Talking about recent advanced in AI and games like Procedural Content Generation, Emotions Modelling and Serious Games.

1. Recent Advances in
AI & Games
Mohammad Shaker
Founder, Strong Emotions
Wikilogia Talk, April 2015
Content Generation, Emotions and Serious Games
@ZGTRShaker

2. Non-Player Character (NPC)

3. Non-Player Character (NPC)

4. Fire Propagation

5. The enemies respond to sounds and visual distractions such as fire

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

7. Code Master Ego Weather Engine

8. AI beyond NPC

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

10. Procedural
Content
Generation

11. Procedural
Content
Generation

12. Procedural
Content
Generation

13. Procedural
Content
Generation

14. PCG Across Genres
Dungeon
Platformer
Open World
Physics-based
Rhythm-based

15. Spelunky

16. Mario

17. No Man’s Sky

18. No Man’s Sky

19. Ropossum for Cut the Rope

20. Adaptive Personalized Content Generation
for FPS Games
Fourth Year Project, 2012

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

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

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

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

25. 6%
Very
anxious
17%
Somewhat
anxious
22%
Neither
32%
Somewhat
relaxed
23%
Very
relaxed
Player Emotion After Playing Angry Birds

26. 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

27. Simple
Easy
Just right
Tough
3%
6%
60%
31%
Player Reported Difficulty for Angry Birds

29. The Big Picture of Player Modeling
Game Player
Player Experience
Model
Adaptation Model

30. Enforced
Controllable features
Gameplay features
Prediction of
player’s
emotion
Exhaustive
search
Towards Adaptation

31. Levels Generation
Black and White

32. Items Placement (SOM)

33. Facial Expression

34. Facial Expression

35. Facial Expression

36. Facial Expression

37. Facial Expression

38. Facial Expression

39. Facial Expression

40. Facial Expression

41. Facial Expression

42. Facial Expression

43. Facial Expression
What?!

44. 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.

45. Nonverbal Signatures of Engagement in
Super Mario Bros
2013

46. Expressions during Gameplay

47. 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)

48. 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.

49. Ropossum: Evolutionary-based
Authoring Tool for Physics-based Games
Graduation Thesis, 2013

50. - 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

51. 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.

52. 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

53. Projection-based Agent

54. Projection-based Agent

55. Projection-based Agent

56. Projection-based Agent

57. Projection-based Agent

58. Projection-based Agent

59. Projection-based Agent

60. Projection-based Agent

61. Supervised Projects
2013 and 2014

62. 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

63. Projection-based Agent

64. 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

65. O n a M i s s i o n

66. Questionnaire to Game Scenario
“Do you help other !
kids in need?”!

67. Game Environments
Park School Kitchen

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

69. Utilizing Kinect Control for More Immersive
Interaction with 3D Environments
Saeed Hajali, Kinda Tarboush, Marah Halaweh, Mohammad Shaker and Noor Shaker
2014

70. “Why using
a
stylus when
God
gave us
five
fingers!”
Steve Jobs when introducing
the first iPhone, 2010

71. Hand Gesture
Voice Command
Interaction with the Environment

72. The Immersion Process
Player
Sketch
Generating
basic Level
Canvas
Allow Edit and
Generation of
Content

73. Select
Rotate
Delete
Move
The gestures
that we use

74. The
Application

75. NEXT, iNversion, Collapse, SyncSeven,
unannounced title and unannounced title.
visit: www.mohammadshaker.com

76. NEXT
www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

77. NEXT
www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

78. NEXT
www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

79. iNversion
www.mohammadshaker.com/inversion.html

80. iNversion
www.mohammadshaker.com/inversion.html

81. Collapse
www.mohammadshaker.com/collapse.html

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

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

84. Visit my website
and play NEXT, iNversion and Collapse.
www.mohammadshaker.com

85. www.mohammadshaker.com
@ZGTRShaker

86. Thx.