Call for Papers
EXAG 2024 will be accepting papers to two different tracks:
Full papers -- Regular papers submitted for oral presentation (up to nine (9) pages). These papers will be incorporated into the proceedings and will be presented as 10-minute talks with 5 minutes of Q&A.
Short papers -- Short papers (up to four (4) pages) describing a position, project, or proposal related to any topic of interest to the workshop. These papers will be incorporated into the proceedings and will be presented as 5-minute talks with 3 minutes of Q&A.
Papers will be presented in groups based on their topics. The ordering of topics may depend on speaker availability, especially when accommodating remote presenters.
Submission Instructions
Research Papers
Full and short papers should be submitted on EasyChair. Please select the Experimental AI in Games track (once available).
What to Submit
Papers describe AI research results that establish new challenges in entertainment AI, make advances on existing problems, enable new forms of interactive digital entertainment, and/or use AI to improve the game design and development process. Papers are held to the highest standards of academic rigor. In general:
- Results should be validated in a prototype or test-bed system (e.g., game, robot, generative algorithm), but need not be tested in a commercial environment.
- The contribution of the paper should be clearly articulated, usually in the introduction.
- The title and claims made in the paper should match the evaluation carried out and the results obtained. Overly broad titles are discouraged.
- The paper should demonstrate knowledge of related systems and other approaches to solving similar problems, usually in a Related Work section.
Format
Papers should be formatted in CEUR two-column, camera-ready style and should be anonymized for double-blind review. There are two-column templates available for various platforms. Overleaf users can use the available template. If you prefer to use Microsoft Word, ODT, or an different LaTeX variant, please use these templates from CEUR.
Length
Authors are allotted 9 pages of content for full papers and 4 pages of content for short papers, with no limit on the number of pages for references. Thus, authors are encouraged to submit a paper of length proportional to its contribution. The length of typical submissions is expected to be approximately 6-7 pages of primary content (including figures and tables but excluding references), with 1-2 pages of appendix content. Note, reviewers may, but are not required to, read the appendices, and therefore the paper’s central thesis should be understandable without them.
Submissions longer than the alloted page counts will be considered for desk rejection. Papers whose lengths are incommensurate with their contributions will be rejected.
Evaluation Criteria
Submissions will be peer reviewed. Abstracts and other submitted materials will be judged on technical merit, accessibility to developers and researchers, originality, presentation, impact, and significance. Submissions do not need to score well in all of these categories.
Important Dates
Deadline for paper submissions: August 30th, 2024
Notification for accepted papers: September 23th, 2024
Publication-ready submission due: October 14th, 2024
Workshop date: (TBD) November 18 or 19th, 2024
Topics
EXAG is interested in the presentation and discussion of applications of AI that present interesting ideas for developers, critics, players, and designers. We aim to foster and celebrate innovative applications of AI to all aspects of games and game development, including the core topics covered in previous instantiations of this workshop:
The development of new game systems made possible by AI, from roguelike Unexplored’s procedurally-generated dungeons and puzzles to stealth game Third Eye Crime’s visualization of AI logic.
Cross-pollination from AI subfields not typically used in games, like computational linguistics, computer vision, and procedural music.
Traditional AI techniques applied in new ways that break genre conventions, like Alien: Isolation’s behavior system or Black And White’s learning creatures.
Augmenting game development and design through new and interesting applications of AI, from intelligent design tools to automated QA.
Human-centered evaluation of intelligent systems for digital entertainment.
Discussion of experimental AI technologies used in games and play environments that may extend beyond the digital space into physical, embodied environments. Examples include (but are not limited to) AI in games that involve tangible user interfaces, interactive play spaces like museums, or embodied gameplay in virtual or augmented reality environments.
The use of AI in support of mixed-initiative co-creative play experiences, including collaborative storytelling games like Bad News.
Procedural generation of game content, including but not limited to levels, characters, and narratives.
Discussion of interesting but relatively unknown historical examples of experimental AI in games and related areas. Examples include Captain Blood (1988) and Intellivision World Series Baseball (1983).
Reports on failed experiments related to any topic in our purview, with insight into what went wrong and how others can learn from the failure.
Industry case studies in which non-academic developers present their applications of experimental game AI in commercial game contexts.
Previous work presented at the workshop includes dynamic NPC knowledge modelling, blending or inventing game designs, intelligent design tools, hybrid generative algorithms, formal logics for games, procedural generation of game elements, player modelling, and more. We are pleased to be a broad workshop with a large range of topics covered, and we aim to continue and expand our scope this year.
Not sure if your topic is a fit? Drop us a line!
Community Session
In prior years, a third informal track was available for the submission of extended abstracts as Lightning Talk proposals. For EXAG 2024, we are planning to fill a similar role with a community discussion session. As the Lightning Talks did in the past, this session will happen in the afternoon and start conversations that may continue after the conference has been dismissed in the evening.
Prospective attendees will be contacted by email (from exag20xx at gmail.com) for input on discussion topics in the weeks before the conference. These discussion topics may be of personal importance to individuals in the community (e.g. works in progress that are not yet publication ready) or relevant to the community as a whole (e.g. calls to action or interesting problems). Topics will be organized to fit into a 60-minute time slot.