'Space Lawyer', a Novel by L.B. Jeffries
Space Lawyer is a science fiction story set in Charleston, South Carolina that engages with the classic themes of Southern Gothic in radical ways.
23 Jul 2013
Recent
On Design-Centric Game Criticism
L.B. Jeffries bids adieu to the Moving Pixels audience, but before he goes, he has a few words to share about writing game criticism, noting that "the difference between a critical analysis and a game FAQ is that somebody who has never played the game can still gain something from good analysis."
11 Oct 2010
Music, Space, And Your House
"If you grew up thinking that the stage/arena show is what live music is supposed to be, it’s jarring to be confronted with a band playing two feet in front of you, running into you, spitting in your face, hitting you with their instruments."
04 Oct 2010
The Multimedia Diet
People may not listen when they feel like they're being preached at, but raw data has a voice all its own.
28 Sep 2010
Filling in the Details in Video Game Worlds
When an author constructs an entire world, they tend to want to show it off as much as possible and provide explanations to game players. That's when games get stuck, especially if borrowing from sci-fi or fantasy literature.
20 Sep 2010
Post-Structuralism in Video Games
It doesn’t matter what you try to force a space into being, people will define that space themselves in connection to other parts. A game designer never truly plays their own game.
13 Sep 2010
Sierra vs. Lucasarts
What benefit is there to having terminal consequences in an adventure game? Adventure games always succumb to the issue of having an interface where you can theoretically do anything and having it confined to a space where you can only do what the designer allows.
06 Sep 2010
Perfecting Loss in 'N+'
For as often as I died while playing N+, maybe the best compliment that I can pay it is that I didn’t mind a single time.
30 Aug 2010
Video Game Parodies
The general traits of a video game parodying another video game are simplification of both content and design to show how inane the bare bones interaction of that game really is.
23 Aug 2010
Mastering the Basics in Butcher Bay
Escape From Butcher Bay is a simple story with simple mechanics, but it works with what it has elegantly.
16 Aug 2010
Mary Flanagan's 'Critical Play'
“In the final analysis, a critique of performance practices must ask: Who gets to play?"
09 Aug 2010
'LOST' and Video Games
At the end of the fourth season, LOST abandoned mimicking the content of video games and instead focused on how they characterize space.
02 Aug 2010
The Multiple Choice Game
A multiple choice exam is looking for a sweetspot of a certain percentage passing, not too high and not too low.
26 Jul 2010
A Good A.I. Trick
The art of video game AI is in making a player think that they’re interacting with something more sophisticated than it really is.
19 Jul 2010
Transparent Difficulty in 'Order of Ecclesia'
The perception of challenge in a game is always contextual and based on prior experiences in the game space.
12 Jul 2010
Johan Huizinga's 'Homo Ludens'
You can describe the characteristics of play and you can define qualities of something that is not play, but it’s always going to be a loose concept.
05 Jul 2010
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