< Back Andrew Martin Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Applications in game development for programming language theory and AI Modern game development is highly iterative. Iteration is usually discussed in terms of a team completing design iterations, but can also be considered at the level of an individual developer attempting to complete a task, or experimenting with some ideas. At this level, the feedback loop provided by the tool becomes critical. Programming environments in particular often have a very poor feedback loop. Programming feedback can be thought of in terms of how quickly and seamlessly the user is able to observe the results of their work. This process is usually plagued with manual tasks and long pauses. It is common that a user will need to recompile, relaunch their program, and then manually recreate whatever state is required to observe the behaviour that they are working on. Frameworks like Elm, React and Vuejs are establishing a new norm of automatic hot-reloading with state preservation. These systems represent a branch of programming language research that is strongly focused on developer experience. In order to improve upon this work for game development, we must overcome the unique challenges that game development entails. Although the systems mentioned are all quite recent, there is a rich vein of research to draw on, which can be traced through dataflow programming, Smalltalk, Erlang, functional-reactive programming, Lisp and more. Predictive completions are considered by many to be a natural next-step in the evolution of live programming environments. An AI programming assistant would propose program fragments as completions or alternatives. The agent may seek to anticipate the user’s intent, or to provide creative suggestions. There is much relevant research in the fields of program synthesis, inductive logic programming, machine learning and genetic programming. One significant problem is how to smoothly and safely integrate a system like this into the user’s workflow. Many of the properties useful for safely enabling live programming features, such as isolation of side-effects, will also permit an AI agent to safely generate and execute code. Andy graduated from Imperial College London with an MEng in Computing in 2011. Following this he worked on game engine tools and technology at a startup called Fen Research, and then as a senior developer at a software consulting firm called LShift. In 2016 he spent six months working as a Research Associate in the Computational Creativity group at Goldsmiths, before starting his PhD. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Luiza Gossian Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Luiza is a multidisciplinary researcher, game designer and developer interested in translating real world concepts into engaging game mechanics. Her work explores how games can bridge the gap between serious and entertainment design, combining the strengths of both to tackle difficult topics in new and unexpected ways. As an experienced artist, graphic designer and photographer, Luiza uses her visual skills and psychology background to prototype experimental game designs, design game documentation and craft atmospheric experiences. A description of Luiza's research: Luiza’s work explores alternative approaches to serious games that blend the accessibility and engagement of casual game design with the applied foundations of research-driven game development. Using her project Detachment Undone, an abstract arcade game inspired by the ten stages of genocide, she is investigating how to design games about genocide that break away from traditional, narrative-centric approaches and embrace the ludic potential of games. Drawing on theories of intergroup and cultural psychology, she is exploring how these difficult themes can be expressed through mechanics in engaging, effective and informative ways. Email l.gossian@outlook.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Jo Iacovides Dr Jeremy Gow Themes Applied Games Design & Development - Previous Next

< Back Callum Deery University of York iGGi Alum Callum is a researcher and game developer investigating how real-time player experience measurement can be used to drive adaptive games. Aiming to embed player experience questionnaires into games in a way that doesn’t break immersion and presence, his PhD is focussed on leveraging the wide range of existing player experience questionnaires to improve games ability to adapt to players. This will involve exploring the states of immersion and presence: What is necessary to maintain them? What experiences can players reflect on without breaking immersion? How do we embed a questionnaire into an in-development game without disrupting the player experience? Email callum.deery@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr James Walker Dr Anna Bramwell-Dicks Themes Accessibility Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Piers Williams University of Essex iGGi Alum Partial Observability as a game mechanic There is a wide variety of different types of games, each providing its own unique challenge to artificial intelligence. Not all games provide full access to the environment, creating interest and difficulty by hiding particular pieces of information from the player. Other types of game expect teamwork from the players rather than being solely adversarial. Some games use both restrictions, and it is this type of game that this thesis concentrates on. Piers graduated from the University of Essex with an MSc in Computer Science. His interests lie in the field of Artificial Intelligence and in particular Multi-Agent Systems. