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< Back Dr Jozef Kulik University of York iGGi Alum Jozef’s first study has focused on developing a better understanding of the challenges and barriers to making accessible games. This identified a vast array of personal, organisational, and external factors which contribute to the difficulties that developers experience when seeking to make their games more accessible, and also identifies avenues which might be helpful. One key finding in this research was that one of the biggest challenges that developers experience relates to a lack of lived experience with disability, or knowledge of the player experience with disabilities. My most recent research is focused on how to effectively extract that knowledge from players with disabilities, then insert it into a large studio within the UK. This research takes a multi-pronged approach to assisting developers in making more accessible games. First by directly assisting a studio with knowledge about their games, second generating potentially transferable knowledge on accessibility issues and player experience for the rest of the industry, and exploring how research methods such as diary study methodology can be valuable in extracting data from natural play environments with people with disabilities. joe.kulik@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/jozef-kulik-a62516140/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisors: Prof. Paul Cairns Dr Jen Beeston Featured Publication(s): A Qualitative Investigation of Real World Accessible Design Experiences within a Large Scale Commercial Game Development Studio Grounded theory of accessible game development What makes icons appealing? The role of processing fluency in predicting icon appeal in different task contexts Themes Accessibility Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Alex Fletcher Queen Mary University of London iGGi Alum Alex Fletcher is a freelance audio engineer and junior game developer working on understanding the perceived flow and player experiences in mobile rhythm games and how a dynamic difficulty adjustment system would improve these experiences. The function of EEG and other biosensors as an additional measurement of player experience is of particular interest as further research in its use as an adaptive system. Other areas of research interest include game-based learning and games with a purpose. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Mastodon Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-fletcher-64ab72176 LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Applied Games Game Audio Player Research ! Widget Didn’t Load Check your internet and refresh this page. If that doesn’t work, contact us. Previous Next

< Back LAST EVER iGGi Cohort – Sep 2023 Start iGGi is proud to announce that we have now successfully recruited a total of 120 PhD researchers over its two funding runs (i.e., “IGGI 1” and “IGGI 2” which each granted funding for 5 years of new intake), resulting in a total of 10 cohorts of 12 new researchers on average per year. While this is sad news for those who were hoping to apply to the programme in future as there won’t be any further recruitment, we are excited about the high quality of work that iGGis on the programme have so far achieved and about what is still to come. Our last ever intake comprises a total of 16 new researchers who are about to start the programme officially at the beginning of this October (2023). We’ve seen teasers of their research projects during the “Year 1 Buzz” session of last week’s iGGi conference, and, diverse though they were in their topic areas, they all looked very promising. – We can’t wait to hear more of it!! If you are a new iGGi Year 1 and happen to read this: Here’s a warm welcome to you from the iGGi Community - to many years of shared work and fun! Previous 18 Sept 2023 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 Mastodon https://shringikumari.com Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/shringi-kumari-8613678 LinkedIn BlueSky Github 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 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. oliver.roughton@york.ac.uk Email https://www.instagram.com/klaus.the.magnificent/ Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Previous Next

< Back Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Queen Mary University of London iGGi Industry Liaison Supervisor Born in Madrid (Spain) and living in London (United Kingdom), I am a Senior Lecturer in Computer Games and Artificial Intelligence at Queen Mary University of London. I hold a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Essex (2015) and a Master degree in Computer Science from University Carlos III (Madrid, Spain; 2007). My research is centered in the application of Artificial Intelligence to games, Tree Search and Evolutionary Computation. At the moment, I am especially interested on General Video Game Playing and Strategy games, which involves the creation of content and agents that play any real-time game that is given to it, and research in Abstract Forward Models. I have recently been awarded with an EPSRC grant on Abstract Forward Models for Modern Games. I am author of more than 100 papers in the field of Game AI, published in the main conferences of the field of Computational Intelligence in Games and Evolutionary Computation. I have publications in highly respected journals such as IEEE TOG and TEVC. I have also organised international competitions for the Game AI research community, such as the Physical Travelling Salesman Competition, and the General Video Game AI Competition, held in IEEE (WCCI, CIG) and ACM (GECCO) International Conferences. I also experience in the videogames industry as a game programmer (Revistronic; Madrid, Spain), with titles published for both PC and consoles. I worked as a software engineer (Game Brains; Dublin, Ireland), where I oversaw the development of AI tools that can be applied to the latest industry videogames. I am particularly interested in supervising students with background on applications of Tree Search or Evolutionary Algorithms for strategy games. Research Themes: Game AI Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms. Monte Carlo Tree Search Statistical Forward Planning methods. Strategy Games. diego.perez@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://diego-perez.net Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/diegoperezliebana/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/diegopliebana Github Themes Game AI Game Data - Previous Next

