Our faculty is joined by Yana Knight, who is commencing her PhD project on the topic of Supporting Artistic Processes with Artificial Intelligence advised by MP Eladhari and H Verhagen.
On Wednesday the 14th of December 2022 at 13:00 CET Yana will give a talk, save the date! Room will be announced. The occasion is the IDEAL monthly research seminar.
In this talk, Yana will take you on a guided tour through her diverse and interdisciplinary body of artistic work across paintings, graphic novels, comics, characters, narratives and ways of looking, and eventually leading to ideas of working with AI as a creative medium and the potential that lurks within this collaboration to extend, support and enrich her existing artistic practice. No prior artistic experience necessary but an open mind and your sense of humour will be beneficial.
We meet monthly to talk about research that is related to games. We alter between having a seminar with an agenda with presentations or topics we want to discuss, and between meeting for lunch. Most of the times we meet Wednesday, but sometimes on Thursdays if there is a clash.
Guest speaker: Dr Hailey Austin, InGAME Research and Development Fellow, Transnational Creative Industries, Abertay University
Place: M20 and Twitch
Dr Hailey Austin with a member of StarStable
Recording of the talk is available here (link to YouTube)
Dr Austin is spending the month of March with us at DSV to collaborate and to conduct a field study at the game company StarStable.
More about the work that will be presented:
Stockholm’s creative industries are unique in that the videogame and comics cultures are female-led and female-centred. Star Stable is a Stockholm-based web browser adventure game that is the #1 ranked and fastest-growing horse game in the world. The company has maintained a sisterhood driven mission since its inception 10 years ago, and has expanded from games into books, music, animation, and comics that all depict young female protagonists. Similarly, Stockholm’s comics scene has increasingly centred women and feminist ideologies over the last 10 years. This cultural shift reflects something that is true of a small part of the UK independent comics and videogames scenes. However, the UK could learn from and possibly adopt the successful model of Stockholm’s female-forward creative industries.
This project consists of one month in Stockholm, which will involve: 2 presentations on the research; the creation of a Women in Games event; in-person ethnographic interviews with employees and other members of the local creative industries; networking with creative industry partners (Star Stable, Otter Play, and local comics stores), games researchers, and Women in Games ambassadors; and the creation of a travelogue comic documenting the research project. As a result of this research, two outputs will be generated: 1) a printed travelogue comic as creative practice and 2) a dual language report in English and Swedish.”
2022-03-09 13:00 – 14:30. Seminar
Topic: applications to Horizon Spring Calls
Place: M10
Objective: Present the grant applications we are working on, exchanging advice, and potentially finding synergies.
2022-02-02 13:00 – 13:30. Seminar.
Place: M20 and Zoom
Agenda:
1. talk by Aron Larsson on project CCRAAAFFFTING
2. grant applications, round table
3. this springs game research meet-ups
1. Our speaker is Aron Larsson from E-gov at DSV who will talk about a long running (finished) project where games developed was used to explore, by simulation, how the Swedish society might cope under differs types of crises. (Se more below, text in Swedish)
2. Early spring is research-grant-application-writing-time for many of us. Roundtable looking for synergies.
3. Topics and dates for meet-ups in spring. Suggestions for topics and guest speakers?
Aron Larsson: CCRAAAFFFTING – Creating Collaborative Resilience Awareness, Analysis and Action for Finance, Food and Fuel Systems in INteractive Games
I ett simulerat samhälle drabbas betalningssystemet av en långvarig störning där kortbetalningar inte är möjliga under 10 dygn. Aktörer som deltar i spelet ska inte pröva sin nuvarande beredskap, utan ska tillsammans med andra samhällsfunktioner utveckla samhället som helhet och ges möjlighet att ställa sig frågan; hur bör vi tillsammans agera och genom detta öka fokus på önskvärda åtgärder och riktlinjer. Under spelets gång kommer deltagarna under en heldag gemensamt analysera olika situationer från ett helhetsperspektiv och föreslå beslut där de tar hänsyn till varandras intressen. Besluten matas in i simuleringen som återger vad de samlade effekterna av besluten blir på samhället efter en viss tidsperiod (några dagar eller veckor beroende på scenariot som spelas). Deltagarna får omgående resultaten och tar sedan ställning till den nya situationen. På det sättet spelas ett skeende med ett flertal beslutsrundor och lär deltagarna mer och mer om varandras beteende och systemets komplexitet i stort.
