Dear colleagues,

We know that deadlines have been tight for AIIDE this year, so we're happy to announce an extension for EXAG 2015's deadlines. Papers are now due in on July 12th, and we've extended our demos and tutorials deadlines all the way to September 1st. Plenty of time to enjoy the summer months and still send something in to what Time Magazine would probably call 'the most exciting academic games workshop of the year' if they took any notice of that sort of thing.

We're hoping that EXAG 2015 will be enormous and full of fun - with great academic papers as well as really enjoyable playing and making events alongside it. You've still got over a week to get a 4-6 page paper in, and months to plan your demo. We can't wait to see what you come up with.

The Call for Papers follows, as usual. Any problems just drop me an email. See you in Santa Cruz!

All the best,
The EXAG 2015 Organisation Supergroup

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CALL FOR PAPERS
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Experimental AI in Games Workshop 2
http://www.exag.org

November 14-15, 2015
Located at AIIDE 2015 in Santa Cruz, California

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DEADLINES
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Paper Submission deadline: July 12 <--- EXTENDED!
Acceptance notification: July 24
AIIDE early registration: August 7
Camera-ready deadline: August 12
Demos and Tutorials Submission Deadline: Sep 1 <---- NEW!
AIIDE late registration: September 4
EXAG 2: November 14-15

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ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
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The Experimental AI in Games (EXAG) workshop aims to foster experimentation at the interface of AI (broadly construed) and all aspects of games and game development. EXAG solicits submissions in three tracks:

 + Papers arguing for new roles of AI in games and game development or presenting prototypes of experimental applications of AI in games and game creation
 + Tutorials on sharable tools and resources for experimental AI in games
 + Demonstrations of innovative tools or games in this space

EXAG will also include a games night, the DAGGER 2.0 event, and a hackathon / game jam in the evenings around the workshop!

EXAG will be held on November 14-15, 2015 and be co-located with the Artificial Intelligence in Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) 2015 conference located in Santa Cruz, CA, USA.

To support experimentation, EXAG will include a number of socializing, demonstration, and (optional) coding/hackathon events. DAGGER is an evening event where local game developers and AIIDE attendees meet up to play and share their games and demos with each other, eat some food, and get to know each other. EXAG is running a demonstration track alongside its main track for games or tools which may be of interest to EXAG attendees. Demonstration submissions will be considered for inclusion in both DAGGER and the main event itself, schedule permitting. If you are submitting a paper to the main track which includes or refers to a game or tool that you wish to demonstrate, you should still submit a separate demonstration abstract of roughly 500 words, at least 1 image of the system, and a link to the game/system.

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WORKSHOP TOPICS
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EXAG 2 will touch on a variety of experimental topics. Workshop topics include, but are by no means limited to:

 + Full or prototype games demonstrating novel or experimental applications of AI
 + Procedural content generation in game development or as a game mechanic
 + New applications of AI to game design problems or game mechanics
 + Automated game generation
 + Computational Creativity in Games
 + Formal and computational models of game design and aesthetics
 + AI-powered tools for expert and novice game design
 + New approaches to traditional game AI problems, e.g. agents, planning, narrative
 + Oops! Research (games, experiments, theories) that didn’t quite work and an explanation about the failure and lessons learned

We welcome submissions that push our understanding how AI can be applied to or influence game design. The above topics are suggestive only!

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SUBMIT!
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EXAG 2 will be accepting three types of submissions, all in AAAI format.

Submission of papers takes place via our EasyChair site:

https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=exag2015

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SUBMISSION TYPES
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<Papers>

Papers of up to 6 pages of text and unlimited space for references and acknowledgments. Papers may address any of the workshop topics (or other topics authors consider of interest to the community). Papers should support new topics through arguments spanning prototypes, thought experiments, or other forms of evidence.

Not sure a topic is relevant? Reach out to the organizers and we can help!
Are you an indie or games industry person and not sure? Contact us and we’ll help sort things out!

Papers will be presented at the workshop; presentation lengths will depend on the total number of acceptances. Reviewing will use a double blind process: reviewers will not know the identity of authors and authors will not know the identity of reviewers.

<Tool Tutorials>

Tutorials will allow for a presentation to demonstrate the use of a specific tool, technique, system, etc. Submissions should be an abstract of up to 500 words, including at least 1 image of the what will be presented and a link to a website for others to access that tool/technique/system.

Tutorial presentations will be given 15 minutes and an additional (optional) hands-on session to help attendees set up and try the tool during the workshop. Example tutorials include everything from creating types of Twitterbots to using software to create sprites from web content to using specialized research tools and systems.

Tutorial submissions do not need to be anonymised, but can be if the authors wish.

<Game/Experiment Demos>

Demos will emphasize a presentation of a game or experimental research system (procedural content generator, AI director, interactive dance installation, etc.). Submission requirements mirror tutorials: up to 500 words in an abstract, at least one image of what will be demonstrated, and a link for web access to that thing.*

Demo presentations will be allocated time based on the total number of acceptances (expect at least 10 minutes) and an (optional) showcase session where workshop participants can try the demos. Demos are perfect to show research systems, innovative game designs (even those that aren’t quite mature or don’t yet work!), or novel experiments at the intersection of AI and games (interpreted broadly).

Demo submissions do not need to be anonymised, but can be if the authors wish.

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ORGANISATION
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Alex Zook - @zookae - [log in to unmask]
School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

Mike Cook - @mtrc - [log in to unmask]
Computational Creativity Group, Goldsmiths, University of London

Antonios Liapis - @SentientDesigns - [log in to unmask]
Institute of Digital Games, University of Malta

Program Committee announcements coming soon:
http://www.exag.org