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< Back iGGi - CDN Research Exchange & Writing Retreat, Norway Our latest iGGi adventure started last week, on Sunday 26 April 2026, when 16 iGGi PGRs and Staff travelled to Bergen where the first two parts of our Norway Research Exchange were had! The Research Exchange was composed of three independent parts: (1) a two-day game making workshop, (2) a one-day symposium with lighting talks, both hosted by the Center of Digital Narrative (CDN) at the University of Bergen, and subsequently, (3) a 2-day writing retreat for which we relocated to the serene fjord-village Rosendal. (1) Game Making Workshop The CDN had pulled out all the stops to turn this interactive gathering into a fabulously productive-while-fun game making exercise on the overarching topic "Game Poetics for Planetary Care". After a quick intro of all 30 participants, the workshop kicked off on Monday (27 April) with a diverse lineup of engaging keynotes who each represented and pitched for different methods to approach the genre of poetic games. Speakers included Jordan Magnuson (University of Southampton), Jon Stone (Anglia Ruskin University), Doris C. Rusch (Uppsala University & University of Bergen), and Jason Nelson (University of Bergen). The remaining 1.5 days were spend on game making: groups elaborated a first concept draft and were then encouraged to use an interative process to arrive at a workable prototype that could serve as a proof of concept. The use of Bitsy was recommended, not least in order to be inclusive of those with less game-making experience but also because of its limitations which can be seen as incentive to strip the design idea down to a core minimum. We're proud to present the resulting proposals here on Itch [link to follow]. You can find the CDN's original workshop announcement and further details here Networking between all who had joined was continued after the workshop concluded, namely at the highly recommendable SOYA restaurant in the very heart of Bergen town center. (2) Symposium with Lightning Talks This one-day event served to inspire discourse between all participants with particular view to exchanging humanistic versus engineering perspectives. Each participant was given 15 minutes for a short presentation + Q&A to spawn thought-provoking debate and share their own research insights, in particular under the aspect of game narrative. New connections made could then be followed up more informally during the evening's social event which took place in the CDN's office building and included a tour of their premises and facilities. You can find the CDN's original symposium announcement, the speaker lineup/topics and further details here A massive thanks goes to the CDN team who put the programme for the workshop and the symposium together, in particular to Kristine Jørgensen, Scott Rettberg, and Ola Roth Johnsen, for such seamless and perfect event organisation! (3) Writing Retreat in Rosendal It's probably fair to say that Rosendal was the fanciest setting any iGGi Writing Retreat has seen so far. The 12 iGGi/CDN researchers who had decided to stay on for the writing days relocated from Bergen to Rosendal by boat on Saturday, 02 May. Since we obeyed Friday 01 May as the national holiday that it is in the whole of Norway and after a sunny Sunday spent hiking the sourrounding mountains, all participants were quite happy to "donate" their Bank Holiday Monday to an all-day writing session. Writing goals for the entire retreat and for the individual segments were set, reviewed and re-set at the beginning of each writing block. Historically, iGGi PGRs find the format of these retreats exceegingly useful and report a higher-than-usual productivity, and judging by early feedback, the Rosendal Writing Retreat was no exception. The weather presented us with an eclectic mix of possible seasonal temparatures and (far less than expected!) forms of downcast, so that we felt we experienced a concise cross-section of Norway-specific landscapes and scenery. iGGi participants of the Norway trip agreed that our time and activities in Norway enriched them, not only in terms of new connections, broadaning their research and its reach, but also with view to new cultural, culinary, linguistic and visual experiences. We certainly feel we've made new contacts, and we are hoping to maintain and nurture the new relationships that were formed during this trip. Previous 6 May 2026 Next

< Back Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence at Develop:Brighton 12-14 July Want to improve the relationship between your game AI and your players? Or polish your VR character’s social interaction skills? Or discuss the latest academic research in the metaverse? Or just chance a flirt with Amy Smith ’s @artbhot? We are super excited to announce that @iggiphd will be attending @developconf in full force with 3 talks and over 20 researchers. This is our first big event since the pandemic and we are stoked! Who else is coming? We would love to meet you all at our stand! Click here for more information. Previous 2 Jul 2022 Next

iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. IGGI works with industry in some of the following ways: Student Industry Knowledge Transfer - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the student and their industry partner. Student Sponsorship - for some of our students, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - IGGI industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! There are many ways for our industry partners to work with IGGI. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. Sony Interactive Entertainment

< Back Clinicians Risk Becoming "Liability Sinks" for Artificial Intelligence Link Author(s) T Lawton, P Morgan, Z Porter, S Hickey, A Cunningham, N Hughes, ... Abstract More info TBA Link

