Game Innovation Conference

At the Game Innovation Conference, I was impressed by a level in Unreal to demonstrate sound design, computer adaptation of Mario levels, speculating skill of Chess players from 1850 to 2006, a masterful Mario AI, pathfinding failures, analyzing thought-behavior, and a music improvisation prototype.
To demonstrate principles of designing sounds for games, Richard Stevens and Dave Raybould, from Leeds Metropolitan University, explored a level in Unreal. It was a virtual method of loci. Each room covered a topic. Videos were embedded into the wall. He had videos from several games, each of which illustrated a good or bad example of a principle. Example effects were embedded into the rooms. For more, see the blog.
From IT University of Copenhagen, Julian Togelius and Georgios Yannakakis research into evaluating player satisfaction. Using the public domain Infinite Mario Bros, in their experiment they evaluated challenge, frustration, boredom, and anxiety.
From Microsoft Research, Thore Graepel presented Halo 3 TrueSkill, which improved matchmaking between players. Using TrueSkill, he speculated on the relative skill of Chess masters from 1850 to 2006.
Julian also hosted a Mario competition, which Robin Baumgarten, from the Imperial College, won with an A* search of simulated physics of Mario's position. In an impressive video, Mario even saves himself from a pit by wall-jumping out of it.
From University of Utrecht, Ioannis Karamouzas presented excellent movies illustrating failures of pathfinding in Unreal, Empire Total War, and Grand Theft Auto IV.
Although, moving boxes is as exciting as it gets in Army logistics, William Fisher from Quicksilver Software, showed dedication to training by extensive interviewing experts on their problems and how they solved them.
From Institute for Digital Media Technology, Sascha Grollsmich, Christian Dittmar, and Gabriel Gatzsche increased player entertainment by letting the player play freely during some portion of a led rhythm game. They were awarded best student paper.
From University of Southern California, I presented a videogame whose rules of play embody the language of Korea. I was happy that Runesinger received 2nd best paper and a bursary.
I also presented a prototype of Andreas Witzel, from University of Amsterdam, that would modify Thief: The Dark Project. The guard considers the beliefs of the thief. Audience encouraged us to follow-up and implement levels with multiple guards who also consider the beliefs of other guards.