< Back Kyle Worrall University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Kyle is a final-year PhD researcher at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) at the University of York, where his work centers on pioneering deep learning-driven music tools for video game composers. In addition to his research, Kyle is a Lecturer in Games Programming at Edge Hill University, where he encourages the next generation of game developers to appreciate the critical role of audio in interactive experiences. Beyond academia, Kyle is the Founder of Cocreative Technology, an ethical AI music startup on a mission to empower musicians with cutting-edge, AI-driven tools that amplify creative expression, combat burnout, and elevate the emotional depth of game soundtracks. Kyle's research explores how deep learning and generative AI can enhance the creative workflow of video game composers, and improve the experience of players by reducing musical repetition. His work spans symbolic music generation, and real-time adaptive music systems, aiming to improve the emotional expressiveness and of game audio. His recent publications focus on deep learning models for interactive music authoring, expressive performance modelling, the ethical considerations in AI-assisted creativity, and the integration of neural networks with procedural music generation in games. By combining symbolic AI and audio signal processing, Kyle develops tools that support composers in ideation, iteration, and adaptive composition, while remaining transparent and musically intuitive. An experienced speaker, Kyle has presented at leading industry events, including Airwiggle's AirCon 2025, Game Sound Con 2024, Audio Dev Con 2024, the Global Arts and Psychology Symposium 2023, the Play Again Symposium 2024, and the Digital Creativity, Industry and Culture Conference 2022. He is also a regular contributor to the IGGI Conference (2020–2024), and has been featured in TechCrunch, Dazed, The Story of the Sound, and The Audio Programmer podcast, as well as featured on a panel with leaders in game audio from Meta and Sony. kyle.worrall@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleworrallmusic/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/KJWAudio Github Supervisors: Dr Jon Hook Dr Tom Collins Dr Josh Reiss Featured Publication(s): Final Fantasy VII Remake Music Redesign for Evolved Expectations Across Console Generations Considerations and Concerns of Professional Game Composers Regarding Artificially Intelligent Music Technology Comparative evaluation in the wild: Systems for the expressive rendering of music Reflection Across AI-based Music Composition The Ethics of Creative AI Themes Creative Computing Game Audio Previous Next

< Back Younès Rabii Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Younès is an awarded game designer and generative AI researcher. Their current research is concerned with the relationship between a game's rules, its narrative, and how to build AI systems that can understand these relationships, manipulate them, and invent new ones. Younès also has been a game developer for the past 10 years. They specialize in crafting new forms of play and making it accessible for their peers. Their work has been previously exposed in the French embassies and international conferences like the Game Developers Conference, the Gamedevs of Color Expo and the A MAZE Festival. A description of Younès' research: Younès' research goal is to bring to video games some of the most interesting properties of roleplaying games: their ability to trust every player with building a part of the game, and their ability to generate both new narrative and gameplay on the fly. Younès is working both on the AI techniques needed to allow that, and how to design the social spaces around those games in a way that won't hurt players or abuse creators. For the end of their PhD, Younès is designing a prototype in that new genre, counting among the first games to contain a form of Live Automated Game Design. yrabii.eggs@gmail.com Email Mastodon http://pyrofoux.itch.io/ Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/youn%C3%A8s-rabii-755717185/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/pyrofoux Github Supervisor(s): Dr Mike Cook Dr Jeremy Gow Featured Publication(s): " Hunt Takes Hare": Theming Games Through Game-Word Vector Translation Why Oatmeal is Cheap: Kolmogorov Complexity and Procedural Generation Revealing game dynamics via word embeddings of gameplay data Themes Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI - Previous Next