2022-05-31 13:00 – 14:30. Seminar.
Place: M20 and Zoom
Agenda:
1. Our guest speaker is prof. Jérôme Dupire from Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (cnam.fr) in Paris. He is a game accessibility expert, teaching at CNAM ENJMIN game master and is president of Capgame.fr (https://www.capgame.fr/accueil/qui-sommes-nous/). He is also chair of FIP Entertainment Computing: TC 14.9 Game Accessibility.
2. Topics and dates for meet-ups in the autumn. Suggestions for topics and guest speakers?
We meet around twice per month to talk about research that is related to games. We alter between having a seminar with an agenda with presentations or topics we want to discuss, and between meeting for lunch. Most of the times we meet Wednesday, but sometimes on Thursdays if there is a clash.
2021-08-25 11:30 – 12:30. Lunch. We meet at the restaurant at the bottom floor of Noden
2021-09-15 13:00 – 14:30 Seminar
Developers from Ionbite.se give a show-and-tell about their upcoming horror game featuring procedural content generation.
2021-09-29 11:30 – 12:30. Lunch.
We meet at the restaurant at the bottom floor of Noden
2021-10-13 13:00 – 14:30 Seminar
Henrik Warpefelt: the UX of AI
In this talk I will describe how players interpret and understand what they encounter in games, and why this makes it so hard to design believable and engaging AI experiences in games. Lurking at the core of the problem is the finicky nature of human cognition, which acts as a constant confounder for designers and players alike. Along the way, I will discuss why No Man’s Sky flopped, why game AI is perpetually struggling, and possibly ruin sports cars and Hollywood blockbusters for everyone.
Dr Henrik Warpefelt studies the user experience of artificial intelligence in games, focused on expanding the understanding of how players perceive and interpret game design, as well as identifying good design practices for how AI technologies should be applied in games. His previous research includes social believability for non-player characters, and usability and design heuristics for games. Henrik is currently employed as an Assistant Professor of Game Design and Development at Kennesaw State University. Hereceived his PhD from the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences at Stockholm University in 2015, and was previously at the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University and the Department of Media Technology at Södertörn University.
2021-11-03 11:30 – 12:30. Lunch.
We meet at the restaurant at the bottom floor of Noden.
2021-11-18 13:00 – 14:30 Seminar. Obs on a Thursday! Room: M20, at the 3rd floor of Noden.
Henrik Engström: Game Development Research in the Wild
In this talk I will talk about the gap between academic studies of games and applied game development – as it is conducted in the wild. Game research has seen a strong growth the last 20 years and there has been a lot of interest in studies of games, players, and the effect gaming has on individuals and the society. There has also been a huge interest in using games for functional purposes. Educational games, serious games and gamification have received a lot of attention from researchers. The processes behind “regular” games have received very little interest. Some aspects of game development, like software engineering and management, have been studied to some extent but other areas, like narrative design and animation, are almost unexplored in the wild. I will talk about this and a book I have written on the topic (https://gamedevresearch.se).
Henrik Engström is a professor at the University of Skövde. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Exeter and has conducted game-related research since 2001. His research focuses on the game development process and, in particular, its entangled, multidisciplinary nature. In a research context, Henrik has served as project manager, producer and developer in a number of game projects.
Link to video recording of the talk:
2021-12-01 11:30 – 12:30. Lunch.
We meet at the restaurant at the bottom floor of Noden
2021-12-15 13:00 – 14:30 Seminar
Guest speaker: Associate Professor Petri Lankoski, Södertörn University:
Topic: Constructive alignment in teaching games
2021-12-22 11:30 – 12:30. Lunch.
We meet at the restaurant at the bottom floor of Noden
Welcome to the game research blog of the Department of Computer and System Sciences (DSV) at Stockholm University! At DSV, we meet every other week to discuss our game related research work.
