Parametric design for creative tools

One approach to building creativity support tools and generative systems is to view the creative process as navigating in a high-dimensional design space defined by some set of axes. Rather than generating content entirely from scratch or requiring users to write code, the system defines an expressive space of possibilities controlled by a set of parameters; for example, physics constants, game mechanics, or audio parameters.

This raises fundamental design and computational questions:

• Design-space construction: How do we balance a large, expressive possibility space against an interface that is manageable and fun for casual users to explore?
• Mixed-initiative navigation: How can AI assistants, automated playtesters, and autotweaking tools help human creators explore these spaces and create or refine their designs?
• Expressive characterization: How do we verify that control parameters map onto human perception (such as musical mood or playability) rather than interacting in unintuitive ways?

With a number of collaborators, I have primarily studied this in the domains of casual game creators and audio/music generation.

Publications:

• A parameter-space design methodology for casual creators, ICCC 2018
• Rapid game jams with fluidic games: A user study & design methodology, Entertainment Computing 2018
• Curious users of casual creators, FDG 2018 Workshop
• Fluidic games in cultural contexts, ICCC 2017
• Mixed-initiative approaches to on-device mobile game design, MICI 2017
• Exploring novel game spaces with fluidic games, AISB 2017
• Semi-automated level design via auto-playtesting for handheld casual game creation, CIG 2016
• Automated tweaking of levels for casual creation of mobile games, CCGW 2016
• Towards a computational reading of emergence in experimental game design, CCGW 2016
• Moody music generator: Characterising control parameters using crowdsourcing, EvoStar 2015

Blog posts:

• Rapid game jams (2018)

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)

Collaborators (current): Swen Gaudl, Guenter Wallner

Past collaborators: Simon Colton, Michael Cook, Sebastian Deterding, Nils Iver Holtar, Peter Ivey, Blanca Pérez Ferrer, Edward J. Powley, Rob Saunders, Marco Scirea, Julian Togelius