< Back Dr Madeleine Frister University of York iGGi Alum Madeleine joined the IGGI programme in 2020, after obtaining a master’s degree in psychology and cognitive neuroscience from the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Her PhD focuses on how visual characteristics influence gameplay and player experience. In 2021, she co-founded UX studio Vanilla Noir where she works as an independent designer and developer on website, app and game projects. Video games rely heavily on central aspects of human information processing, including perception, attention, and memory. The human mind is severely limited in the amount of information it can process, and a key factor for successful information processing is resisting distraction. Consequently, most user experience guidelines recommend eliminating any unnecessary information to avoid cognitive overload. Yet, in the case of video games, the presence of task-irrelevant items does not seem to compromise player experience, considering that there is an abundance of popular video games that are very high in visual complexity. On the contrary, inducing demand in the form of perceptual distraction may even be desirable in order to introduce challenge which can in turn increase enjoyment. The current project aims to deepen our understanding of perceptual distraction and its effects on game difficulty and player experience, with a specific focus on perceptual similarity between target and distractor items. Email mf1255@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors Prof. Paul Cairns Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk Dr Fiona McNab Featured Publication(s): Examining the influence of target-distractor similarity on difficulty in a working memory game Advancing Methodological Approaches in Affect-Adaptive Video Game Design: Empirical Validation of Emotion-Driven Gameplay Modification Perceptual Distraction and its Effects on Difficulty and User Experience in Digital Games An appraisal-based chain-of-emotion architecture for affective language model game agents Examining the effects of video game difficulty adaptation on performance and player experience Examining the influence of perceptual distraction on performance in a working memory game A data-driven approach for examining the demand for relaxation games on Steam during the COVID-19 pandemic Themes Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Joshua Kritz Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Graduated in Applied Mathematics in computer science, however my love for games pushed me to dedicate myself for studying them. This led me to brave many areas of knowledge, such as: psychology, design, education, production and entrepreneurship. My work as a teacher allowed me develop many of these skills in practice, besides invoking a new perspective about the world. On a personal level, I love new experiences that can teach me new knowledge and, most important, I am very open minded and easy to talk to! I believe discussion leads to enlightenment. A description of Joshua's research: Card games, in particular Trading Card Games (TCGs) thrive on using the synergy between the cards to create emergent and interesting gameplay. However, these games usually have hundreds of different cards to create such rich experience, with some older TCGs featuring thousands of different cards. With such a huge amount of different cards playtesting these games present a big challenge. In example a new set of Magic the Gathering takes over 3 years of development to be fully designed. But even considering simpler exemplars like Dominion or Assencion can be difficult to balance, and both games are known to need a few expansions of experience to indeed provide a well balanced experience. One way to make this task faster and easier is to use automated agents to playtest the game exhaustively and provide much needed data. Whilst this would assist card game development, it is not used in practice, the playtesting of card games is still completely done by players. Even with systematic playtesting there is a limit of how much of the possibilities humans can test. However, implementing playtesting of card games have two big challenges, which are the main reason it has not been implemented in practice yet. First: Automated agents are not great when playing a game with too many variables (different cards) Second: The possible combinations of cards used in a deck or set of a single game is huge. My research aim to address the second issue by using a theory of synergy between cards to reduce the search space necessary to properly evaluate a card game. Email j.s.kritz@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor: Dr Raluca Gaina Featured Publication(s): Toward an Ontology of Wargame Design A Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Investigation Elements in Games A FAIR catalog of ontology-driven conceptual models O Que São Jogos A FAIR catalog of ontology-driven conceptual models A Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Investigation Elements in Games A Vocabulary of Board Game Dynamics Unveiling modern board games: an ML-based approach to BoardGameGeek data analysis When 1+ 1 does not equal 2: Synergy in games Towards an Ontology of Wargame Design Themes Applied Games Design & Development Game AI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StVXD9EbXzQ Previous Next

