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iGGi @ Develop:Brighton iGGi is a collaboration between Uni of York + Queen Mary Uni of London: the largest training programme worldwide for doing a PhD in digital games. iGGi @ Develop:Brighton Talk to us at Develop:Brighton! >>> Stand B12 on the Expo floor Doruk Balcı Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research - iGGi Spotlight Video - Karl Clarke Available for placement Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Player Research Alex Flint Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research - iGGi Spotlight Video - Joshua Kritz Available for placement Game AI, Applied Games, Design & Development George Long Available for placement Game AI, Design & Development, Game Data Lauren Winter Design & Development, Player Research - iGGi Spotlight Video - Toby Best Available for placement Game AI, Design & Development, Player Research Tania Dales Available for placement Game AI, Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Player Research - iGGi Spotlight Video - Tamsin Isaac Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development, Player Research - iGGi Spotlight Video - Nicole Levermore Available for placement Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Accessibility, Player Research Philip Smith Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development Steph Carter Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development, Player Research, Accessibility, Game Data - iGGi Spotlight Video - Ross Fifield Player Research Cameron Johnston Available for placement Design & Development, Creative Computing Océane Lissillour Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research Luiza Gossian Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development

< Back Dr Jeremy Gow Queen Mary University of London iGGi Training Coordinator Supervisor Jeremy Gow is a game AI researcher with a focus on computational game design, exploring ways in which AI can help us understand players and games, enhance the game development process, and contribute to the creation of game content. He has been a lecturer at EECS and a member of the Queen Mary Game AI group since 2018. He has a background in artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction research, and a PhD in AI from the University of Edinburgh. He is particularly interested in supervising students with a game development or AI background on the following topics: Automated playtesting and QA AI-based game development tools Modelling player experience AI for the design of agents and procedural generators Computational creativity in games Research themes: Game AI Game Analytics Game Design Computational Creativity Email jeremy.gow@qmul.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI Game Data - 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 Evgenii Kashin University of York iGGi Alum Evgenii, a Computer Science enthusiast, began crafting games in school using the Warcraft3 editor. He spent five years as a Machine Learning Engineer, excelling in computer vision and graphics. His work at Snap included creating engaging lenses and researching 3D object capturing. An ECCV2020 article on face manipulation, with over 100 citations, is a testament to his prowess. Away from work, he enjoys bouldering, hiking, racing, and gaming. My research is dedicated to establishing a cost-effective approach for creating and generating 3D scenes for game development, a critical aspect of modern VR/AR applications. Harnessing the potential of generative visual content, I aim to develop algorithms capable of realistically completing 3D scenes from a few images. This could revolutionize the entertainment and creative industries, particularly game development. Picture having only a couple of images from your favourite film and envisioning the entire scene. Such technology can enhance the efficiency of 3D artists, democratize game development, and serve as entertainment in itself. Currently, I am developing an algorithm to achieve this goal. The proposed solution employs a general pretrained text-to-image model for supervision, with a NeRF 3D representation of the scene. The central concept involves iterative outpainting, where each iteration updates the NeRF weights. Email evgenii.kashin@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor Dr William Smith Featured Publication(s): The Sky's the Limit: Relightable Outdoor Scenes via a Sky-Pixel Constrained Illumination Prior and Outside-In Visibility Stylegan2 distillation for feed-forward image manipulation Themes Creative Computing - Previous Next

iGGi Year 1 Researchers iGGi PG Researchers - 2023 start Here is the listing of iGGi PhD Researchers who started in September 2023. This is iGGi's last ever cohort. Filter by iGGi Theme Accessibility Applied Games Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI Game Data Immersive Technology Player Research Filter by Location Doruk Balcı iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research Read More Ross Fifield iGGi PG Researcher Player Research Read More Cameron Johnston iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Creative Computing Read More Océane Lissillour iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research Read More Philip Smith iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development Read More Ruizhe "Jay" Yu Xia iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Game AI, Game Data Read More Karl