Expressive Design Tools

Prof. Gillian Smith

Northeastern University

Friday, March 1, 2013
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Fuller Labs 320

Abstract:

Game design requires an interdisciplinary team, with engineers, artists, designers, musicians, marketers, and many others working together. At the core of this process for digital games sits technology: games are shaped by the tools we use to make them and our ability to model the concepts they address.

AI researchers are always coming up with new technologies in the service of existing games; this talk encourages questioning how these technologies could be used to make new kinds of games or new kinds of design experiences. Specifically, this talk calls for the creation of what I call "expressive design tools": systems imbued with an understanding of a game's design that are sufficiently controllable and expressive for use in the design process. I describe my experience creating such a tool and how it enabled the creation of a completely new kind of game, and close with a discussion of open research problems in procedural content generation and expressive design tools.

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Gillian Smith is Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, with a joint position in the College of Computer and Information Science and the College of Arts, Media, and Design.

She received her PhD in Computer Science from UC Santa Cruz.

Host: Prof. Kathi Fisler

Refreshments will be served.

Posted by RCane@wpi.edu