Recent Advances in

AI & Games Mohammad Shaker

Founder, Strong Emotions

Wikilogia Talk, April 2015

Content Generation, Emotions and Serious Games

@ZGTRShaker

Non-Player Character (NPC)

Non-Player Character (NPC)

Fire Propagation

The enemies respond to sounds and visual distractions such as fire

If an enemy AI is injured on the ground, he will shout out for help

Code Master Ego Weather Engine

AI beyond NPC

AI beyond NPC

1.  Procedural Content Generation 2.  Player-experience modeling 3.  Data Mining and User Behavior 4.  Alternate NPC Approaches

Procedural Content

Generation

Procedural Content

Generation

Procedural Content

Generation

Procedural Content

Generation

PCG Across Genres

Dungeon Platformer Open World

Physics-based Rhythm-based

Spelunky

Mario

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky

Ropossum for Cut the Rope

Adaptive Personalized Content Generation for FPS Games

Fourth Year Project, 2012

Evolving Neural Network Agents in the NERO Video Game http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.cig05.pdf

Believability and Adaptivity

Evolving Neural Network Agents in the NERO Video Game http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.cig05.pdf

Believability and Adaptivity

Evolving Neural Network Agents in the NERO Video Game http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.cig05.pdf

Believability and Adaptivity

Evolving Neural Network Agents in the NERO Video Game http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.cig05.pdf

6%

Very anxious

17%

Somewhat anxious

22%

Neither

32%

Somewhat relaxed

23%

Very relaxed

Player Emotion After Playing Angry Birds

Marry someone and break your addiction

Employed o r N O T

Employed people are 2X more likely to feel anxiety and 2.25X likely to experience anger

Single vs. Married

You are X2 likely to be addicted on angry birds if you are single than if you are married

Simple

Easy

Just right

Tough

3%

6%

60%

31%

Player Reported Difficulty for Angry Birds

The Big Picture of Player Modeling

Game Player

Player Experience Model

Adaptation Model

Enforced Controllable features

Gameplay features

Prediction of player’s emotion

Exhaustive search

Towards Adaptation

Levels Generation

Black and White

Items Placement (SOM)

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

What?!

Publications •  A Quantitative Approach for Modeling and Personalizing Player Experience in First-

Person Shooter Games, in the Extended Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2013), 2013.

•  Personalizing Content Generation in First Person Shooter Games through Player Modeling. Submitted on Oct. 2014 to The Scientific World Journal, Special issue in "Recent Advances in Intelligent Techniques for Games", 2015.

Nonverbal Signatures of Engagement in Super Mario Bros

2013

Expressions during Gameplay

Behavioral Features

•  Visual Reaction (VR) –  Bias of head on the x-axis compared to first frame (Avg. + STD) –  Bias of head on the y-axis compared to first frame (Avg. + STD) –  Left eye closed (Avg. + STD) –  Right eye closed (Avg. + STD) –  Mouth open (Avg. + STD)

•  Facial Expression (FE) –  Angry % (Avg. + STD) –  Happy % (Avg. + STD) –  Sad % (Avg. + STD) –  Surprised % (Avg. + STD)

Publication Noor Shaker and Mohammad Shaker. Towards Understanding the Nonverbal Signatures of Engagement in Super Mario Bros, in Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (UMAP 2014), 2014.

Ropossum: Evolutionary-based Authoring Tool for Physics-based Games

Graduation Thesis, 2013

- Popular physics based game!- Can generate endless levels!- All levels should be playable!- Opens the imagination of all players to design, test, modify their own levels and help them achieve that.!

Ropossum

Graduation Thesis Publications •  Evolving Playable Content for Cut the Rope through a Simulation-Based Approach, in

Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 13), 2013.

•  Ropossum: An Authoring Tool for Designing, Optimizing and Solving Cut the Rope Levels, in Proceedings of Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 13), 2013.

•  Automatic Generation and Analysis of Physics-Based Puzzle Games, in Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG 2013), 2013. Nominated for best paper award.

Projection-based Agent for Generating Playable Content for Physics-based Games

Nominated best paper award, EvoStar, Denmark - April 2015

A Progressive Approach to Content Generation Nominated best paper award, EvoStar, Denmark - April 2015

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Supervised Projects 2013 and 2014

A Procedural Method for Automatic Generation of Spelunky Levels

Walaa Baghdadi, Fawzya Shams Eddin, Rawan Al-Omari, Ziena Alhalawani, Mohammad Shaker and Noor Shaker EvoStar, Denmark 2015

Projection-based Agent

Weebee on a Mission: A Serious Game for Better Understanding the

Behavior Differences Between Children

Rawan Al-Omari, Walaa Baghdadi, Ziena Alhalawani, Mohammad Shaker and Noor Shaker, 2014

O n a M i s s i o n

Questionnaire to Game Scenario

“Do you help other !kids in need?”!

Game Environments

Park School Kitchen

Weebee on a Mission, FITE of Damascus, Syria, 2014

Utilizing Kinect Control for More Immersive Interaction with 3D Environments

Saeed Hajali, Kinda Tarboush, Marah Halaweh, Mohammad Shaker and Noor Shaker

2014

“Why using a stylus when God gave us five fingers!”

Steve Jobs when introducing

the first iPhone, 2010

Hand Gesture Voice Command

Interaction with the Environment

The Immersion Process

Player Sketch

Generating basic Level

Canvas

Allow Edit and Generation of

Content

Select Rotate Delete Move

The ges tu res that we use

The Application

NEXT, iNversion, Collapse, SyncSeven, unannounced title and unannounced title.

visit: www.mohammadshaker.com

NEXT www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

NEXT www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

NEXT www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

iNversion www.mohammadshaker.com/inversion.html

iNversion www.mohammadshaker.com/inversion.html

Collapse www.mohammadshaker.com/collapse.html

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.StrongEmotionsApps.SyncSevenFREE

SyncSeven on Android

SyncSeven on Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.StrongEmotionsApps.SyncSevenFREE

Visit my website and play NEXT, iNversion and Collapse.

www.mohammadshaker.com

www.mohammadshaker.com @ZGTRShaker

Thx.