< Back iGGi York is located just outside the City of York's centre, on University of York's East Campus. The Computer Science building (where our iGGi offices are) is located by the Lake. Please see map of the campus . How to reach the campus Details of how to reach the campus can be found on UoY web page Transport, maps and parkings . See also the information provided below. Arriving by car There is parking on Campus East. Please note that car parks are pay and display. The postcode for Campus East is YO10 5GY The nearest car parks to the venue are on Kimberlow Lane. Please see pay and display parking for location of the three car parks. There are usually plenty of spaces available. (Please note that when you view the map it automatically shows Campus West which also has a lake. You will need to swipe the map to the left to see Campus East). You will approach the car parks on Kimberlow Lane via Field Lane or Hull Road depending on which direction you are travelling from. (Please note that Lakeside Way is closed to traffic). When you view the map, the meeting and conference venue is near the small lake, which is named ‘Lake’ on the map and is just off Lakeside Way. Public Transport from York Train Station If you wish to use public transport from the hotel and/or from York Station to the campus, please see Map of York and campus Bus routes 66 and 67 go near the hotel and station and to the campus. You should alight at University of York, Campus East Coach Stop (see Field Lane on the map). Route 66 bus timetable & Timetable Route 67 bus timetable After getting off the bus, walk down the slope towards the lake. University of York (UoY) iGGi University of York Gallery Computer Science Building - University of York, Campus East Ron Cooke Hub - University of York, Campus East Piazza Building - University of York, Campus East Map of Campus East, University of York Previous Next

< Back "Journeys in the Dark"-Towards Game Master AI in Complex Board Games Link Author(s) T Best, S Lucas, R Gaina Abstract More info TBA Link

< Back iGGi Essex is located two miles from the historic city of Colchester and set in over 200 acres of beautiful parkland. iGGi is a consortium of four universities or sites: the University of York (York), Queen Mary University of London (QMUL), Goldsmiths, University of London (Goldsmiths), and the University of Essex (Essex). iGGi received funding in two phases: “iGGi 1” funded the first five cohorts of researchers across York, QMUL, Goldsmiths, and Essex and PGR intake spans from 2014 to 2018; “iGGi 2” started in 2019 with funding for a further five cohorts, this time only at York and QMUL. One of the "Essex iGGis" from the iGGi 1 funding round is still in the process of completing their PhD work. Essex is therefore still listed here as an active iGGi site, even though future iGGi main events such as the iGGi Conference and the iGGi Game Jam will take place at one of the iGGi 2 sites, i.e., either York or QMUL. iGGi Essex is part of the University of Essex's School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering . You can find the University of Essex campus map in the gallery below. University of Essex (UoE) iGGi Essex Gallery University of Essex Colchester Campus University of Essex Campus Map Colchester Campus, University of Essex Previous Next

iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. IGGI works with industry in some of the following ways: Student Industry Knowledge Transfer - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the student and their industry partner. Student Sponsorship - for some of our students, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - IGGI industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! There are many ways for our industry partners to work with IGGI. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. The AbleGamers Charity

< Back iGGi Talk at Develop:Brighton - Dominik Jeurissen iGGi PG Researcher Dominik Jeurissen held a talk on " LLM Agents For QA - Potential & Limitations " at this year's Develop:Brighton conference. Abstract: With tight deadlines and a constantly evolving game, properly testing a game is challenging. Using AI agents to simplify this work sounds promising, but machine learning is often too slow, and manually implementing the agents takes time. As such, one particularly exciting application for QA is to use Large Language Models (LLMs) as zero-shot game-playing agents. LLM-based agents can play games without pre-training, making them a valuable asset to test a constantly changing game. But how well do they play games? What are their strengths, and what do they struggle with? In this session, we will review how to implement zero-shot agents with LLMs and show examples of existing LLM-based game-playing agents. We will also show that although these agents have many limitations, they have the potential to be a valuable tool for QA to automate many repetitive tasks. The objectives of Dominik's talk were to provide the audience with an overview of the cutting-edge research on LLM-based zero-shot game-playing agents show what these agents can do well and what their limitations are give practical tips on how to utilize LLM agents as QA tools Dominik's talk has been recorded and will be made available to Develop ticket holders. Please contact Dominik directly if you have any queries regarding the presentation. Previous 11 Jul 2024 Next

Novelty Optimisation Theme Creative Computing Project proposed & supervised by Jeremy Gow, Sebastian Deterding To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: jeremy.gow@qmul.ac.uk < Back Novelty Optimisation Project proposal abstract: New levels, new characters, new items, new opponents: Novelty is a major game feature stoking sustained player curiosity and interest. Too much repetition, and players get bored. But is there such a thing as too much novelty? Games already do automatic difficulty balancing – finding just the right level of challenge. Can we do the same for novelty – identify and automatically balance the right amount of novel content we serve to players? This project would benefit from a computational methods background, such as computational psychology, cognitive science, machine learning, or procedural content generation, and an interest in player psychology. Supervisor: Jeremy Gow , Sebastian Deterding Based at:

< Back Searching for an (un) stable equilibrium: experiments in training generative models without data Link Author(s) T Broad, M Grierson Abstract More info TBA Link

iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. IGGI works with industry in some of the following ways: Student Industry Knowledge Transfer - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the student and their industry partner. Student Sponsorship - for some of our students, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - IGGI industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! There are many ways for our industry partners to work with IGGI. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. Georgia Institute of Technology