Search Results

< Back Radical Alternate Futurescoping: Solarpunk Vs Grimdark Workshop THIS NEWS ARTICLE WAS WRITTEN BY PRASAD SANDBHOR AND SARAH MASTERS ACADEMIC MINDTREK CONFERENCE Academic Mindtrek 2023 was an exciting conference based at Tampere University in Finland and focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that featured talks and workshops in research and development on games, gamification, human-nature interaction, AI, robotics and lots more, including punk game design!🌱🧷✨🤖 COLLABORATION Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence (IGGI) PhD researchers Prasad Sandbhor and Sarah Masters proposed and delivered a design and research workshop at Academic Mindtrek 2023 titled Alternate Radical Futurescoping: Solarpunk vs Grimdark. The workshop was conducted in a hybrid set-up and involved the co-creation of mock-ups of play experiences dealing with eco futures and climate action in solarpunk and grimdark themes. PARTICIPATION A dedicated website was created for the workshop that provided information about its purpose and enabled participant registrations. It was promoted over Twitter, Linkedin and various communities interested in climate change and game design. The workshop received 15 registrations. 11 participants (6 online, 5 in-person) took part in the workshop as 4 registrations got cancelled due to various reasons. The participants belonged to diverse backgrounds such as PhD and postdoctoral research in games and HCI (that included 2 iGGi PhD researchers), creative arts, future visioning and game design. Workshop slides and reference materials were emailed to all participants prior to the workshop in order to help them familiarise themselves with the topics and methods being used. Participants were given a choice of either forming a group or working by themselves to create a mock-up of a play experience concept. 4 participants (1 in-person, 3 online) opted to work by themselves as solo creators while the rest formed 2 groups (1 group of 4 participants in-person and 1 group of 3 participants online). 3 participants (1 in-person and 2 online) joined only the mock-up creation part of the workshop. WORKSHOP The workshop aimed at bringing people from diverse interdisciplinary backgrounds together to conceptualise speculative play experiences for climate change engagement. Therefore, the workshop format included the facilitation of mock-up co-creation, initiation of a community of radical alternate futurescopers and reflection on the design journeys followed to articulate the opportunities, risks, challenges and effects associated with working on solarpunk and grimdark genres. Details about the context, goals, format and schedule of the workshop are available as a workshop can be found here The workshop consisted of 4 phases - introduction, conceptualisation, mock-up creation, and critical reflection discussion. The slide deck provided here was used across all phases of the workshop. In the first phase, participants were introduced to solarpunk and grimdark genres and given prompts for mock-up creation. In the second phase, they were taken through hands-on exercises using Critical Game Design, Triadic Game Design, and Design Box methods to support them in ideating and developing their concepts. In the third phase, participants created conceptual mock-ups on the medium of their choice. The last phase of the workshop involved a showcase of the participants' mock-ups, followed by a thorough discussion and critical reflection session. They also reflected on their own emotional journeys during the workshop. The workshop used a dedicated Discord channel for collaboration and communication between the organisers and both online and in-person participants. An itch page was set up for hosting the mock-ups created during the workshop. OUTCOMES The workshop produced 6 mock-ups of play experience concepts that followed solarpunk and grimdark genres. Although the design brief to the participants expected them to choose one of the two genres, it was observed that all concepts preferred an amalgamation of the two genres. The concepts generated during the workshop included a game about surviving the winter of 2023 in Ukraine, an open world VR experience related to deep sea impacts of climate change, a grimdark game related to urban forests, a resource management game about developing green spaces in cities, a city building game dealing with flood management, and a strategy game on climate refugee migration conflict. In the fourth phase of the workshop, participants presented their play experience concepts using mock-ups and took part in a reflection exercise over a Miro board. The reflection exercise included 6 questions dealing with the design process followed, the challenges faced and the takeaways from the workshop. Preliminary insights are as follows: >> Reflections on the design process and workshop format - The format of the workshop was found helpful by the participants. They reported that the prompts given were useful in quickly deciding the topic and using it as an anchor for the design process involving the triadic game design framework and the design box method. >> Challenges faced - The participants noted that while ideating in the context of the prompt, it was easy to slip from one genre to the other as some prompts had an inherent inclination towards one of the genres (for instance, a prompt about the climate refugees aligned with grimdark genre more than solarpunk). Some participants found managing the scale or scope of the game topic difficult during the workshop. It was also shared that following solarpunk aesthetics in the limited time and resources was challenging. Another feedback comment related to the challenges said that it was hard to work with solarpunk as its overtly positive vibe was “killing the dramatic elements”. >> Feelings and takeaways - For most of the participants, the takeaways from the workshop were related to the design processes followed and game design strategies for designing and developing games and play experiences for future research. When asked about their feelings about the future in the context of climate change experienced during the mock-up creation journey, they said that the duration of the workshop was too short to observe the feelings. Here are a few selected participant comments on the question: “Did creating your mockup change the way you feelabout the future in the context of climate change, if so, how?” "Not sure if it made me feel differently about climate change, but definitely about using games to tackle the issue. And about the potential of both solarpunk and grimdark conventions to convey different ideas." “Tips the scale a bit, games have been a great way to spread your message and awareness as you immerse the player to think and live your world” “It was very illuminating; an alternative way of brainstorming and fleshing out solutions. I feel more optimistic about climate action.” Workshop and its outcomes CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK Overall, the workshop was successful in achieving its objectives. The participants learned new concepts and methods of design and were able to create innovative play experiences with a climate change lens. The critical reflection discussion helped them articulate the challenges of creating solarpunk and grimdark artefacts. The workshop and the conference also served as an opportunity to connect with other researchers working in the domains of climate change games and human nature interaction. We intend to work further on the mock-ups created during the workshop and the feedback comments gathered in the form of a research publication. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We want to give a big shoutout to all our amazing participants for their contributions. We couldn't have done it without you!🙌We would like to say thank you to Academic MindTrek Conference 2023 for hosting us and to IGGI - Intelligent Games & Game Intelligence for supporting us with its collaboration fund to make it happen.😊 Prasad Sandbhor, Sarah Masters Previous 3 Oct 2023 Next