< Back Dr Adrián Barahona-Ríos University of York iGGi Alum From 2018 and in collaboration with Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe, Adrián is researching strategies to increase the efficiency in the creation of procedural audio models for video games by using DSP and machine learning approaches. His main research interests, applied to the synthesis of sound effects, are generative deep learning (GANs, RNNs and VAEs) to synthesise raw audio and machine learning to find out the best parameters for a synthesiser to generate a target sound. Adrián has been enthusiastic about sound and more specifically about game audio since he began his studies. By the time he completed an HND in Creative Media Production in Madrid, he started working in the industry as a recording engineer in an ADR studio for the Spanish localisation of video games (such as Fallout 4, Until Dawn or Just Cause 3). He moved from Spain to the UK in 2015 to take a BA (top-up) in Music Production at the Southampton Solent University and an MSc in Sound Design at the University of Edinburgh immediately after. During that journey, he focused his career in procedural audio and explored ways to create models for interactive applications by using different techniques. Email adrian.barahona.rios@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor Dr Tom Collins Featured Publication(s): RESP: Reference-guided Sequential Prompting for Visual Glitch Detection in Video Games Deep Learning for the Synthesis of Sound Effects NoiseBandNet: controllable time-varying neural synthesis of sound effects using filterbanks Sonifying energy consumption using SpecSinGAN SpecSinGAN: Sound Effect Variation Synthesis Using Single-Image GANs Synthesising Knocking Sound Effects Using Conditional WaveGAN Perception of emotions in knocking sounds: An evaluation study Perceptual Evaluation of Modal Synthesis for Impact-Based Sounds Illuminating Game Space Using MAP-Elites for Assisting Video Game Design Themes Creative Computing Game Audio - Previous Next

< Back Nirit Binyamini Ben Meir Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Nirit Binyamini Ben-Meir is a designer/ artist based in London. Her work explores the interconnection between society, technology and ecology. She is an Associate Lecturer at the Royal College of Art London, where she gained her MA in Information Experience Design. She has a professional background in visual communication and interaction design. She uses participatory installations, digital tools and responsive plants to create experiences for humans to interact with their biosphere. She combines ecological systems with technology to challenge human perception and provoke thought about bioethics, power relations, and the Anthropocene implications. Nirit’s main research interests are around More-Than-Human Interactions and the integration of living organisms into digital interactions. She investigates how these hybrid interactions may help mediate relatable, sensory experiences with plants and influence people's attitudes towards ecological stewardship. She is developing the Bio-Digital Garden concept, which combines computational elements and living moss, a responsive plant that gives qualitative visual feedback to changes in its environment in real-time. Her exploration focuses on the potential of using human-computer-plant to identify current weak points in pro-environmental behaviour and care for non-human entities, as well as influence people's perceived accountability through tangible feedback, bridging time-scale gaps, and generating a sense of urgency. Email n.binyaminiben-meir@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Featured Publication(s): Mediated ecology in Fukushima: decentralized storytelling and collaborative telepresent experience beyond the post-disaster landscape Evaluating Impact as a Distributed Ecosystem: Insights from a Coral-Themed Museum Late POD/Post-anthropocentric design: World Oceans Day 2022 Post-anthropocentric design lab (PADLab). The AI art school: A speculative design workshop The PAD Framework: Postdigital Design Education for Post-Anthropocentric Futures Domestic Cultures of Plant Care: A Moss Terrarium Probe Experience as a transformational practice Design Methods for Accessing the Pluriverse Forging new narratives Themes Applied Games Creative Computing Design & Development - Previous Next

< Back Nicole Levermore University of York Alumni Liaison Nicole, who is currently also an iGGi PhD Researcher (see her PGR profile here ), was hired by iGGi in December 2025 as an additional Administrative Assistant. The role's key aim is to grow and support the iGGi Alumni Network, where past iGGi Students can keep up to date with what each other is doing, stay in contact, collaborate etc. If you are an iGGi Alum and want to be a part of an iGGi Alumni Network, Nicole would love to hear from you. Over the forthcoming months, she will reach out to those who have expressed interest or who will probably be interested, and she will share details about the envisaged concept. Please feel free to contact Nicole about anything iGGi Alumni Network related, as suggestions are always welcome! Email nicole.levermore@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Accessibility Design & Development Immersive Technology Player Research Previous Next

