Search Results

< Back iGGi Wins "Best Game Related Research Award"!!! Exciting news! We're really proud to announce: For the second year running, iGGi has won the Game Republic Award for "Best Game-Related Research" The Awards Ceremony took place last night, on 21 November 2024, at the GaMaYo event at WX in Wakefield which is the biggest indie game developer gathering in The North. 45 new games were shown off to developers. As well as Awards, the event included a VIP reception, roundtables from leading experts on finance, investment, co-development and contracting, publishing, funding, etc., and special guests. Other winners on the night were: Cooperative Innovations – Best Small Studio Red Kite Games – Best Mid-sized studio Double Eleven – Best Large Studio Pitstop Productions – Most Innovative Use of Technology Inclusivity Award – Chokepoint Creative Community Player – Stacey Jubb, National videogame Museum Games Legend – Martyn Brown Inspiring Course leader – Renzo Palmisano Burnley college Studio Hero – Kerrie Holland Special surprise Lifetime Achievement award – Roger Womack Best indie game made in The North since Sept 2023 was subject to a public vote and the winner was Revolution’s "Broken Sword – The Shadow of the Templars: Reforged" Well done, all! A BIG MASSIVE THANKS goes out to Game Republic , GaMaYo , and the event's many sponsors! Please see this article (Game Republic) and this article (GaMaYo) for full coverage of the whole event and the awards! iGGi at this year's Game Republic Awards winning "Best Game-Related Research" Previous 22 Nov 2024 Next

< Back iGGi Game Jam 2022 We thought that with summer fast approaching and the end of term in close sight, the time would be right to reflect back on some of iGGi’s more iGGi-ish events which took place earlier this year. One such event was the iGGi Game Jam . iGGi PGRs gather once a year to create a game from scratch in a limited space of time (usually over 48 hours). This is an opportunity for those less familiar with game design/development to experience the process first hand, for those who are already experienced and/or have worked in industry before to explore new tools and/or skills, but most of all, we look at it as a shared fun time dedicated to (re-)connecting within and across cohorts, socialising and exchanging ideas. Traditionally, the Game Jam is coincided with international online events such as the Global Game Jam or Ludum Dare. This year, however, all of the jamming iGGi groups opted out of submitting to the Global Game Jam (for which iGGi was a registered site) – partly out of protest over the Global Game Jam’s initial choice of sponsor, partly because many felt that a relaxed group atmosphere was preferable to the high-octane pressure that participation in a global competition brings with it. This is not to say that we didn’t succumb to competitive spirit: prizes in 5 different categories were given out iGGi-internally at the final presentations upon conclusion of the jam. The categories were Non-fungible Gameplay - Best mechanic and game experience Houston, We Have A Problem - Most successful fail in a making a game Best Buddy - Best multiplayer game I Just Can't Get Enough - Best storytelling, immersive or replayable experience Tech Neutral - Most original & climate friendly use of technology You can find the majority of the resulting mini-games/proofs of concept uploaded on Itch here: https://itch.io/jam/iggi22/entries Previous 30 Jan 2022 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 - Mark the Date! - 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 16 January 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 iGGi GAMES iGGi COMMUNITY PG Researchers Staff Industry Partners Management Team Alumni

