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< Back Dr Kevin Denamganaï University of York iGGi Alum Available for post-PhD position After graduating as an Engineer from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l'Electronique et de ses Applications (ENSEA), France, with two double-degree diplomas, a MEng in Electrical Engineering and Information Science from the Osaka Prefecture University (OPU), Japan, and a MRes in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from the Université de Cergy-Pontoise (UCP), France, Kevin Denamganaï spent a year accumulating experience as a Robotics & Machine Learning freelancer. He is now putting those skills at use in the IGGI PhD program, that, among other things, gives him the opportunity to reunite with video games. Indeed, it was thanks to a keen interest towards video game creation that he started learning programming around 12. His research interests are about everything psychology, neuroscience, AI, (deep) reinforcement/imitation learning, robotics, and natural/artificial language emergence and understanding as well as human-computer interfaces, challenging the question what are the necessary components of artificial agents to be able to converse with human-beings in an engaging manner and to be able to cooperate with them towards a pre-defined goal, e.g. clearing a level in a given video game. Email kevin.denamganai@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor(s): Dr James Walker Featured Publication(s): CueTip: An Interactive and Explainable Physics-aware Pool Assistant EReLELA: Exploration in Reinforcement Learning via Emergent Language Abstractions Language Model Inversion through End-to-End Differentiation xInv: Explainable Optimization of Inverse Problems ETHER: Aligning Emergent Communication for Hindsight Experience Replay Visual Referential Games Further the Emergence of Disentangled Representations Meta-Referential Games to Learn Compositional Learning Behaviours A comparison of self-play algorithms under a generalized framework On (Emergent) Systematic Generalisation and Compositionality in Visual Referential Games with Straight-Through Gumbel-Softmax Estimator ReferentialGym: A Nomenclature and Framework for Language Emergence & Grounding in (Visual) Referential Games A generalized framework for self-play training Coupled Kuramoto oscillator-based control laws for both formation and obstacle avoidance control of two-wheeled mobile robots Obstacle avoidance control law for two-wheeled mobile robots controlled by oscillators Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Nuria Peña Pérez Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Nuria got her bachelor’s in biomedical engineering in Spain before moving to London. After studying an MSc in Neurotechnology and working in robotic neurorehabilitation at Imperial College London, she discovered the enormous potential of serious games in the field of human-robot interaction. She joined IGGI in 2018. Her PhD research involves studying human motor control and learning during bimanual tasks to investigate how the dynamics of the interaction can serve to develop better training systems. This is done through the development of interactive gaming environments that are compatible with rehabilitation robotic devices. The modelling of the recorded human neuromuscular data allows to explore how to better help patients to restore their motor function. Her work is a collaboration between the Advanced Robotics group at Queen Mary University of London and the Human Robotics group at Imperial College London. As part of her PhD she has worked for the company GripAble, developing games for the assessment and training of hand function (February 2020-August-2020). Email n.penaperez@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor(s): Dr Ildar Farkhatdinov Featured Publication(s): Redundancy Resolution in Trimanual vs. Bimanual Tracking Tasks Dissociating haptic feedback from physical assistance does not improve motor performance Bimanual interaction in virtually and mechanically coupled tasks The impact of stiffness in bimanual versus dyadic interactions requiring force exchange How virtual and mechanical coupling impact bimanual tracking Lateralization of impedance control in dynamic versus static bimanual tasks Is a robot needed to modify human effort in bimanual tracking? Exploring user motor behaviour in bimanual interactive video games Quartz Crystal Resonator for Real-Time Characterization of Nanoscale Phenomena Relevant for Biomedical Applications Illuminating Game Space Using MAP-Elites for Assisting Video Game Design Themes Applied Games - Previous Next

