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News (All) 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 News 6 May 2026 iGGi - CDN Research Exchange & Writing Retreat, Norway The Center for Digital Narrative in Bergen hosted iGGi for a fabulously productive exchange between the two groups of PhD Researchers. Read the article for the full story! Read More 12 Sept 2025 iGGi Con 2025 Successfully Concluded! The world's favourite doctoral training programme has done it again! Its annual conference was held at York this week, and It's A Wrap! Read More 8 Jul 2025 Nirit Binyamini Ben-Meir wins Best Paper Award at DIS25 iGGi PGR wins Best Paper with their work on "Domestic Cultures of Plant Care: A Moss Terrarium Probe" Read More 23 Apr 2026 BiGGi Con 2026 - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! Don't miss this year's iGGi Conference >> *BiGGi Con 2026* << 15-17 September 2026 at Queen Mary University of London Click the article for registration details! Read More 21 Aug 2025 iGGi Research Retreat "Unconference" at Darwin Lake in Derbyshire.... Read More 3 Jun 2025 UK Games Expo Birmingham For the first time running, iGGi had its own stand at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham this year! Read More 16 Jan 2026 iGGi Game Jam 2026 - we made it! The iGGi Game Jam 2026 successfully concluded today. With this year's theme in my mind: read on to try and get "the full picture" as best you can! Read More 10 Jul 2025 iGGi @ Develop:Brighton 2025 iGGi PGR Francesca Foffano delivered a captivating talk at Develop 2025. AND, for the 4th year running, iGGi featured on the Develop Expo with its own stand. This may have been our most successful year to date!! Read More 7 May 2025 iGGi Con 2025 - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! We're excited to share that registrations for the upcoming iGGi Conference are now open! This year's iGGi Con takes place at the University of York, 10-11 September 2025. Read on for links and more info. Read More Load More

< Back Dr Myat Aung University of York iGGi Alum Immersion is a state in which players are engaged to a degree of total absorption that inhibits the ability to correctly report one’s surroundings or time. Present theory on immersion has developed a coherent model that provides sufficient evidence to distinguish itself from other cognitive concepts such as presence, attention, selective attention, absorption and flow. However, immersion research thus far has been hindered by difficulties with taking in-vivo measurements of cognition and physiological responses during videogame play. This presents an ideal opportunity for implementations of neuroimaging methods to carry out such real time measurements of attention, as well as other cognitive processes and their roles in videogame immersion. Using various combinations of neural and physiological methods such as skin conductance, eye tracking, electroencephalography and even functional magnetic resonance imaging, it is now possible to obtain richer data in immersion research. The goal of this project is to apply such methods in order to better define and measure videogame immersion, identify the cognitive processes and hierarchical models that are involved in immersion and ultimately contribute to the literature in videogame immersion. Though neuroimaging is limited by statistical sensitivity, challenging experimental logistics and non-ideal lab environments, they are still presently the best tools available to obtain fine-grain data of attention and the many other cognitive components of immersion. Such knowledge would contribute significantly to a better understanding of effective development of videogames, as well as educational tools. I am an MPsych Psychology graduate from the University of York, having studied Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuroimaging for four years. My Master’s research was primarily in vision, attempting to manipulate and record parahippocampal responses to visual stimuli selected parametrically by computer algorithms. During my degree I also spent much of my time researching videogames, studying the literature on the effects of videogame play on sleep, and working with a IGGI PhD student as a lab assistant. Between my degree and my PhD, I have also been working as a data analyst at Digital Creativity Labs researching skill learning in large gaming populations from Riot Games’ League of Legends. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Featured Publication(s): Different rules for binocular combination of luminance flicker in cortical and subcortical pathways Investigating the non-disruptive measurement of immersive player experience The trails of just cause 2: spatio-temporal player profiling in open-world games Predicting skill learning in a large, longitudinal MOBA dataset Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Rory Davidson University of York iGGi PG Researcher Available for post-PhD position Learning and Strategy Acquisition in Digital Games Given the success and impact of games and the gaming industry, it is unsurprising that it has become the centre of a significant body of academic research and other literature. However, while the cognitive effects of gameplay have been extensively studied, this has typically been done from a “black-box” perspective – that is, looking at the effects of gameplay as a whole upon some other task or metric, such as ability to strategize or proclivity to violence – leaving the inner mechanisms of cognition during gameplay much less understood. In particular, while the idea of learning from games is an area of continued interest in educational psychology, very little literature exists on the subject of how learning in games actually occurs on a cognitive level. This study aims to fill this knowledge gap by examining the