< Back Grounded Theory in Games Research: Making the Case and Exploring the Options Link Author(s) JH Salisbury, T Cole 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

< Back The 2018 Hanabi competition Link Author(s) J Walton-Rivers, PR Williams, R Bartle Abstract More info TBA Link

< Back Investing in AI for social good: an analysis of European national strategies Link Author(s) F Foffano, T Scantamburlo, A Cortés 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. University of Tampere

< Back Crowdsourcing and aggregating nested markable annotations Link Author(s) C Madge, J Yu, J Chamberlain, U Kruschwitz, S Paun, M Poesio 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. Meaning Machine

< 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

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. York Mediale

< Back iGGi @ Develop:Brighton 2024 Develop:Brighton 2024 Talks: iGGi featured with iGGi PG Researcher Dominik Jeurissen and his talk on " LLM Agents For QA - Potential & Limitations ". Please see our related article for further detail. iGGi @ Develop Expo: For the 3rd year running, the iGGi stand was present again on the Expo floor of the 2024 Develop:Brighton conference ! The Expo always takes place on Days 2+3 of the conference and is a popular networking platform for the game dev community. Attendees could drop by the iGGi stand to speak to one or more of the 25 iGGi PG Researchers and staff who came to Develop this year. As in previous years, iGGi was promoting the intersection between games industry and research and fostering collaboration links through knowledge exchanges that are mutually beneficial to both sides. Displays at the iGGi Stand: PG Researcher displays this year included Michael John Saiger 's Teach Quest (a serious game designed for teacher recruitment), Alan Pedrassoli Chitayat 's Win Condition (an ML-powered tool for professional esport broadcasters), Sarah Master 's Moth Magic (a "tiny retro pixel art game" with green development goals), Dominik Jeurissen 's NetPlay (the first LLM-powered zero-shot agent for the challenging roguelike NetHack), Alan Wallat's War of the Toads (a card game used by James Goodman in his research), and Nirit Binyamini Ben Meir 's and Erin Robinson 's Moss Project (an immersive art installation focused on creative plant-human interaction; see image below). Several senior iGGi PG Researchers and Alumni hosted their own session/event (or with their company) at/around Develop, e.g., Gorm Lai, Charline Foch, Tom Cole, Jozef Kulik - a warm thank you to all of them for keeping us in the loop about their work and particularly for supporting junior iGGis. iGGi Con 2024 + Expo: We also advertised our upcoming iGGi Conference 2024 (and Expo) which showcases our recent research as well as offering a valuable opportunity for dialogue between academia and industry. If you want take part in the iGGi Expo as an exhibitor, or to learn more about existing pathways of knowledge exchange between iGGi and games companies or other research organisations, you can check out our Industry Info + KE page , but we are also always open for new ideas and formats. Please do get in touch if you require any further information. iGGi Partners during Develop: A massive big THANKS from all of iGGi to the various iGGi Partners who either ran satellite events, came over to our stand, invited us to events, and/or showed their support in other ways. This includes Player Research (who hosted iGGi at their office and who also organised a fabulously informative Game Accessibility Gathering with/at Unity Technologies), Splash Damage, Safe In Our World, Women In Games, Game Republic, BiG, Square Enix, Keywords Studios, Meaning Machine, #RaiseTheGame /Ukie, and AI and Games/Tommy Thompson, all of which contributed greatly to the "Develop networking magic" by connecting us to relevant contacts and by spreading the word about iGGi. We are especially happy that Game Republic won the Develop Star Award for "Supporting Star" and Meaning Machine secured the People's Choice Award in the Indie Showcase with their game Dead Meat !! Both well deserved! Big CONGRATS from iGGi. Lastly, a sincere THANK YOU to the Develop organisers who make it happen every year and are doing such an amazing job at it. We can't wait to see everyone back together in 2025!! Previous 12 Jul 2024 Next

< Back Monte carlo tree search applied to co-operative problems Link Author(s) PR Williams, J Walton-Rivers, D Perez-Liebana, SM Lucas Abstract More info TBA Link