< Back iGGi Research Retreat "Unconference" Group Outcomes The Future of AI The "Problem" We discussed what the "future of AI" might look like, how it will change us as a society (for better and worse) and what possibilities it would create in the future. What we did As you can imagine, the "future of AI" is somewhat of a broad and undirected topic. Therefore in the morning we allowed free flowing conversations to see where it went and then towards the end tried to join up the threads into the things that we thought were the most worthy of further analysis and thought. In the afternoon we tackled the specifics of how to approach a game with emergent characters and stories, a topic oft dreamed of by game designers, but hitherto unattainable. The "Outcome" The morning discussions: Our discussions were wide-ranging, but the opening question captured the essence of our inquiry. From personalised AI assistants we quickly moved to the broader economics of AI — circling back again and again to two themes: whether AI can ever replicate the human experience, and the friction between the utopian ideals we project onto it and the gravitational pull of capitalism. I have sought to recount our discussion on these themes as accurately as memory allows, adding only modest(?) embellishment where it aids narrative coherence. On AI and human interaction: As someone quoted: “Do you know what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel?” (Good Will Hunting). The line reminds us that knowledge can be learned, but wisdom must be lived. Does an AI know what it is to be human? Can it ever truly understand the human experience? We are not just a collection of data points; we are a tapestry of emotions, experiences, and connections. AI can analyse patterns, but can it ever grasp the essence of what it means to be human? Human art matters because it exposes something fragile. To create is to risk oneself: to bleed, to reveal, to offer a fragment of the human condition for others to recognise. AI can imitate the form, but form without risk is mimicry. Can imitation ever supply the soul? Perhaps all we truly crave, as a species, is to be seen — to connect with each other. Yet history suggests authenticity is not always required. Chess engines long ago surpassed every human master, yet millions still prefer to watch people play. Calculators did not end mathematics; they expanded it, making it more ambitious and more accessible. Technology rarely erases human practice — but it does reframe it. The question is not only whether we can connect with AI as with another human, but whether we will still insist on doing so. AI companions and “digital girlfriends” already suggest that some are content with machine-mediated intimacy. The unsettling prospect is not that AI lacks a soul, but that we may cease to care. What happens when a generation grows up regarding “connection enough” as something delivered by code? If we defer not only thought but also empathy, attention, and intimacy to our machines, what remains distinctly human? We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us (Culkin). On AI and economics: AI will not escape the gravitational pull of commerce. As today’s internet is financed by advertising, it is inevitable that AI systems will be bent to the same imperatives — nudging our choices, steering our attention, and monetising our interactions. Already we see the first signs: an Alexa Show inserting shopping prompts directly into the home. For all our talk of AI safety and ethics, it is commerce that drives development. But once human labour itself is displaced, what then? A utopia of leisure where we are free to follow our passions? Or a dystopia in which a minority, owning the means of cognition itself, consign the rest of us to redundancy? Could a society without labour even cohere — or would it demand a wholesale reinvention of politics, economy, and democracy itself? As we tried to weave our threads together into something coherent, this was the question that seemed most fertile for further debate. What is the politics of AI? What would a political and economic system look like that could accommodate these changes? How do we ensure that the benefits of AI are shared equitably, rather than concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a few? Our discussions were rich, unsettling, and illuminating, tracing both promise and peril. Yet the future owes no loyalty to our prophecies. The greater danger is not that AI will fail to know us, but that, in its shadow, we will lose the thread of ourselves. In the afternoon: Having solved the future of AI before lunch, we turned in the afternoon to the far more mundane task of reinventing the games industry. One of the industries evergreen obsessions is how to make characters and narratives more believable. As games grow ever more immersive, the hunger for deeper storytelling only intensifies. Yet, despite extraordinary technical progress, this is the frontier we keep failing to cross — because the obstacle is less technical, and more human. The costs of creating content are crushing. Large language models offer a tantalising shortcut: a machine that might spin endless dialogue, branching quests, even whole worlds on demand. But this promise comes bound up with limitations so profound they may be unsolvable with current methods. My own curiosity lies in a hybrid approach: using generative AI not as an all-purpose author, but as a tool to help construct traditional symbolic systems — frameworks that could give structure and coherence while still leaving room for human craft. If it worked, it might nudge us forward in this arena without the problems that come with the other approaches. But this is not a conversation one can leap into lightly. It demands deep knowledge of how games are actually made, tested, and sold, as well as a sober reckoning with both the failures and the potential of LLMs. Much of our discussion was spent simply reaching the starting line. The groups diversity produced fresh perspectives, but the depth of the subject meant we could not advance far in the time available. What did become clear was this: the problem is not just technical, it is communicative. If this debate is to progress, the challenge must be articulated in a way that is accessible beyond a narrow circle of experts. That, I realised, is the real work still ahead. Post Script: We live in a time of unprecedented change (at least in living memory). The world has enjoyed relative peace up until about 2020 but it feels like the geopolitical sands are shifting in a once-in-a-century phenomenon and such change has wide-ranging global political and economic implications for modern society broadly, but specifically within technology. This scenario is quite relevant to some of our discussions; the place and role of AI in our society is hard to gauge when our society is going through some fairly tectonic shifts. I think it will be a job for historians in the future to determine whether the emergence of advanced AI and these changes are correlation or coincidence, but it is clear that we cannot evaluate and analyse AI within a vacuum. The wider context is key here and that context is both nebulous and shifting all the time. Perhaps AI can support such a perspective in ways that one (or many) human minds cannot comprehend at once? Previous Next Previous Next

