Schedule for: 16w5160 - Computational Modeling in Games

Beginning on Sunday, May 15 and ending Friday May 20, 2016

All times in Banff, Alberta time, MDT (UTC-6).

Sunday, May 15
16:00 - 17:30 Check-in begins at 16:00 on Sunday and is open 24 hours (Front Desk - Professional Development Centre)
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner
A buffet dinner is served daily between 5:30pm and 7:30pm in the Vistas Dining Room, the top floor of the Sally Borden Building.
(Vistas Dining Room)
20:00 - 22:00 Informal gathering (Corbett Hall Lounge (CH 2110))
Monday, May 16
07:00 - 08:45 Breakfast
Breakfast is served daily between 7 and 9am in the Vistas Dining Room, the top floor of the Sally Borden Building.
(Vistas Dining Room)
08:45 - 09:00 Introduction and Welcome by BIRS Station Manager (TCPL 201)
09:00 - 09:20 Frank Lantz: Theories and Models of Game Depth and Fun
What would more formal definitions and theories of “depth” and “fun” look like? How do you employ such theories for design and analysis? What are the more fine-grained concepts that get mashed together under broad terms such as “depth” and “fun”? What are some potential approaches for making forward progress on these topics?
(TCPL 201)
09:20 - 09:40 Noor Shaker: Gameplay Analytics and Player Modeling
What are the limits in the current state of the art of gameplay analytics and player modeling? What are the big open challenge questions and low-hanging fruit? What is the relationship between analytics and player modeling? What are the opportunities for live analytics and modeling within the gameplay loop? What are the challenges in applying analytics and player modeling to design?
(TCPL 201)
09:40 - 10:00 Mirjam Eladhari: Computational Narrative and Narrative Systems
What are the different representational areas/aspects of narrative systems (e.g. dialog, story progression, etc.) and what kinds of formalisms support modeling these areas? What are the authoring tradeoffs that arise with different commitments to computational representations of narrative? For combinatorial narrative systems, how can player-perceived qualities of the narrative be modeled for guiding the combinatorial space? What might the design space look like for different approaches for player interaction with narrative systems?
(TCPL 201)
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
10:30 - 11:00 Workgroup Formation (TCPL 201)
11:00 - 11:30 Workgroup Agenda Setting (TCPL 201)
11:30 - 13:00 Lunch (Vistas Dining Room)
13:00 - 14:00 Guided Tour of The Banff Centre
Meet in the Corbett Hall Lounge for a guided tour of The Banff Centre campus.
(Corbett Hall Lounge (CH 2110))
14:00 - 14:20 Group Photo
Meet in foyer of TCPL to participate in the BIRS group photo. The photograph will be taken outdoors, so dress appropriately for the weather. Please don't be late, or you might not be in the official group photo!
(TCPL Foyer)
14:20 - 15:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
15:30 - 18:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner
A buffet dinner is served daily between 5:30pm and 7:30pm in the Vistas Dining Room, the top floor of the Sally Borden Building.
(Vistas Dining Room)
19:30 - 22:00 Games and Discussion (TCPL 201)
Tuesday, May 17
07:00 - 09:00 Breakfast (Vistas Dining Room)
09:00 - 10:00 Workgroup Reports from Monday (TCPL 201)
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
10:30 - 11:30 Workgroup Reports from Monday (TCPL 201)
11:30 - 13:30 Lunch (Vistas Dining Room)
13:30 - 17:30 Free Afternoon (Banff National Park)
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner (Vistas Dining Room)
19:30 - 22:00 Games and Discussion (TCPL 201)
Wednesday, May 18
07:00 - 09:00 Breakfast (Vistas Dining Room)
09:00 - 09:20 Katherine Isbister: Modeling Human Emotions, Perception, and Emotional Response
How might one go about measuring emotional and perceptual response to games? What is needed to move towards predictive models? What are the current frontiers for measuring and modeling emotional and perceptual response?
(TCPL 201)
09:20 - 09:40 Steve Swink: Modeling Dexterous/Strategic Skill and Game Feel
What might approaches to modeling dexterous and strategic skill in games look like? How can one model skill progression? What is Game Feel, and as designers what are the current limits for employing game feel as a concept in design (ie. where does Game Feel need to be extended)?
(TCPL 201)
09:40 - 10:00 Gillian Smith: Procedural Content and Game Generation: Models of Player and Designer Properties
What are the challenges in representing player perception and design intent for PCG and game generation? What areas/aspects have been underrepresented in previous research in PCG and game generation? What does it mean to evaluate PCG and game generators? What are the challenges in using this work in playable experiences?
(TCPL 201)
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
10:30 - 11:00 Workgroup Formation (TCPL 201)
11:00 - 11:30 Workgroup Agenda Setting (TCPL 201)
11:30 - 13:30 Lunch (Vistas Dining Room)
13:30 - 15:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
15:30 - 18:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner (Vistas Dining Room)
19:30 - 22:00 Games and Discussion (TCPL 201)
Thursday, May 19
07:00 - 09:00 Breakfast (Vistas Dining Room)
09:00 - 10:00 Workgroup Reports from Wednesday (TCPL 201)
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
10:30 - 10:50 Josh McCoy: Modeling Social Interaction: Players and NPCs
What are the different aspects of sociality that might be modeled? What formalisms might be useful for modeling social interaction? What are the tradeoffs in using the same modeling approaches for modeling player and NPC social interaction (vs. treating the player asymmetrically from NPCs)? At what different levels of granularity might a player engage a social model, and how does this place different requirements on the social model? What are some open questions in modeling social interaction?
(TCPL 201)
10:50 - 11:10 Raph Koster: Game Design Formalism: Challenges and Limits
What leverage does a formalist approach to game design give you? What might it leave out? What are the broad contours of the landscape of formalist game design theories? What intellectual commitments are formalist game designers making? What are the biggest holes in our current understanding of formalist approaches to game design?
(TCPL 201)
11:10 - 11:30 Mark Nelson: Static and Dynamic Game Analysis: Computer Aided Game Design
What properties of games can be determined statically from their rules and what properties require dynamic analysis? What are different approaches for analysis of gameplay systems? What kinds of formal representations of games are necessary to support such automated analysis? What kinds of interfaces are necessary to enable game designers to interact with automated analysis systems? Where does automated analysis fit within the broader architecture of a computer-aided game design system?
(TCPL 201)
11:30 - 12:00 Workgroup Formation (TCPL 201)
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch (Vistas Dining Room)
13:30 - 14:00 Workgroup Agenda Setting (TCPL 201)
14:00 - 15:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
15:30 - 18:00 Workgroups (TCPL 201)
17:30 - 19:30 Dinner (Vistas Dining Room)
19:30 - 22:00 Games and Discussion (TCPL 201)
Friday, May 20
07:00 - 09:00 Breakfast (Vistas Dining Room)
09:00 - 09:50 Workgroup Reports from Thursday (TCPL 201)
09:50 - 10:00 Closing remarks (TCPL 201)
10:00 - 10:30 Coffee Break (TCPL Foyer)
10:30 - 11:30 Optional town hall meeting (TCPL 201)
11:30 - 12:00 Checkout by Noon
5-day workshop participants are welcome to use BIRS facilities (BIRS Coffee Lounge, TCPL and Reading Room) until 3 pm on Friday, although participants are still required to checkout of the guest rooms by 12 noon.
(Front Desk - Professional Development Centre)
12:00 - 13:30 Lunch from 11:30 to 13:30 (Vistas Dining Room)