ways in which player learning and strategy acquisition occur within games. This examination will have two main hierarchical goals. In the first phase, the study will use experimental methods inspired by analysis of learning methods used in games as well as literature review of more general theories of learning and cognition, such as the dual-process account or the CLARION model, in order to form a model better specialized for the field of digital gaming. In the second phase, it will analyse how such a theory may be put to practical use to inform the design of games and game-like experiences. These two phases can be summed up in the following main research questions: Phase 1: How can strategy acquisition in digital games most effectively be explained as a cognitive process? Phase 2: How can this understanding be put into practice in the development of games with specific desirable characteristics? By linking a more complete understanding of cognition and learning during games with measurable or observable gameplay characteristics, this study will further research on gameplay experience, such as that on immersion. The first phase of research additionally has relevance to the field of AI, in which human responses to difficult and complex problems such as digital games may be mimicked or otherwise used to inform the design of new techniques, as well as to gamification, which attempts to elicit such responses in non-game contexts. rd553@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisor: Prof. Paul Cairns Featured Publication(s): Automatic Game Tuning for Strategic Diversity Themes Applied Games Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Lauren Winter University of York iGGi PG Researcher Lauren was introduced to gaming from an early age when they received a PlayStation One as a gift. From there, video games became a huge part of their life, exploring new worlds through the eyes of a vast array of characters. Following their undergraduate degree in Psychology with Sociology, they completed their MSc in Psychology Research Methods at the University of Nottingham. A fascination with looking for trends in data and creating complex spreadsheets in Excel led them to a job analysing student information in a school, where they also ran four Esports teams competing across three games. Their research interests primarily focus on player research in team-based PVP games and looking at players’ awareness of each other in these environments. A description of Lauren's research: Lauren’s research investigates the differences in human-human and human-AI interaction in team-based digital games. Simultaneous combinations of competitive and cooperative play are found in many high grossing games, such as Call of Duty and League of Legends. These games provide environments for players to play with strangers, friends, and AI, and elicit social presence, a term used to describe the awareness of others in a digital environment. Lauren’s research will focus on two types of social presence: cooperative presence and competitive presence. Despite the popularity of these games, little is known about the juncture between the two and the effects they have on player experience. Due to the increasing inclusion of AI in daily life, including the gaming space, investigating these effects will have implications for future research in team-based digital games, as well as in the creation of AI that works with and against users. Through the development of a bespoke game, created in Unity, Lauren will investigate how people work together and against other players and AI, identifying aspects of the AI that can be manipulated into better player experiences and more enjoyable games. lauren.winter@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-winter-/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisor: Prof. Paul Cairns Featured Publication(s): "Leave our kids alone!": Exploring Concerns Reported by Parents in 1-star Reviews Better Dead than a Damsel: Gender Representation and Player Churn Themes Design & Development Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Nirit Binyamini Ben Meir Queen Mary University of London iGGi PG Researcher Available for placement 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. n.binyaminiben-meir@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://niritbin.com/ Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Featured Publication(s): 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

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games & Game Intelligence (IGGI) is the world's largest PhD research in games programme. The annual IGGI conference showcases students' work. Based at Uni of York & Queen Mary Uni of London, IGGI collaborates closely with 80+ industry partners. Welcome to iGGi !!! We are a group of people doing research in games... Read More Follow us on social media: (if you musk) BiGGi Con 2026 >> REGISTRATION OPEN! - iGGi THEMES - Game AI Game Data Design & Development Immersive Technology Esports Accessibility Creative Computing Game Audio Player Research Applied Games Check out the latest iGGi NEWS 23 April 2026 BiGGi Con 2026 - REGISTRATION NOW OPEN! Don't miss this year's iGGi Conference >> *BiGGi Con 2026* << 15-17 September 2026 at Queen Mary University of London Click the article for registration details! Read More iGGi GAMES iGGi COMMUNITY PG Researchers Staff Industry Partners Management Team Alumni