< Back Prof. Matthew Purver Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Matthew Purver is Professor of Computational Linguistics, and leader of QMUL’s Computational Linguistics Laboratory. His research has covered many aspects of natural language processing (NLP), with a £4m grant portfolio including projects on fundamental techniques like cross-lingual processing and incremental language understanding, and applications to news media, social media analysis and mental health diagnosis. His work has been covered by the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, LA Times, NBC and Scientific American, among others. He is also a senior researcher at the Jožef Stefan Institute, Slovenia, and in 2011 he co-founded the company Chatterbox Labs Ltd. He is interested in supervising students with a background in NLP, linguistics or machine learning and an interest in analysis or generation of natural language. Research themes: Language in Games Game AI Computational Creativity Email m.purver@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Creative Computing Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Joe Cutting University of York iGGi Alum + Supervisor Dr Joe Cutting is a Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York, UK. He has a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Cognitive Science from the University of Birmingham and completed an IGGI PhD at the University of York in 2019. Much of his research is in the area of the effects of playing video games on outcomes such as learning, cognitive abilities, wellbeing and behaviour change. This includes new psychological theories of how learning happens in video games and how game play can affect mental health, as well as studies on how game play can prevent cognitive decline in older people. He is also creating applied games to address current issues in education such as student wellbeing and teacher recruitment. Before becoming an academic, Joe enjoyed a varied career which included working as an interactive producer for the London Science Museum and founding his own digital startup company in the area of applied games. Email joe.cutting@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor(s): Prof. Paul Cairns Featured Publication(s): 01 01V Difficulty-skill balance does not affect engagement and enjoyment: a pre-registered study using artificial intelligence-controlled difficulty Higher working memory capacity and distraction-resistance associated with strategy (not action) game playing in younger adults, but puzzle game playing in older adults Objective difficulty-skill balance impacts perceived balance but not behaviour: A test of flow and self-determination theory predictions The task-attention theory of game learning: a theory and research agenda The Relationship Between Lockdowns and Video Game Playtime: Multilevel Time-Series Analysis Using Massive-Scale Data Telemetry Four grand challenges for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games Measuring the experience of playing self-paced games Measuring game experience using visual distractors Four dilemmas for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games The many faces of monetisation: Understanding the diversity and extremity of player spending in mobile games via massive-scale transactional analysis Busy doing nothing? What do players do in idle games? Understanding whether lockdowns lead to increases in the heaviness of gaming using massive-scale data telemetry: An analysis of 251 billion hours of playtime Themes Applied Games Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Lisa Sha Li University of York iGGi Alum Gifting in video games (Industry collaboration with BT) Lisa’s research is an exploration of gifting behaviour in video games. In the fields of social science and positive psychology, a considerable amount of research has found out how being generous, and its incarnation in gifting can benefit one’s subjective well-being. However, when it comes to the digital space, little do we know about how people can become happier through gifting. On the one hand, the research is curious about whether the practice of gifting changes in the context of video games. If it changes, the research attempts to identify what features thereof are different or even new, and to understand how gifting protocols could function in the digital space. On the other hand, the research is curious about how to apply gifting to video games, employing its benefits in enhancing social relationships and good feelings. The current purpose is to propose a framework of gifting between a human player and non-player characters that designers can use as an instruction when designing such activities. There is also a potentially high value of gifting in the marketing aspect of the game industry. Inspired by the observation of everyday life, Lisa tries to find better solutions to problems which need to be considered from both artistic and informatics perspectives. She is now a research student at the University of York. She is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh where she received an MSc in Advanced Design Informatics, with Distinction. Her earlier degree is B.Eng in Digital Media Arts (Xiamen University, Software School). She spent half a year in Taiwan as an exchange student in 2012. She did a summer internship developing VR games with the Two Big Ears, back in 2014. Email shali.8.lisa@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Ryan Spick University of York iGGi Alum Deep Learning for Procedural Content Generation in Virtual Environments Ryan Spick is a PhD student with a computer science background, working on methods to improve how content (models, terrain, assets etc.) is created with an autonomous focus, with the main focus on generative deep learning to augment real-world data through a series of neural network layers to learn unlying properties of these data. Ryan has published a variety of papers around his main topic of generating content, such as terrain generation using generative adversarial networks and 3D voxel coloured model generation, to collaborations on other topics using deep learning, such as death prediction in a multiplayer online game and applying a recent map-elites algorithm. He has also worked with several leading industry researchers/games companies to further develop his research skill.If you have any ideas or collaboration opportunities please get in contact through any of the mediums below. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email ryan.spick@hotmail.co.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): System and Method for Point Cloud Generation System and method for training a machine learning model Robust Imitation Learning for Automated Game Testing Behavioural Cloning in VizDoom Utilising VIPER for Parameter Space Exploration in Agent Based Wealth Distribution Models Human Point Cloud Generation using Deep Learning Naive mesh-to-mesh coloured model generation using 3D GANs Realistic and textured terrain generation using GANs Procedural Generation using Spatial GANs for Region-Specific Learning of Elevation Data Deep Learning for Wave Height Classification in Satellite Images for Offshore Wind Access Illuminating Game Space Using MAP-Elites for Assisting Video Game Design Time to die: Death prediction in dota 2 using deep learning Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Shringi Kumari University of York iGGi Alum Shringi is a seasoned game designer with more than nine years of experience making games for companies including EA, Zynga, Bigpoint, and Wooga. She became a researcher four years ago, wondering how game designers can take inspiration from other creative fields. In her PhD, she is now studying how stage magic can be translated to games for creating believable illusions of choice and moments of surprise. She continues to consult as a game designer for companies and has started a lecturership in game design at University of East London. In the past years she has spoken about game design across the world at a number of known platforms: Indiecade Europe, Develop, Game Happens, SOMA Chicago, GDC India to count some. As a creative, she engages in working on disruptive design both in games and beyond. Her work reflects her Indian background and discusses universal issues of identity, need for diversity and the idea or illusion of home. She has recently published her debut poetry collection,“The Saree Shop” and has featured in a short story anthology with her story ”Garden of Vaginas”. Shringi is supervised by Dr Sebastian Deterding (York) and Dr Gustav Kuhn (Goldsmiths). Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): The role of uncertainty in moment-to-moment player motivation: a grounded theory Why game designers should study magic Investigating uncertainty in digital games and its impact on player immersion Studying General Agents in Video Games from the Perspective of Player Experience The Magician's Choice: Providing illusory choice and sense of agency with the Equivoque forcing technique. Design Inspiration for Motivating Uncertainty in Games using Stage Magic Principles Themes Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Timea Farkas Goldsmiths iGGi Alum Timea is a researcher striving to understand how people engage with technologies—broadly defined—in their everyday lives, and how new technologies can enhance people's experiences of play, creative expression, and beyond. She has always been drawn to learning new things, with a background ranging from creative arts through games to science, which allows her to apply an interdisciplinary outlook towards research. She holds an MA in Sonic Arts from the University of Sheffield and has graduated with a First Class (Hons) degree in music composition and technology with a special award for outstanding achievement and collaboration. A description of Timea's research: This research project centres around understanding board game players' relationship with the immersive capabilities of hybrid board games - board games with a digital component - through finding novel interactions which strengthen the sensory elements of tabletop games. By focusing on physical board game pieces as alternative input devices to touch screens, the goal is to explore the design space of analogue-digital hybrids with a player-centric approach. Email farkasmarimba@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Exploring the Design Space of Analogue-Digital Hybrid Boardgames Using a Player-Centric Approach How Boardgame Players Imagine Interacting With Technology The Effects of a Soundtrack on Board Game Player Experience A Grounded Analysis of Player-Described Board Game Immersion Themes Creative Computing Immersive Technology Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Sahar Mirhadi University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Sahar Mirhadi is a final-year PhD researcher investigating how video games support during challenging times. Her contributions have been published in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, and she has presented at Devcom on transforming the complexity of turn-based games into a strategic advantage. She is also a passionate Magic: The Gathering player, collaborating with competitive Magic team