A Word from The iGGi Director 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. A Word from the Director Welcome to iGGi! Below are a few words about the vision for iGGi, about who funds iGGi and why, and about why i GGi can be a force for good in a sometimes turbulent world. iGGi is short for the “EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence” (EPSRC is short for “Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council”). You can see why the name iGGi stuck! In , 120 PhD students spend 4 years learning cool stuff and conducting research in topics related to games and the games industry, working with 100 UK games companies . The big vision for iGGi is to inject research innovations and innovative researchers into the games industry. There is a strong economic argument for this, and there are even stronger social and cultural reasons. So where did iGGi come from and what is the vision that allowed us to win £30 million for games research? In the early 2000s, the games research community went through a huge growth spurt (which continues to this day). The economic, social and cultural power of video games meant that politicians and funders could no longer brush games aside as kid’s stuff. An opportunity arose in 2013 with the announcement of a competition for funding around 100 centres for PhD research in a focussed area of science or engineering. While it was clear that the call would be massively oversubscribed and very competitive, games seemed a good fit given the rise and rise of the financial size of the games market and the growing research community. We had more and more friends and contacts in the games industry. And we had shown that games could be funded at scale via projects such as UCT (£1.5 million) and NEMOG (1.2 million). A group of people from across academia and industry, with an interest in games research, came together to submit a bid and form a consortium. Our joint goal was to “make better games” and “make games better”. My role in this (as ‘Principal Investigator’) was as a synthesiser of ideas, as a recruiter of people who shared and refined these ideas, and as a writer and lobbyist who could package them up for referees who almost certainly lacked enthusiasm for games research. So how can we summarise the iGGi vision? The ‘IG’ in iGGi stands for ‘Intelligent Games’ - using research advances to make better games that provide richer, more fun experiences. The ‘GI’ in iGGi stands for ‘Game Intelligence’ - research which uses games to understand and inform people. In more detail: the following two paragraphs, from the 2013 iGGi bid, were probably among the most carefully written of the text in the whole bid document (redrafted dozens of times): Our vision is twofold: Intelligent Games: iGGi PhDs, investigators and collaborators will use research advances to seed the creation of a new generation of more intelligent and engaging digital games, to underpin the distinctiveness and growth of the UK games industry. We will weave technical and creative disciplines: using games as an application area to advance research in areas including artificial intelligence and computational creativity; human-computer interaction; interactive sound, graphics and narrative; robotics, agents and complex systems. The study of intelligent games will be underpinned by new business models and by research advances in data mining (game analytics) which can exploit vast volumes of gameplay data. Game Intelligence: iGGi PhDs, investigators and collaborators will investigate games as a medium to achieve scientific and societal goals, working with user groups and the games industry to produce new genres of games which can yield therapeutic, educational and social benefits and using games to seed a new era of scientific experimentation into human preference and interaction. We will create new games to conduct large-scale analysis of individual behaviour, leading to better understanding in economics, psychology, sociology, biology and human-computer interaction. We will build games which promote physical and mental health and educational achievement, underpinned by advances in mobile technology and data mining. This vision was refined and updated for the 2018 iGGi resubmission, especially given the enormous advances in machine learning and the cultural and social successes of games, but the text above remains a good overview of the high-level iGGi vision. But a vision is relatively static, and now, of course, iGGi is a community of brilliant, fun, caring, intelligent, curious research students, supported by staff and industry partners. So maybe the best way to find out more about iGGi is to read more about a few of them… I look forward to talking about games research with you! Peter Cowling iGGi Director Professor of AI, Queen Mary University of London

iGGi PhD Projects - listing iGGi PhD Projects 2023 Game AI This page displays the supervisor-proposed PhD projects on offer under the above stated theme: If you are interested in any of the projects listed and would like further details and/or to discuss, please email the project supervisor. Please note that you can also frame your own project independently granted that you have secured a supervisor's support. For a list of available supervisors please see the accepting students section of our website. While iGGi has checked that the project descriptions listed below are within iGGi's scope , we wish to highlight that you are still responsible for ensuring that your proposal, too, is in line with this scope, and we would further like to point out that supervisor-framed projects are not prioritised in the application selection process: they are judged by the same criteria as applicant-framed proposals. For guidance to make sure that the proposal you submit (regardless of whether it has been supervisor-framed or created entirely by you) sits within iGGi's scope please refer to this link: https://iggi.org.uk/iggi-scope Navigate to other Themes on offer: Game AI Design & Development Player Research Game Audio Game Data Immersive Technology Creative Computing E-Sports Applied Games Back to ALL Projects Game AI Automatic Evaluation of Tabletop Games This project proposal aims to research and develop methods to accurately evaluate the impact of modern Tabletop Games components in different aspects of gameplay. Price Game AI Duration Diego Pérez-Liébana Read More Game AI Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning In this project, you will develop principled and scalable exploration techniques based on reducing model uncertainty. Price Game AI Duration Paulo Rauber Read More Game AI Evolving Perception for Game Agents This project will investigate game agents in open world games which evolve their senses and world representation alongside learning what actions to take in each state. We will evolve game agents with highly alien behaviours which nevertheless have high fitness in the open world environment, while investigating important scientific questions about how senses and world representations evolved in humans. Price Game AI Duration Alex Wade, Peter Cowling Read More Load More