Clarke iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Player Research Read More Alex Flint iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Player Research Read More Joshua Kritz iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Game AI, Applied Games, Design & Development Read More Prakriti Nayak iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Applied Games, Accessibility, Player Research Read More Filip Sroka iGGi PG Researcher Game AI, Applied Games, Immersive Technology Read More Tania Dales iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Game AI, Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Player Research Read More Tamsin Isaac iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Applied Games, Design & Development, Player Research Read More Nicole Levermore iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Design & Development, Immersive Technology, Accessibility, Player Research Read More Dien Nguyen iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Game AI, Applied Games, Design & Development, Creative Computing Read More Connor Watts iGGi PG Researcher Game AI Read More

< Back Lizzie Vialls University of York iGGi Alum Discrete Models and Algorithms to create a more satisfying and strategic opponents For many 4x and Grand Strategy computer games (e.g. Civilisation, Europa Universalis), the player will be playing against one or more AI opponents. For many games, the AI is not clever enough to stand up to a player without being given the ability to "cheat" - ability to spawn in resources, see what the player is doing, etc. This creates an unsatisfactory opponent for a player, as it gives them opponents that fight through "cheating" over strategy or out-manoeuvring the player. The aim for my PhD is to look into the potential uses of SAT and similar to create a more satisfying and strategic opponent for players to play against in these styles of computer games. To this end, I’ll be identifying potential for improvement regarding my proposal, and once I’ve narrowed down the specifics - be it related to improving how SAT solvers can handle problems, or how better to encode AI into SAT - I will be working on ways to improve AI for turn based strategic games. Lizzie Vialls is a recent Computer Science graduate of University of Leicester, having graduated with a 2:1 and a prize for best third year project, which was the project that fueled her interest in SAT. When not searching for an errant semicolon in her code she can be found working with various online gaming communities, hunched over many a tabletop game, or attempting to make friends with the local feline populace. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Janet Gibbs Goldsmiths iGGi Alum Janet is exploring how multi-modal perceptual feedback contributes to a player's sense of presence in the virtual world. Jaron Lanier described Virtual Reality (VR) as the substitution of the interface between a person and their physical environment with an interface to a simulated environment. This interface is of particular significance in understanding how presence depends on the nature, extent and veridicality of our sensorimotor interaction with the virtual environment, and how that relates to our normal engagement with the real world. In practice, only selected parts of the interface are substituted - we are never fully removed from our physical environment. Our perceptual apparatus evolved to make sense of changing sensations in multiple modalities originating naturally and coherently from the same event or percept. By contrast, in VR, individually crafted feedback using different technologies for each modality are coordinated to appear as if from a single source. VR benefits from a long history of visual and audio technologies, developed in harness for virtual experiences from cinema to computer games. Haptics is a relative newcomer that must be blended with them to create coherent multimodal perceptual experiences. Additionally, haptics is closely related to proprioception, and to the wide range of tactile senses—texture, heat, pain etc—that current VR systems do not address. Building on sensorimotor theory of perception, Janet aims to establish how our perceptual system responds to multi-modal feedback that almost, but not quite, matches what we are used to, in making sense of the simulated environment of VR. Email JGIBB016@gold.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Investigating Sensorimotor Contingencies in the Enactive Interface A comparison of the effects of haptic and visual feedback on presence in virtual reality Novel Player Experience with Sensory Substitution and Augmentation Investigating sensorimotor contingencies in the enactive interface Themes - Previous Next