Worldly Counsel to convert tournament insights into a deeper understanding of player motivations and team dynamics. Sahar is also a Safe In Our World Ambassador, a recipient of the Magic: The Gathering New Perspectives Grant for Marginalised Players, and a member of the Birds of Paradise collective. A description of Sahar's research: Sahar's PhD research project investigates the specific aspects of games that facilitate coping for players during difficult life experiences. Building on earlier work that mapped broad links between game aspects and coping strategies, Sahar’s first study showed that games can support a variety of coping strategies, including emotion-focused, avoidance, and meaning-focused coping. However, questions remained about how these effects occur across different gaming contexts. To address this, her second study employed in-depth interviews and a grounded theory approach with players of Disco Elysium, Darkest Dungeon and Stardew Valley. The findings led to the development of the Games as Dynamic Coping Systems theory, which posits that specific aspects of video games scaffold a diverse range of coping strategies for players facing personal difficulties. The model highlights the dynamic interplay between what the player brings (e.g., prior experiences, needs, skills) and what the game provides (such as Narrative, Game Environment and Character Interactions). Through this interaction, players develop coping strategies, and the outcomes from coping feed back into their ongoing gaming and life experiences. While the grounded theory offered a deeper understanding of how specific game aspects support various coping strategies, it also revealed a gap: the temporal dynamics of coping. Sahar’s ongoing work aims to explore how players transition between coping strategies over time and what factors shape these transitions. Her overall aim is to provide a deeper understanding of specific aspects within games that support coping, shedding light on the potential benefits and limitations of video games during times of difficulty. Email sm2904@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Alena Denisova Dr Jo Iacovides Themes Player Research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTTCR25O0Y Previous Next

< Back Rokas Volkovas Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Application of Neuroevolution to General Video Game Playing In the field of artificial intelligence, great advancements in developing AI capable of playing specific games has been made over last few decades. Over the years, the potential of General Game Playing (GGP) AI, was realized, and thus a new area of research was spawned, focusing mainly on turn-based board games. Rapidly expanding, it was just recently extended to include video games and has morphed into General Video Game Playing (GVGP). The studies in this space of AI are highly attractive due to their solution capacity of being highly transferable. As the field is relatively new, there are many different paths to explore. Some effort has already been put into incorporating the established Genetic Algorithm techniques into the area. The goal of the proposed research is to further develop models using the more complex evolutionary algorithms to find generalist solutions to the problems exposed in GVGP. More specifically, the research will aim to discover the appropriate applications and the modifications necessary of approaches such as Competitive Coevolution, circumventing its drawbacks and evolving populations capable of playing multiple games. Furthermore, in addition to other methods it will be concerned with the application of models developing generalist memory on a slower scale evolution (compared to individual in a population) with continuous state perturbations, to find closer to optimum results - adapting networks of individuals to the fitness landscape. In order to reach the goals of the research a number of experiments will be conducted, using a select few video games as a base performance measure. Training the populations evolved will involve tuning the evolutionary operators as well as altering pre-designed system be- haviours to suitably compare the viability of applied procedures. The success of bridging EA with GVPG, along with its advantages and drawbacks in the field will be readily deter- mined, comparing the solutions found to those of other existing approaches. Specifically, the similarity of the behaviour in evolvability using genetic networks searching for solutions and learning theory, via neural networks, has recently been suggested. Evolution is defined to not have any foresight, but models were built showing how it can remember previously discovered solutions, which would imply that natural selection leans towards long term evolvability. Kostas Kouvaris et. al. further establishes the underlying equivalence of the approaches, applying machine learning techniques to improve the generalisation of EA. The generalization allows combining the features from previous experience to find individuals with new feature combinations, better adapted to unseen environments. Were the exploratory learning methods developed in EA to perform no less satisfactorily in the gaming industry environment, given enough sample data from a handful of well defined behaviours, the AI units could be