< Back Prof. Sebastian Deterding iGGi Responsible Innovation Lead Supervisor Sebastian Deterding is a designer-researcher working on playful, gameful, motivational, and eudaimonic design. His work asks how we might re-design the socio-technical rule systems we live in to enable a good life for all. He is founder of the Gamification Research Network, and co-editor of The Gameful World (MIT Press, 2015). An internationally recognised leader of gamification research, he is frequently invited to keynote and speak at venues like Lift, Interaction, GDC, Games Learning Society, Google, IDEO, and MIT, and his work has been covered by The Guardian, The New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times, arte, and EDGE Magazine among others. As a senior research fellow at the Digital Creativity Labs, Sebastian works on the intersection of AI, machine learning, and design for augmented creativity: how can we create systems that learn to automatically adapt and serve optimally engaging content to users, and serve optimally supportive design suggestions and tutorials to creators? He is particularly interested in supervising students with a design, HCI, or behavioural sciences background on the following topics: understanding and designing for uncertainty, curiosity, and epistemic emotions in games applied games for decarbonisation and climate adaptation design for behaviour change Self-determination theory and games Research themes: Game Design Games with a Purpose Computational Creativity Player Experience Gamification Email sebastian.deterding@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Creative Computing Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Sam Hughes University of York iGGi Alum Affect and Emotion using Immersive Sound in Intelligent Games. (On Industrial Placement with Remedy Entertainment) Recent advances in high definition video displays and 3-D headsets, coupled with motion tracking and biosensor technologies, have enabled video games to reach unprecedented levels of visual immersion and interaction. There is little research however on how the aural feedback of the player, which can help assess their emotional state, can be used to inform the game intelligence and affect the emotive impact of the game. Furthermore, improvements in domestic surround sound and binaural technology are paving the way for fully enveloping and realistic soundtracks that extend the gameplay beyond the visual and can significantly enhance the emotive experience. This research project therefore addresses how current sensor and tracking technologies can be enhanced through analysis of player aural reactions such that the game intelligence can in turn provoke a conditional response via the reproduced soundtrack. In other words, how can the emotional impact of a spatial soundtrack during gameplay be enhanced by the user aural response alongside other physiological detections such as heartbeat and movement? Sam is a sound designer and voice actor who founded the audio journalism site, The Sound Architect™. Sam was selected as one of the first to ever receive the Prince William Scholarship from both BAFTA & Warner Bros. to study MSc Post Production with Sound Design at The University of York where he graduated with a Distinction and a Departmental Award for achieving the Highest Overall Average Grade. Sam has been highly active in the community for years including writing for BAFTA Guru, sitting on the BAFTA Youth Board, running Game Audio North and being an active member of BAFTA Crew Games. Most recently Sam has worked regularly with game audio company Sweet Justice on a variety of titles that include mobile and AAA. Sam’s recent credits include Injustice 2 and Madden NFL 2017. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes 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 Dino Ratcliffe Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Teaching AI agents transferable skills for game playing My research focuses on the ability of an AI agent to be able to evaluate the various skills it would need to master a game, such as in an FPS (first person shooter) like doom. If the agent can learn to cluster actions that may split into strategies such as attacking enemies, gathering ammo/health and avoiding enemy fire this information could then be used in similar games. This information would also provide a base for being to evaluate players on a skill level, giving a much more granular view of their strengths and weaknesses in any of these games. This could then be used for better matchmaking in team games, placing players into teams whose skill sets complement each other. Other applications include being able to guide the player into situations that give them more experience in the areas they are weakest. Dino started a MSci in computer science at the University of Essex in 2011. During the next 4 years, he focused on modules that involved improving technical skills and Artificial Intelligence. He was the winner of the K.F Bowden Memorial prize in two separate years. Dino worked at the London startup Signal Media during the summer of 2014 and continued to work for them part time during my masters year. He graduated with a 1st class degree. