Description: The complexity of modern tabletop games has been steadily increasing since the mid-1990s. This results in an increase in time spent by designers developing (2-3 years on average from idea to commercialisation) and playtesting (6-24 months) a game, raising the barrier of entry to market for independent designers or small companies which do not have enough resources at their disposal. The effect is also felt by players, who find it harder to play such games due to the steep learning curve. This talk will explore how Tabletop R&D, a spin-out company from Queen Mary University of London, aims to address these issues and democratize the tabletop games market by providing game designers with automatic playtesting tools. Using the latest in Game AI technology and digital twins of tabletop games, we speed up development times, reduce costs and increase efficiency of an otherwise traditionally lengthy analogue process.
Takeaways:
- How to use automatic play-testing with AI agents.
- Learn about a diverse set of metrics to evaluate game-play experience.
- The value of exploring the design space of your game.