I will talk about

• Games, only games.– STYX Engine: Adaptive Personalized Content Generation for FPS

Games

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

– NEXT: 2D Puzzle, Progressively Generated

– iNversion: 2D Puzzle, Progressively Generated

– 4 more new games between now and the beginning of 2015.

– Supervised Projects with Noor Shaker

• InfiSpelunky: Infinite Procedurally Generated Spelunky

• Kinect and Immersive 3D Environment

• Weebee on a Mission: A Serious Game

Adaptive Personalized Content Generation for FPS Games

Fourth Year Project, 2012-2013

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

Singlevs. Married

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

6%

Very anxious

17%

Somewhat anxious

22%

Neither

32%

Somewhat relaxed

23%

Veryrelaxed

Player Emotion After Playing Angry Birds

Simple

Easy

Just right

Tough

3%

6%

60%

31%

Player Reported Difficulty for Angry Birds

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.

Demo

The Big Picture of Player Modeling

Game Player

Player Experience

Model

Adaptation Model

Enforced Controllable features

Gameplay features

Prediction ofplayer’s emotion

Exhaustive search

Towards Adaptation

So, how to do it in FPS game?

Levels Design Preference Learning Model

Adaptive Content Generation Model

level1 level2

Adapt

level20

Adapt Adapt

level21 levelN

Adapt

Levels Generation

Black and White

Items Placement (SOM)

Data Collection

A B

• 60 players at F.I.T.E of Damascus, Syria

Building the Models

Enforced Controllable features

Gameplay features

Prediction ofplayer’s emotion

Exhaustive search

Two Players, Engagement

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

Facial Expression

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)

Behavioral features Players’ reports

of affect

Neuroevolutionary Preference Learning

Results

PublicationNoor 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.

Automatic Generation of Content forPhysics-based Games

Part of Graduation Thesis, 2013

Placing Components on Canvas

If the game is 5 sec long,then we have 5 * 60 = 300 update

Given we have 5 actions,then we need to evaluate

243 e+10 s t a t e s

Simulation-based Agent for Generating Playable Content

Part of Graduation Thesis, 2013

205 explored nodes

Solution Tree

Result470.1 ±525.4 sec for generating a playable level

Samples

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.

Demo

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

2014

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Projection-based Agent

Demo

Supervised Projects

2013 and 2014

InfiSpelunkyA Procedural Method for Automatic Generation of

Spelunky Levels

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

2013

Spelunky Level Structure

Evolutionary-based Generation

Controlling Difficulty

10% 90%

Results Analysis, Solution Path Length

10% 50% 90%

Weebee on a MissionA 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

A Survey

Survey

Intelligent robot (a bot)

Game

6%

11%

83%

In case you want a product to inspect and change your child

behavior, what would it be?

A Survey

Discuss it

Indirect Influence

Ignore it

41%

52%

6%

If there is a problem in your child behavior, what would do

you do?

Questionnaire to Game Scenario

Question Answer

Questionnaire to Game Scenario

Question Game Scenario

Questionnaire to Game Scenario

“Do you help other

kids in need?”

Game Environments

Park School Kitchen

Data Collection8-12 years old children

100 players [50 males, 50 females]

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 GestureVoice Command

Interaction with the Environment

The Immersion Process

Player

Sketch

Generating

basic Level

Canvas

Allow Edit and

Generation of

Content

Select

Rotate

Delete

Move

T he ge s tu re s

that we use

The Application

One more thing..

A Progressive, Evolutionary-based Approach for

Generating Playable Content for Games

2014

Time(MS)

Level Timeline

Level EndLevel Start

Time(MS)

Level Timeline

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Action02

Level EndLevel Start

Time(MS)

Action04

Action03

Action05

Action01

Level Timeline

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope cut

Level EndLevel Start

Time(MS)

Rocket press OmNom feed

Rope cut

Level Timeline in Cut the Rope

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Dock Down

Level EndLevel Start

Time(MS)

Collect

Stomp

Win

Jump

Level Timeline in Super Mario Bros

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator

Grammatical Evolution Individuals

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(MS)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 3200

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Bubble

PressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator Game Simulator

Grammatical Evolution Individuals

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(MS)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 3200

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Bubble

PressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator Game Simulator

Grammatical Evolution Individuals

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(MS)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 3200

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Bubble

PressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

Mapper

Aircush press

From TLE to

Level Structure

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator Game Simulator

Grammatical Evolution Individuals

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(MS)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 3200

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Bubble

PressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

Mapper

Simulation, Mechanics, Game Rules

Simulator

Aircush press

From TLE to

Level Structure

Why is it Progressive/Aggressive?

Game Timeline Generator Game Simulator

Grammatical Evolution Individuals

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(MS)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 3200

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Bubble

PressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

0 300 500 1000 1700 2800

Rope

cut

Level

End

Level

Start

Time(M

S)

Rocket

press

Aircush

pressOmNom feed

Rope

cut

Mapper

Simulation, Mechanics, Game Rules

Simulator

Aircush press

From TLE to

Level Structure

Assign Fitness Score

The Mapping Process

Start with ropes Rope_cut Rope_cut Aircushion_press

rope_cut(200) rope_cut(500) aircuhion_press(700) rocket_press(1100) OmNom_feed(0)

The Mapping Process

Rocket_press Rocket_pressGenerated

Level Structure

rope_cut(200) rope_cut(500) aircuhion_press(700) rocket_press(1100) OmNom_feed(0)

Ok, this is co ol

But is it just Cut the Rope that can

be progressively generated?

Nope.

Did you apply it somewhere else?

Yeeeeah.

NEXT and iNversion

visit: www.mohammadshaker.com

NEXT www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

NEXT www.mohammadshaker.com/next.html

iNversion www.mohammadshaker.com/inversion.html

Keep tuned cause more interesting stuff are coming!

Keep updated at: www.mohammadshaker.com

Four new games

at the beginning of 2015[ they are.. ]

Keep updated at: www.mohammadshaker.com

Four new games

at the beginning of 2015[ they are.. ]

Visit my website, play NEXT, iNversion.

www.mohammadshaker.com@ZGTRShaker

Let’s connect!

T h a n k yo u

T h a n k yo u N o o n a