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): The 2018 Hanabi competition Hexboard: A generic game framework for turn-based strategy games Evaluating and Modelling Hanabi-Playing Agents Monte carlo tree search applied to co-operative problems Artificial intelligence in co-operative games with partial observability Ms. Pac-Man Versus Ghost Team CIG 2016 Competition Cooperative games with partial observability Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dominik Jeurissen Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Dominik holds an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from Maastricht University and a BSc in Computer Science with a focus on Applied Mathematics from RWTH Aachen. During his undergraduate studies, he worked for 3 years as a software engineer at INFORM GmbH, contributing to their supply management software, add*ONE. His long-term goal is to develop fully autonomous agents that can act in complex environments while continually improving themselves. As a result, he is familiar with many related fields, including reinforcement learning, continual learning, large language models (LLMs), and imitation learning. A description of Dominik's research: "My PhD is a collaboration with Creative Assembly , focusing on researching AI for complex strategy games, such as Total War. With the recent rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), I'm exploring their potential to enhance game-playing agents. LLMs can instantly recall knowledge on almost any topic, perform basic reasoning, and are easily configured for a wide range of text-based tasks. These abilities make them especially promising for game development, where machine learning agents often struggle due to constantly changing game environments. During an internship at Creative Assembly, I worked together with the Creative Assembly's R&D team and NVIDIA to develop a prototype for an Onboarding Assistant that aims to help players when they are stuck in the game. My current research aims to improve the assistant by exploring systems for retrieving dynamic gamestate information." Email d.jeurissen@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Dr Jeremy Gow Featured Publication(s): Exploration with Foundation Models: Capabilities, Limitations, and Hybrid Approaches Foundation Models as World Models: A Foundational Study in Text-Based GridWorlds Playing nethack with llms: Potential & limitations as zero-shot agents Playing NetHack with LLMs: Potential & Limitations as Zero-Shot Agents PyTAG: Challenges and Opportunities for Reinforcement Learning in Tabletop Games Generating Diverse and Competitive Play-Styles for Strategy Games Automatic Goal Discovery in Subgoal Monte Carlo Tree Search Game state and action abstracting monte carlo tree search for general strategy game-playing Portfolio search and optimization for general strategy game-playing The Design Of" Stratega": A General Strategy Games Framework Themes Design & Development Game AI Game Data - Previous Next

< Back Dr Lina Gega University of York Supervisor Qualified both as a nurse and a psychological therapist, Lina is a senior member of the Mental Health and Addictions Research Group (MHARG) at the University of York, where she leads research under the Digital Mental Health Theme. She has published widely on computer-based therapies and virtual environments. Lina's work on technology-mediated interventions and training formed an impact case study was submitted to 2014 Research Excellence Framework as part of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience. Lina’s current work focuses on interventions to improve health and quality of life for children and young people with mental health problems. She has led the development and evaluation of a purposeful game to treat phobias in children, and of an innovative virtual environments system to assist psychological therapy and skills training. She co-leads the digital theme for the Closing the Gap (CTG) Network, funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The Network’s digital theme explores how technologies, including gaming, can be used to improve the physical health of people with severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder. An experienced University teacher, supervisor and examiner, Lina welcomes students with a design, engineering or behavioural sciences background who are interested in applied games research in the field of mental health, with a focus on: development and ‘proof-of-concept’ studies of purposeful games to improve mental health outcomes and social communication skills in children and young people. adaptation and evaluation of gamified applications to improve physical health outcomes with people whose motivation and information processing are affected by severe mental illness. Research themes: Game Design Games with a Purpose Player Experience Gamified Mental Health Interventions Email lina.gega@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Oliver Roughton University of York iGGi Administrator iGGi Admin Based in York alongside Tracy and Helen I act as a Point of contact for iGGi PGRs and provide administrative support in the implementation of iGGi procedures. iGGi PGRs are most likely to hear from me in relation to conference/kit funding and travel bookings for the taught modules and other iGGi events. As well as my admin work I am a part-time PhD student (not with iGGi) and spend much of my free time knitting. Email oliver.roughton@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Previous Next

< Back Dr Daniel Gomme University of Essex iGGi Alum Players have underlying expectations of the opponents they play against in strategy games: don't break the rules, provide a sense of tension, be able to communicate plans... AI doesn't always fulfil these. Dan's focus is on finding ways to better fulfil those expectations - and even to overtly change them - in order to improve player experience. With qualitative tools and in-game testing, he's found several concrete design mechanisms that can further that goal. Email daniel.gomme@yahoo.co.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor Prof. Richard Bartle Featured Publication(s): Player Expectations of Strategy Game AI Playing with Dezgo: Adapting Human-AI Interaction to the Context of Play Strategy Games: The Components of A Worthy Opponent Distributed Social Multi-Agent Negotiation Framework For Incomplete Information Games Tools To Adjust Tension And Suspense In Strategy Games: An Investigation Themes Design & Development Game AI Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Rob Homewood Goldsmiths iGGi Alum Personalised Aesthetics for Games The worldwide games industry is a huge market and as the spectrum of people who spend time playing games increases, there is more and more competition to create games that capture the attentions of a wide audience. Whilst games have been traditionally designed with specific cultural demographics in mind, a game that could dynamically match the cultural values of a range of demographics would maximize its potential market. Robert’s research looks at developing techniques for procedurally generating dynamic game assets that can be viewed as being relevant at a ‘per player’ level. He aims to do this by actively profiling a player’s social networks and building up a picture of the cultural references with which they identify. This knowledge could then be used to create game assets that match an aesthetic the player would likely feel comfortable with, allowing a more flexible decoupling between game mechanics and aesthetic during the design process. Designers could then focus on creating interesting game mechanics that could work in a variety of settings and the system would fill in the aesthetic detail based on the requirements of the individual player at run-time. Having studied in five countries, Robert is currently undertaking a PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London where he is part of the EPSRC funded IGGI (Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence) program. