Play is amongst the main motivators for learning, mental and physical
development, and an essential element of evolution. Players seek games for enjoyment and positive emotional experiences but they also engage willingly in experiences evoking negative emotions such as frustration and fear. Computer games can offer rich forms of user interactivity, allow for high levels of user incorporation and yield dynamic and complex emotion manifestations. The potential that games have to influence players is mainly due to their ability to place the player in a continuous mode of interaction with the game, developing complex cognitive, affective and behavioral responses. This interaction between the player and the game is of utmost importance for affective computing research. While games challenge affective computing at large — as new methods are required for encapsulating this fast-paced, rich and complex mode of interaction — they have offered new approaches to affect elicitation, annotation and modeling, thereby advancing the field. Undoubtedly, the study of emotion in games not only advances our knowledge about human emotions but also contributes to the design of better human computer interaction. Arguably, games offer the best and most meaningful domain of affective interaction for the realization of the affective loop.

This talk will focus on the study of emotion in the computer games
domain and will detail the key phases for efficient affect-based interaction in games through the methods, games, and research demonstrators developed at the Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta. Advanced methods for player experience modeling, game adaptation, procedural content generation, machine learning and computational game creativity will be showcased via a plethora of games targeting entertainment but also serious games for health (post-traumatic stress disorder, physical exercise) and education (social soft skills, creativity, dyslexia).