< Back - Meet me @ Develop:Brighton 2026 - Alex Flint University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement Alex has an academic background in Psychology and Human-Computer Interaction. Their Master’s dissertation comparing measures of perceived challenge and demand in video games was published at CHI 2023. Alex has previously worked on the Research Operations team at PlaytestCloud and as a freelance Games User Researcher. They are also a Student Video Games Ambassador for UKIE, and regularly volunteer at conferences such as CHI Play and the GamesUR Summit. When they aren’t at their desk, you can find Alex figure skating, playing roller derby, or DJing 80’s rock. Alex’s research focuses on levelling up the narrative testing practices of indie video game developers. Narrative testing is a specialised games user research (GUR) practice that requires resources and knowledge not easily accessible to indie developers, meaning they are often disadvantaged compared to their larger AAA counterparts. Thus, Alex's work proposes the direct study of indie developers to level the playing field by democratising narrative testing best practices and empowering non-research team members to conduct GUR activities. Alex aims to achieve this goal by: 1) Defining narrative testing best practices. 2) Identifying key challenges indie developers face when evaluating narrative. 3) Co-designing and evaluating narrative testing prototype(s). 4) Assessing methods for disseminating GUR knowledge. The successful completion of this work will impact how indie studios conduct narrative testing, ultimately leading to the creation of better games. Email alex.flint@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisor: Dr Alena Denisova Dr Jon Hook Featured Publication(s): Comparing Measures of perceived challenge and demand in video games: Exploring the conceptual dimensions of CORGIS and VGDS Faking handedness: Individual differences in ability to fake handedness, social cognitions of the handedness of others, and a forensic application using Bayes’ theorem Themes Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Nick Ballou Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Hi there! I’m a psychology and human-computer interaction researcher interested in two main topics: how games affect wellbeing, and how we can reform the research ecosystem to be more trustworthy and efficient (aka “open science” or “metascience”). I’m originally from the US, and have bachelor and master’s degrees in linguistics, a topic that prepared me well for social science research, but whose use is relegated to excitedly sharing language fun facts at this point. In my free time, I play tennis, cook and bake, read—and of course play games (mostly deckbuilders, roguelikes, and AAA RPGs). A description of Nick's research: Psychological need frustration—experiences of feeling controlled and coerced, failure and self-doubt, or loneliness and exclusion—is a promising framework for understanding how players engage with video games. Grounded in self-determination theory, one of the most robust psychological theories, need frustration might help explain how and why players (dis)engage with a game and how gameplay impacts well-being. To realize this aim, however, we’re missing key building blocks: 1) a better grasp on when and why need-frustrating situations arise during play; 2) a questionnaire that can assess how much need frustration people experience in games quantitatively; and 3) studies that combine data on need frustration with carefully tracked behavioral data over time, rather than relying on simple self-reports like “how much time did you spend playing video games last week?” My thesis attempts to address all of these one step at a time and is underpinned by a strong emphasis on open and transparent methods. Results so far are promising—contact me to hear more! Email nick@nickballou.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Dr David Zendle Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk Featured Publication(s): Reliving 10 years old: Descriptive Insights into Retro Gaming UKRN Local Network Lead Guidebook Claims for no evidence also need evidence From social media to artificial intelligence: improving research on digital harms in youth The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Game Play and Mental Health (PhD thesis) The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Games and Mental Health: Untangling the Positive and Negative Effects of Games with Better Science The Relationship Between Lockdowns and Video Game Playtime: Multilevel Time-Series Analysis Using Massive-Scale Data Telemetry Affective Uplift During Video Game Play: A Naturalistic Case Study No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming in one segment of the video games industry A manifesto for more productive psychological games research Four grand challenges for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games Perceived value of video games, but not hours played, predicts mental well-being in adult Nintendo players Development of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS) to measure awareness and uptake of Open Research practices The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS): A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences How does Juicy Game Feedback Motivate? Testing Curiosity, Competence, and Effectance Registered Report Evidence Suggests No Relationship Between Objectively Tracked Video Game Playtime and Well-Being Over 3 Months How do video games affect mental health? A narrative review of 13 proposed mechanisms Learnings from the case Maple Refugee: A dystopian story of free-to-play, probability, and gamer consumer activism. Four dilemmas for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games Cross-cultural patterns in mobile playtime: an analysis of 118 billion hours of human data Pinpointing the problem: Providing page numbers for citations as a crucial part of open science A large-scale study of changes to the quantity, quality, and distribution of video game play during the COVID-19 pandemic Reforms to improve reproducibility and quality must be coordinated across the research