PopSci has a short series about The Hard Science of Making Game, which cover different aspects of video game design. Interestingly enough, it shows how AI, water, human faces, light and shadows, fire, realistic movements. The article aims at summarizing "the top ten hurdles facing game designers today, and the cutting-edge tech that will soon make them relics of the past", and inevitably, the first point is "processing power". What I found surprising there is that all of this stuff seems to be relying on a model of video games that I find a bit passé. There's nothing explicit about User Experience, Interaction Design and it clearly shows an overemphasis on how "game design hurdles" can be fixed with technological blurring. I know these are less about "Hard Science" but still, one could wonder why the design of new user-interface are not present. Especially when you have points such as "fire", "water" or "human faces" described, as if they were the most important issues to design playful interactions.

Why do I blog this? morning rant.