IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games

Computational analysis of player style has significant potential for video game design: it can provide insights into player behavior, as well as the means to dynamically adapt a game to each individual's style of play. To realize this potential, computational methods need to go beyond considerations of challenge and ability and account for aesthetic aspects of player style. We describe here a semi... View full abstract»

Player satisfaction is particularly difficult to ensure in online games, due to interactions with other players. In adversarial multiplayer games, matchmaking typically consists in trying to match together players of similar skill level. However, this is usually based on a single-skill value, and assumes the only factor of “fun” is the game balance. We present a more advanced matchma... View full abstract»

In this paper, we explain how an existing computational aesthetics model for three-move mate problems was improved and adapted to suit the domain of chess endgame studies. Studies are typically longer and more “sophisticated” in terms of their perceived aesthetics or beauty. They are therefore likely a better test of the capability of machines to evaluate beauty in the game. Based on... View full abstract»

As video games have grown from crude and simple circuit-based artefacts to a multibillion dollar worldwide industry, video-game music has become increasingly adaptive. Composers have had to use new techniques to avoid the traditional, event-based approach where music is composed mostly of looped audio tracks, which can lead to music that is too repetitive. In addition, these cannot scale well in t... View full abstract»

The emergence of full-body computer games raises an interesting question: Can body movement be used to measure the aesthetic experience of players? In this paper, we aim to take a first step toward answering this question. Such a question emerges from the fact that various studies have shown the dual role of body movement, i.e., a window on people's emotional and mental states as well as a means t... View full abstract»

This paper introduces a search-based approach to personalized content generation with respect to visual aesthetics. The approach is based on a two-step adaptation procedure where: 1) the evaluation function that characterizes the content is adjusted to match the visual aesthetics of users; and 2) the content itself is optimized based on the personalized evaluation function. To test the efficacy of... View full abstract»

This paper explores notions of elegance and shibui in combinatorial game design, and describes simple computational models for their estimation. Elegance is related to a game's simplicity, clarity, and efficiency, while shibui is a more complex concept from Japanese aesthetics that also incorporates depth. These provide new metrics for quantifying and categorizing games that are largely independen... View full abstract»