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Cross-lingual style transfer with conditional prior VAE and style loss Author's declaration Win or learn fast proximal policy optimisation Domain Adaptation for Deep Reinforcement Learning in Visually Distinct Games Clyde: A deep reinforcement learning doom playing agent Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dimitris Menexopoulos Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Dimitris Menexopoulos, also known as Menex, is a versatile music composer, sound designer, audio technologist and multi-instrumentalist from Thessaloniki, Greece, currently based in London, UK. With an academic background in geoscience, electronic production and information experience design, he draws elements from a broad knowledge base across art, science and technology to inform his work. He has worked in film, games, XR, branding, fashion and the automotive sector for more than ten years. He is a full BAFTA member. A description of Dimitris' research: Procedural content generation supports the creation of rich and varied games, but audio design has not kept pace with such innovation. Often the visual aspects of every asset in the scene may be procedurally rendered, yet audio developers still largely rely on pre - recorded samples in order to carry out their tasks. However, much of the information required to determine smooth audio - visual interactions is already included in the game assets. For example, the size, shape, material and movement of assets offer potential types of data that can drive audio algorithms directly. This research explores how available graphics information in the game engine can be used to generate the sound effects produced when objects interact in real - time, by combining the affordances of procedural audio and sonification. Email contact@menex.world Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Dr Josh Reiss Dr Tom Collins Featured Publication(s): Procedural Sonification of Environmental Phenomena for Realistic Sound Design Using texture maps to procedurally generate sound in virtual environments The State of the Art in Procedural Audio Themes Creative Computing Game Audio - Previous Next

< Back Connor Watts Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher I am a machine learning research engineer and software developer with commercial experience deploying and maintaining models for start-ups and larger organizations. I have experience researching and developing novel algorithms, as well as designing custom environments for application in domains such as combinatorial optimization, finance and games. Email c.watts@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor: Dr Paulo Rauber Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Prof. Marian Ursu Goldsmiths Supervisor Marian Ursu has a first degree in Computer Science, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, and has worked over the past twenty years in the development of new forms of mediated expression and interaction, in the space of convergence of digital technology with creative practice. He worked at Goldsmiths, University of London, pioneering “creative computing”, a term denoting a fundamental link between digital technologies, the arts and media. At York, he led the development of the Interactive Media subject area in the department of Theatre Film Television and Interactive Media, inherently interdisciplinary, building on Computer Science, User Experience Design, Media Practice and Cultural Studies. He is a co-founder and the Director of the Digital Creativity (DC) Labs ( https://digitalcreativity.ac.uk ), a centre of excellence in impact-driven research in creativity for games, narrative media and the rich space of media convergence that lies in between, and Co-Director of XR Stories ( https://xrstories.co.uk ), a creative industries partnership working across film, TV, games, media arts, heritage, advertising and technology to champion a new future in storytelling, in which he leads on Research and Development. His personal research is situated in the area of narrative experiences in scree media – shared screens (film, TV), personal screens (games, social media), stories in VR, XR narrative experiences – drawing from and building on established narrative art-forms and media including film and TV, radio, theatre, and opera. One of his key research objective is to explore the creative process that emerges in dialogue between humans and machines (AI). On one hand, this is necessary for the authoring of more complex narrative experiences that truly exploit the affordances of interactive and immersive digital media technologies. On the other hand, this is a yet poorly untapped space of opportunities, potentially conducive to significant findings. He is particularly interested in supervising students interested in exploring creativity in dialogue with AI and/or the development of novel narrative experiences, in topics including: Conceptualising the space of interactive storytelling Developing authoring tools and techniques for interactive storytelling Creating new forms of narrative engagement Analysing the concept of creativity in interactive media which emerges in conversation with AI Research themes: Narrative Games; Narrative Experiences Storytelling with Convergent Media Object-Based Media Computational Creativity Live mediated experiences (performance, sports, esports) Entertainment media and mental health Games and Theatre Email marian.ursu@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Creative Computing Player Research - Previous Next