Automated and assisted game design

Most work in procedural content generation (PCG) focuses on generating individual assets or levels for an existing, fixed game design. A broader and challenge is generating or assisting in the design of complete games, including abstract rules, mechanics, dynamic behavior, and the orchestration of different creative facets.

This was the main subject of my PhD, and forms a common thread through a number of other projects. Generating complete games, especially in a controlled way (versus just vibe-coding them) requires addressing several foundational questions:

• Representing game mechanics: There are many possible representations of game rules, from natural-language text to computer code to formal logic, with different affordances.
• Evaluating game quality: How can a generator judge whether a newly generated game is playable or fun?
• Facet orchestration: How should different generative systems (levels, mechanics, audio, visuals, and narrative) communicate and influence each other and with human creators so the final game is cohesive?
• Design assistance: How can mixed-initiative design tools suggest new mechanics, highlight exploits, or help human designers to prototype and iterate on game designs?

Publications:

• Prompt Wrangling: On replication and generalization in large language models for PCG levels, PCG Workshop 2024
• Orchestrating game generation, IEEE Transactions on Games 2019
• Procedural Content Generation in Games: A Textbook and an Overview of Current Research, Springer 2016
• Towards generating arcade game rules with VGDL, CIG 2015
• General video game evaluation using relative algorithm performance profiles, EvoStar 2015
• Design metaphors for procedural content generation in games, CHI 2013
• Ludocore: A logical game engine for modeling videogames, CIG 2010
• Computational support for play testing game sketches, AIIDE 2009
• A requirements analysis for videogame design support tools, FDG 2009
• An interactive game-design assistant, IUI 2008
• Recombinable game mechanics for automated design support, AIIDE 2008
• Towards automated game design, AIIA 2007

Blog posts:

• ASP level generation examples from our PCG textbook (2025)
• Bibliography: Encoding and generating videogame mechanics (2012)
• Adventure game puzzle generation (2012)
• Automated and assisted design: A brief survey (2011)

Funding provided by:

• Vinnova (Sweden's innovation agency), under the project Foraging Games: Exploring generative AI systems to tackle high-dimensional game design spaces (joint with Swen Gaudl, University of Gothenburg)
• The European Commission, through the FP7 ERA Chair in Games Research Opportunities (MetaMakers Institute, Grant No. 621403)
• The National Science Foundation, through a Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP)

Collaborators: Pippin Barr, Gabriella A. B. Barros, Rafael Bidarra, Rilla Khaled, Antonios Liapis, Michael Mateas, Thorbjørn S. Nielsen, Mike Preuss, Noor Shaker, Adam M. Smith, Julian Togelius, Georgios N. Yannakakis