hello! I’m Jordan, better known around the site as Linguistic Dragon, a pseudonym that stems from my love of the Ultima series (dragons are of great importance to the Ultima crowd!) and my background in linguistics. By day, I do proofing work at a translation company, and by night… well, I’m still kinda surrounded by language! I’m all about story, narrative, and the techniques used to craft them well – it’s what I love most about video games, both for the unique ways they can tell a tale, and the stories that can come out of them, the anecdotes we share with each other while we play and of the meaning we find in them.

It also makes me something of a lore nerd. Can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent falling down wiki rabbit holes.

Video games have been a part of my life ever since I was a wee lad in the ’90s, from the edutainment games I played then, to the simulation/tycoon-type games I favored in high school, to the CRPGs and strategy games I played most in college, to the MMOs I like to run around now. I tout Ultima IV, Morrowind, and Planescape: Torment as my Big Three, not just because of the games themselves, but for how they shaped how I understand the medium as a whole. I’ve even written a critique of Torment here on the site – a piece I hope offers an in-depth glimpse at both why I think it’s so special and how I tend to think about games in general, for those interested.

The-Pixels isn’t my first go at writing about video games – I had an Ultima blog once upon a time, writing about my impressions as I played through the series, with an occasional aside for linguistic geekery – but it’s where I’ve found myself most at home when it comes to the subject. I confess I don’t remember exactly how or when I first stumbled across the site, save that it was back when it was still The Well-Red Mage, but I do remember the two things that caught my eye. One, the C. S. Lewis quote in the old banner about “growing old enough for fairy tales again,” the reminder that there’s value, even in adulthood, in diving into imaginative worlds and seeing what can be gleaned from them. Video games aren’t just a childish pastime, as it can sometimes be portrayed. Maybe not every game is a masterpiece, but there is art to be found among them, and they’re something worth examining as such. And two, the focus on the games themselves – what made them tick, what worked about them and what didn’t, with a nuance I didn’t see anywhere else. A space that didn’t let the trappings surrounding a game detract from what the game itself was trying to do, to be, that was willing to take a game on its own terms.

That’s exactly the sort of tradition and values I think the field needs. It’s what kept me reading, it’s what led me to join the team as a deputy editor, and it’s what I hope to continue to uphold as Editor-in-Chief.

So whether you’re a reader or a writer, a long-time visitor or a newcomer, I hope you’re all just as excited as I am for the games to come and the conversations we’ll have over them, be they old standards, new favorites, or anything in between. It’s an honor and a privilege to help bring you The-Pixels’ own special take on games criticism, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Further up and further in, my friends!

-Jordan, aka Linguistic Dragon
Editor-in-Chief of The-Pixels