< Back iGGi Con 2024 - It's A Wrap Now in its 11th iteration, the iGGi Con once again proved to be a full success. Each year, the iGGi Con showcases latest advancements in games research and offers a networking platform where games industry members and academics working in games and adjacent fields can connect. The iGGi Con 2024 was held at the University of York in the Law and Sociology Building of Campus East and spanned over two days. Totaling 11 talks, 3 keynotes, 2 panels, 3 workshops, 3 buzz talk sessions and 28 posters. It hosted l 160 attendees from industry and academia. The iGGi Expo ran in parallel during the afternoon of conference day 1 and afforded conference attendees the opportunity to chat 1:1 with participating iGGi industry partners: a big thank you to everyone who took part! We were also excited to welcome a number of iGGi Alumni who joined the event and who were able to share stories and anecdotes from their time with as well as after iGGi, and we loved the insights and tips they offered! And of course, we're back next year, again at the University of York , so, make sure you SAFE THE DATE >>> 10-11 September 2025 <<< The galleries below show impressions of the two days. iGGi Talks iGGi Keynotes iGGi Posters iGGi Panels More impressions Previous 13 Sept 2024 Next

< Back iGGi Con 2024 REGISTRATION OPENS We're excited to announce that the website for our next iGGi Conference, the iGGi Con 2024, officially launched today, and what's more: REGISTRATION IS OPEN!! The iGGi Con 2024 will be held at York on 11+12 September 2024 Check the conference website for further details on this year's event. You can also follow the dedicated twitter/x . The iGGi Conference is the annual showcase of our 60+ PhD researchers, through posters, t alks, workshops and panels. The conference provides a space for industry and academia to come together to discuss the latest and greatest in games research. Moreover, the Industry Expo will be back. Register for the iGGi Con 2024 via this link Previous 10 May 2024 Next

< Back Dien Nguyen Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement I graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a BSc in Computer Game Science and a Minor in Statistics. My undergraduate thesis focused on augmenting Monte Carlo tree search with a value network trained through a self-play framework similar to AlphaZero. During my undergraduate degree, I became interested in the intersection of games and artificial intelligence—applying methods of reinforcement learning, graphical models, and knowledge representation to game playing and game design. My long-term goal is to work on the problem of formalizing game elements, representing game systems in a way that allows for automatic reasoning and inference. I also enjoy playing games where I can customize and theorycraft my playstyle to satisfy certain gameplay fantasies while beating the game. My current research is within the field of Automated Game Design Learning, an emerging field in AI research with the purpose of learning game design models through playing. The current strategy is to play out the full game in thousands of iterations, which can be impractical for complex games with large state space and computationally expensive forward models. My research will focus on applying Go-Explore—a recent exploration paradigm that outperforms many state-of-the-arts—to improve the efficiency of automated playtesting of tabletop games by using an archive of interesting game states to reduce the time needed for self-play. The research will be primarily conducted within the TAG framework and aim to be game-agnostic. On successful completion, this research will improve game development cycles, resulting in higher-quality games, and potentially give unique insights into the game design process. d.l.nguyen@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisor: Dr Diego Pérez-Liébana Featured Publication(s): Unveiling modern board games: an ML-based approach to BoardGameGeek data analysis Themes Applied Games Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI - Previous Next

< Back The AI and Games Conference IS BACK! It was the first event dedicated to game AI developers in Europe since 2017, and boy did the community embrace it. In the main organiser's (Tommy Thompson from AI and Games ) own words: "Nature abhors a vacuum and I'm the idiot big enough to try and fill it." - Tommy, you did achieve, and we thank you for that bold move from the bottom of our hearts! Big thanks also to all the sponsors, and specifically to our iGGi Industry Advisory Board Chair Duygu Ç acmak (Creative Assembly) who's a co-organiser. The one-day, double-track event took place on 08 November 2024 at Goldsmiths, University of London and featured international speakers from industry and academia who covered a broad spectrum of topics related to AI and Games in an informative and well-structured way. We're proud to say that we witnessed this launch with 13 iGGi PG Researchers and a whole bunch of iGGi Staff. We also spotted quite a few iGGi Alumni who had made it to the event independently. Moreover, Raluca Gaina and Diego Pérez-Liébana featured with a talk about their spin-off company " Tabletop R&D " >> If you've missed it, here's the Talk Recording We were really impressed about the level of organisation and attention to detail, and we're certainly hoping that the conference will be back again next year! >> Here's a link to all the the talks' recordings Previous 11 Nov 2024 Next