< Back iGGi Seminar - Alexander Swords Alexander Swords is visiting us at Empire House to speak about: Narrative Design of Totem Teller Wednesday, 22 June 2022 @ 16:00-17:30 Abstract Alexander Swords is the writer and narrative designer on the transmedia video game experience Totem Teller as well as the creator of The Forest Paths Method For Narrative Design. In this talk he’ll cover how the Method has been indispensable in the development of the game, bringing together the more tangible requirements of game development and the transcendental form on which the game is based. It will include a behind the scenes look at the narrative design patterns used in development, as well as footage of gameplay yet to be made public. Bio Alexander Swords is a writer and narrative designer working across emotional games, games for change, the adaptation and evolution of stories moving to new mediums, and advocating for the power of interactive narrative and the need for diverse future storytellers. With 20 years experience working with stories, creators, and their audiences, he’s currently wielding this experience as a writer and narrative design director on Totem Teller and Anytown: Garage Sale Monsters. He’s also the creator of the Forest Paths Method for Narrative Design; a structuralist approach to understanding story in an approachable and collaborative way. Moderated by Timea Farkas (iGGi PhD) For further info and/or if you are an iGGi-external who would like to attend, please contact s.binder@qmul.ac.uk Previous 15 Jun 2022 Next

< Back iGGi Research Retreat "Unconference" For the second year running, we've assembled a group of 30 people at a remote Holiday Village near Matlock (Derbyshire) to connect individuals over their shared research interests, and to exchange ideas and experiences. The retreat spanned over 4 days (3 nights), and participants were made up of 16 iGGi PG Researchers, 2 iGGi Alumni, 9 Games Industry Members, 2 iGGi Academic Supervisors, and 1 iGGi Admin. The format: The first session of the day is always a "pitching" session. Each participant can put forward the topics they would like to see investigated and invite other participants to join their group. Groups with at least 2 members then retreat to a breakout space on site (e.g., their cottage's living room, outdoors seating, the common room) to work on their project for the rest of that day. The day's results are shared with everyone in the evening, and a larger, more detailed presentation is held on the last day before event close. This year, we had set simple rules as to who can pitch ideas on each day in order to give everyone a fair chance for gathering a group and to foster the creation of new connections. Some of the groups' outcome has been made available in summarised format via these dedicated pages/articles ! Given the enthusiastic feedback we've so far received, we aim to run a similar retreat in 2026, and we're already excited for it! iGGi Unconference Group Outcomes (List) Previous 21 Aug 2025 Next

< Back IGGI 2021 Conference start The IGGI 2021 Conference will kick-start tomorrow with a promising looking schedule of exiting speakers for our Panels, 18 Talks, 2 Workshops, and the traditional IGGI Buzz Talks, all spread over two days. Don't miss out and join us online on Gather.Town Previous 7 Sept 2021 Next

< Back IGGI students and staff at the 2019 IGGI Conference The annual IGGI conference assembles is your games research download from 50+ PhD students at York, Goldsmiths, QMUL, and Essex Universities. Previous 12 Oct 2020 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

< Back iGGi Studentships at QMUL - with Creative Assembly Thinking about doing a PhD in digital games? The deadline to apply to one of our 2 advertised studentships has just been extended to Monday 13 June 2022! The positions are fully funded and full-time for four years starting September 2022 (PhD fees plus a tax-free stipend to cover living costs). The PhD researchers will be based at Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) The studentships on offer are in collaboration with our partner Creative Assembly , one of the UK’s largest games studios which has been established for 34 years and is the author of the Total War games series. You will need to form a proposal based on one of the projects proposed by Creative Assembly: https://www.iggi-phd.org/ca-projects-industry/High Precision Battle Simulation for Strategy Games Modelling Player Behaviour in Total-War Games We strongly suggest that potential applicants contact the supervisor(s) of their chosen project to develop a proposal as soon as possible via the email address given in the respective project description . Your proposal should be developed via (email) discussion with the prospective supervisor(s). Please also make sure that the proposal you submit sits within iGGi's scope. To apply please follow the instructions on our Apply page . Submit your full application by Monday 13 June, 12:00 noon BST. Previous 16 May 2022 Next