ecosystem: the view from the UKRN Local Network Leads ‘I Just Wanted to Get it Over and Done With’: A Grounded Theory of Psychological Need Frustration in Video Games A Manifesto for More Productive Psychological Games Research Understanding whether lockdowns lead to increases in the heaviness of gaming using massive-scale data telemetry: An analysis of 251 billion hours of playtime If everything is a loot box, nothing is: Response to Xiao et al. Awareness of and engagement with Open Research behaviours: Development of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS) with the UK Reproducibility Network Do People Use Games to Compensate for Psychological Needs During Crises? A Mixed-Methods Study of Gaming During COVID-19 Lockdowns Self-Determination Theory in HCI: Shaping a Research Agenda Themes Game Data Player Research Previous Next

< Back Dr David Gundry University of York iGGi Alum Using Applied Games to Motivate Speech Without Bias (Industry placement Lightspeed Research) Eliciting linguistic data faces several difficulties such as investment of researcher time and few available participants. Because of this, many language elicitation studies have to make do with few subjects and coarse sampling rates (measured in months). It would be ideal if a game could crowd-source relevant linguistic data with frequent, short game sessions. To this end, David’s research is looking into how games shape and elicit players’ linguistic behaviour. The established design patterns of gamification do not apply to a domain that lacks a ‘correct’ answer like language or personal beliefs and attitudes. David’s research shows how a player’s strategic goals will systematically bias data collection. It also shows how to design around this. The conclusion: The player’s choice of how to express a given datum must be strategically irrelevant in the game. David can remember the halcyon days when he had the free time to play games. Now he’s doing a PhD and has a one-year-old. He has an background in linguistics. He loves writing expressive code and designing clever little games. He wants to show that research games can be fun, not just effective. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Trading Accuracy for Enjoyment? Data Quality and Player Experience in Data Collection Games Designing Games to Collect Human-Subject Data Validity threats in quantitative data collection with games: A narrative survey Busy doing nothing? What do players do in idle games? Intrinsic elicitation: A model and design approach for games collecting human subject data Themes Applied Games - Previous Next

< Back Dr Adam Katona University of York iGGi Alum Adam did his MSc in mechatronics at Budapest University of Technology and Economics. After graduation, he spent two years working on automated driving at Robert Bosch GmbH, during which he got exposed to both the classical and the machine learning approach of creating intelligent agents. Evolutionary computation continues to surprise us by producing creative and efficient designs. However despite our best efforts, artificial evolution had not produced anything ascomplex and interesting as natural evolution. As our hardware is becoming faster and number of cores in our chips increase, the lack of computational power is becoming less of an excuse. It is starting to become more and more obvious that some fundamental component of natural evolution is missing from our simulations. One possible candidate is the evolution of evolvability. Evolution seems to produce organisms which are well suited for further evolution. The goal of my research is to find mechanisms which allows evolution to increase evolvability, and incorporate these in the design of more efficient neuroevolution algorithms.This research is in the intersection of evolutionary computation, evolutionary developmental biology and neural networks. Email mail.adamkatona@gmail.com Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Featured Publication(s): Illuminating Game Space Using MAP-Elites for Assisting Video Game Design Complex computation from developmental priors Utilizing the Untapped Potential of Indirect Encoding for Neural Networks with Meta Learning Quality Evolvability ES: Evolving Individuals With a Distribution of Well Performing and Diverse Offspring Growing 3d artefacts and functional machines with neural cellular automata Time to die: Death prediction in dota 2 using deep learning Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Andrew James Wood University of York Supervisor I am an interdisciplinary researcher at the University of York. My background is in Mathematical Physics but my interests are now in applying computational and mathematical techniques to interesting problems, mostly in Biology. This includes such topics as collective motion (particularly in interaction networks and the role of noise) and microbiology (particularly in metabolism, industrial biotechnology, spatial structure and plasmid dynamics) as well as modelling naval conflicts and glycosylation. I have a natural interest in games and am interested in the interface between games and science, be that in using games to do, or disseminate, science or in utilising mechanisms and insights from research to inspire games. Research themes: Game Analytics Game Design Games with a Purpose Gamification Email jamie.wood@york.ac.uk Website LinkedIn Mastodon BlueSky GitHub Other Link Themes Applied Games Design & Development Game Data - Previous Next