< Back Matt Bedder University of York iGGi Alum Abstraction-Based Monte Carlo Tree Search. (Industry placement at PROWLER.io) Monte Carlo Tree Search is a popular artificial intelligence technique amongst researchers due to the remarkable strength by which it can play many games. This technique was prominently used as the basis for AlphaGo, the AI by Google DeepMind that became the first of its kind to beat professional human players at the game Go. But despite lots of interest from academics into Monte Carlo Tree Search, the technique has seen little use in the games industry - due in part to how it is not fully understood, and due to how complex it is to implement into large games. Matthew’s research is looking into how game abstractions can be used to help implement and optimise Monte Carlo Tree Search into existing commercial video games. Semi-automated methods for domain abstraction are being investigated, with the aim of making it fast and easy for game developers to be able to implement Monte Carlo Tree Search into their products, and to exploit the wealth of academic research into this technique. Matthew is currently studying towards his PhD at the University of York, having previously graduated for the Department of Computer Science with a MEng in Computer Science with Artificial Intelligence. Before starting his PhD, Matthew spent a year at BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre working on contracts with the European Space Agency, and has performed research into vertebrae models of Parkinson's disease with York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress Email Mastodon Other links Website https://linkedin.com/pub/matthew-bedder/80/2a7/a51/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Featured Publication(s): Characterization and classification of adherent cells in monolayer culture using automated tracking and evolutionary algorithms Computational approaches for understanding the diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson's disease Automated motion analysis of adherent cells in monolayer culture Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Dr Mike Cook Supervisor Mike is a Senior Lecturer at King's College London where he leads research into automated game design, computational creativity, and the theory and practice of generative systems. mike@possibilityspace.org Email Mastodon https://www.possibilityspace.org/ Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes Creative Computing Design & Development Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Helen Tilbrook University of York iGGi Administrator iGGi Admin iGGi Administrator at York helen.tilbrook@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky Github Themes - 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. j.s.kritz@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-kritz-38808379/ LinkedIn BlueSky Github Supervisor: Dr Raluca Gaina Featured Publication(s): 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 Catherine Flick iGGi Responsible Innovation Lead Supervisor Catherine Flick is a Reader in Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University and has a particular interest in the ethics of emerging technologies (including video games). Her video game research is largely interdisciplinary and focused on the social and ethical impacts of and ethics in design of video games. Previous video game research and talk topics includes on Pokemon Go and mental health, design of moral decision making systems in Bioware games, the representation of chickens in video games, the philosophy of zombie games, desirability of lootboxes, serious games for the hearing impaired, etc. She regularly attends and speaks at PAX East, and has spoken on games and similarly weird things at various conferences and events internationally. She is also the responsible innovation lead for the IGGI programme, so has a particular interest in development of codes of ethics or ethical design principles for games, having worked on the updated ACM Code of Ethics and run EU funded projects that developed responsible innovation guidelines in the fields of healthcare IT, smart homes/smart health, cyber security, nanotechnology & biomedicine. She is particularly interested in students who are excited about the intersection of video games and society from a critical philosophical perspective, or from a social sciences perspective. Research themes: Ethical Game Design Games with a Purpose Player Experience Gamification Social/Ethical Impact of Games Diversity & Inclusion in Games Philosophy & Games catherine.flick@staffs.ac.uk Email https://mastodon.me.uk/@CatherineFlick Mastodon https://www.liedra.net Other links Website LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/liedra Github Themes Accessibility Applied Games Player Research - Previous Next

< Back Dr Poonam Yadav University of York Supervisor Dr Yadav research is focused on making the Internet of Things (IoT) and edge computing-based distributed systems resilient, reliable, and robust. This is an interdisciplinary research area that requires expertise in system design and integration along with knowledge of sensor systems, wireless networking, and domain and contextual understanding. To achieve resilience and reliability in the area of resource constraints and distributed systems, I focus on coordination and collaboration using interactions among machines, humans and data entities. These interactions could be categorized as machine-to-machine (M2M), machine-to-human (M2H), and human-to-data (H2D), and involve many challenges such as collaborative trust, privacy, legibility and accountability. Dr Yadav is an active reviewer of many top-tier ACM/IEEE IoT and networking conferences and journals. Dr. Yadav leads ACM-W UK professional chapter and is featured as "People of ACM Europe" and among the top ten N2Women Rising Star in Computer networking and communications in 2020. Research themes: E-Sports Use of IoT in Games Gamifications Citizen Science poonam.yadav@york.ac.uk Email Mastodon https://poonamyadav.net Other links Website https://www.linkedin.com/in/pyadav/ LinkedIn BlueSky https://github.com/pooyadav Github Themes Design & Development Esports Game Data - Previous Next