trained to adapt to the new levels they are placed in. In theory, this would then translate to the same amount of effort producing a larger variety of content or, alternatively, producing the same amount of content with less effort, distributing the excess to other areas of development or eliminating it to lower the total production cost. Rokas is an MEng Electronic Engineering graduate from University of Southampton. Initially, pushed away from programming in school due to being taught Pascal, he realized its power in the compulsory C course in University. Applying the knowledge to building games caused the gradual shift from electronics to software development, with the 4th year modules all having the CS tag. During the undergraduate studies Rokas held the UKESF scholarship and did 2 summer internships at Imagination Technologies. Interests in game and software development got him researching neuroevolutionary machine learning for video games. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Automatic Game Tuning for Strategic Diversity Practical Game Design Tool: State Explorer Extracting learning curves from puzzle games Mek: Mechanics prototyping tool for 2d tile-based turn-based deterministic games Diversity maintenance using a population of repelling random-mutation hill climbers Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Mihail Morosan University of Essex iGGi Alum Computational Intelligence and Game Balance. (Industry placement at MindArk) Game design has been a staple of human ingenuity and innovation for as long as games have been around. From sports, such as football, to applying game mechanics to the real world, such as reward schemes in shops, games have impacted the world in surprising ways. This process can, and should, be aided by automated systems, as machines have proven to be capable of finding innovative ways to complement human intuition and inventiveness. When man and machine cooperate, better products are created and the world has only to benefit. My research seeks to find, test and assess methods to apply computational intelligence to human-led game balance. Early research has proven that AI can successfully aid game designers in analysing the viability of various game rules and I intend to document this and polish the techniques that will result from my work. To achieve this, I am making use of cutting edge algorithms, powerful AI techniques and novel methods. Most of the current work done involves the use of evolutionary algorithms, as well as statistical analysis and evaluation of intelligent agents in various video games. Programmer (with a focus on optimisation and quick deliverables, mostly due to competitive experience), gamer (games are fun, relaxing and a great social experience), technology consumer (comes with the programmer bit) and all around happy guy stumbling through the world. Once ended up in a management internship at a bank thinking the application was for a programming position. And another time told an interviewer that "buying and eating a burger to solve hunger" is a legitimate problem-solving skill. Somehow received an invitation to the next interview stage. Email me@morosanmihail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Automating game-design and game-agent balancing through computational intelligence Lessons from testing an evolutionary automated game balancer in industry Genetic optimisation of BCI systems for identifying games related cognitive states Online-Trained Fitness Approximators for Real-World Game Balancing Evolving a designer-balanced neural network for Ms PacMan Speeding up genetic algorithm-based game balancing using fitness predictors Automated game balancing in Ms PacMan and StarCraft using evolutionary algorithms Themes Design & Development Game AI Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Prof. Nick Bryan-Kinns Queen Mary University of London Supervisor Nick Bryan-Kinns is Professor of Interaction Design and Director of the Media and Arts Technology Centre at Queen Mary University of London. He is Distinguished Professor at Wuhan University of Technology, and Guest Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Fellow of the British Computer Society, Senior Member of the Association for Computing Machinery, and leads the Sonic Interaction Design Lab in the Centre for Digital Music. He has published international journal papers on cross-cultural design, participatory design, mutual engagement, interactive art, and tangible interfaces. His research has been exhibited internationally and reported widely from the New Scientist to the BBC. He chaired the Steering Committee for the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference series, and is a recipient of ACM and BCS Recognition of Service Awards. He is interested in supervising students with HCI, Interaction Design, or AI backgrounds on research into the intersection of Sonic Interaction Design, play, and AI. Especially project which involve designing and evaluating computer mediated experiences for human participation and collaboration. Research themes: Game Audio and Music Games with a Purpose Computational Creativity Player Experience Gamification Email n.bryan-kinns@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Creative Computing Game Audio Player Research - Previous Next