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Game Design and Production Management from the University of Abertay Dundee which included a year of studies at the George Mason University Computer Game Design Program. He also spent a year studying Serious Games at Masters level at the University of Skövde in Sweden (which has the longest running Serious Games program in the world). Robert has an active interest in the media arts field and has exhibited his work in three countries. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Patrik Huber University of York Supervisor Patrik Huber is a researcher, developer and entrepreneur, working on 3D face reconstruction and face analysis in images and videos using 3D face models. He is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Computer Vision in the Department of Computer Science of the University of York, UK, and he’s the Founder of 4dface.io, a small start-up specialising in 3D face models and realistic 3D face avatars for professional applications. His research is focused on computer vision, in particular, he is interested in the question of how to robustly obtain a metrically accurate, pose-invariant 3D representation of a face from 2D images and videos. He is interested in face tracking, 3D face modelling, analysis and synthesis, metrically accurate 3D face shape reconstruction, inverse rendering, and combining deep learning with 3D face models. Patrik is particularly interested in supervising students with a strong background and interest in computer vision, machine learning, computer graphics, and modern C++/Python, on topics related to creating 3D face avatars of players for immersive playing and social experiences , and using face analytics for professional e-sports . Research themes: 3D face avatars for games AR/VR Serious games and social interaction Immersive 3D player experiences Game Analytics Games with a Purpose E-Sports Email patrik.huber@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Esports Game Data Immersive Technology Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Nathan Hughes University of York iGGi Alum Nathan Hughes is a player experience researcher who focuses on how player make choices within games. Specifically, the work explores open world games such as Skyrim and the Witcher 3, as these games allow players a vast amount of choice with little restrictions on how and when these are made. However, little research has considered these choices, so little is known about how players experience choice in open world games. Therefore, research questions for this work include; why do players choose not to pursue the main quest? What do players choose to do instead? When and how do they make this decision? His background is in psychology, and so asks these questions from a psychological perspective. The aim is to uncover how the process of choosing unfolds, and how this is influenced. In turn, this may allow reflections on how the decision-making process operates - by analysing choices within open world games, a more controlled (but still intrinsically motivating) setting can be studied. Email ngjhughes@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor Prof. Paul Cairns Featured Publication(s): Clinicians Risk Becoming "Liability Sinks" for Artificial Intelligence Understanding specific gaming experiences: the case of open world games The need for the human-centred explanation for ML-based clinical decision support systems Growing Together: An Analysis of Measurement Transparency Across 15 Years of Player Motivation Questionnaires Contextual design requirements for decision-support tools involved in weaning patients from mechanical ventilation in intensive care units Opening the World of Contextually-Specific Player Experiences No Item Is an Island Entire of Itself: A Statistical Analysis of Individual Player Difference Questionnaires Ethereum Crypto-Games: Mechanics, Prevalence, and Gambling Similarities Themes Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Florence Smith Nicholls Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Florence Smith Nicholls is a game AI PhD researcher based in London. They worked as an archaeologist and heritage consultant for 7 years prior to their doctoral research. Building on their heritage background, they have contributed to the field of archaeogaming through experimenting with archaeological approaches to titles such as Elden Ring and Nier: Automata. They coined the term “generative archaeology games” for their doctoral project on the archaeological recording of procedurally generated content. Their work is motivated by contributing to wider research on games preservation, ethics of game AI and procedural narrative. They are also interested in queer approaches to games, having written about queerness and documenting glitches. They are also a freelance narrative designer, previously a member of the writers' room at the indie studio Die Gute Fabrik. During a placement at the British Library they worked on enhanced curation methods for narrative mobile apps, and were commissioned to produce gameplay footage for the Library's Digital Storytelling exhibition. Email f.c.smithnicholls@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor(s): Dr Mike Cook Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk Featured Publication(s): Video Game Archaeology as Hauntological Practice: A Collaborative Autoethnography in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree 10 Welcome to Revachol: Disco Elysium as virtual dark tourism Collecting complex digital publications: testing an enhanced curation method Androgynous artefacts: The princess as heirloom in The Legend of Zelda franchise Fork in the Road: Consuming and Producing Video Game Cartographies The Dark Souls of Archaeology: Recording Elden Ring “That Darned Sandstorm”: A Study of Procedural Generation through Archaeological Storytelling User-centred collecting for emerging formats Permalife of the Archive: Archaeogaming as Queergaming How To Save A World: The Go-Along Interview as Game Preservation Methodology in Wurm Online Archaeological Gameworld Affordances: A Grounded Theory of How Players Interpret Environmental Storytelling Themes Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI Game Data - Previous Next