Dr Penny Kyburz
Areas of expertise
- Entertainment And Gaming 460703
- Virtual And Mixed Reality 460708
- Procedural Content Generation 460705
- Modelling And Simulation 460207
- Collaborative And Social Computing 460803
- Human Computer Interaction 460806
- Mixed Initiative And Human In The Loop 460808
- Artificial Intelligence 4602
- Machine Learning 4611
Research interests
Video games, game design, play experience, user testing, usability, HCI, interaction design, AI, human-AI interaction, human-AI teaming, machine learning, simulation, technology policy
Biography
I am a researcher in the areas of experience, enjoyment, and AI in games and a veteran game developer. I developed the GameFlow model, which is a widely cited model of flow in video games.
I was the co-leader of the Games and Interactive Entertainment research group at QUT and helped to found the GRID Lab with tools for subjective and objective (biometric) measures of player experience. I have worked in various computer science research groups, including the Computer Human Interaction discipline at QUT, the Cognitive Engineering Research Group at UQ, and the Australian CRC for Interaction Design.
I have contributed to 20 digital games, which have garnered many awards, including four prestigious BAFTA nominations. I have devised usability methods and lead usability testing on AAA games, resulting in very high critic scores.
I recently worked in the Senate for 18 months as a policy adviser in communications, including telecommunications, digital rights, and broadcasting.
I have also worked to encourage women in technology for many years and lead an initiative at QUT to attract more women into games and IT.
Researcher's projects
GameFlow: modelling, measuring, understanding, evaluating enjoyment in video games
Available student projects
Video games - AI, player experience, user testing, design, programming
Technology policy - tech regulation, privacy, copyright, piracy, mass surveillance
Publications
- Aitchison, M, Benke, L & Sweetser, P 2021, 'Learning to Deceive in Multi-agent Hidden Role Games', Second International Workshop on Deceptive AI, ed. Stefan Sarkadi, Benjamin Wright, Peta Masters, Peter McBurney, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Switzerland, pp. 55-75.
- Ip, I & Sweetser, P 2021, 'Investigating Player Experience in Virtual Reality Games via Remote Experimentation', 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, ed. Wallner, Meschtscherjakov, Birk, Iacovides, McEwan, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Austria, pp. 1-9.
- Ip, I & Sweetser, P 2021, 'Investigating VR Game Player Experience via Remote Experimentation using the Player Experience Inventory', 33rd Australian Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (OzCHI), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Sydney, pp. 1-15.
- Chen, Y, Aitchison, M & Sweetser, P. 2020, 'Improving StarCraft II Player League Prediction with Macro-Level Features', 33rd Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ed. Marcus Gallagher, Nour Moustafa, Erandi Lakshika, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Switzerland, pp. 256-268.
- Gellel, A & Sweetser, P 2020, 'A Hybrid Approach to Procedural Generation of Roguelike Video Game Levels', 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, FDG 2020, ed. G N Yannakakis, A Liapis, K Penny, V Volz, F Khosmood & P Lopes, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York.
- Hao, D, Sweetser, P & Aitchison, M 2020, 'Designing Curriculum for Deep Reinforcement Learning in StarCraft II', 33rd Australasian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, ed. Marcus Gallagher, Nour Moustafa, Erandi Lakshika, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Switzerland, pp. 243-255.
- Jeffrey, R, Ji, F, Bian, P, Sweetser, P. 2020, 'The Wisdom of the Gaming Crowd', The Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, United States, pp. 272-276.
- Sweetser, P & Aitchison, M 2020, 'Do Game Bots Dream of Electric Rewards?: The universality of intrinsic motivation', 15th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, FDG 2020, ed. G N Yannakakis, A Liapis, K Penny, V Volz, F Khosmood & P Lopes, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York.
- Sweetser, P & Rogalewicz, Z 2020, 'Affording Enjoyment in VR Games: Possibilities, Pitfalls, and Perfection', 32nd Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction (OzCHI20), ed. Ahmadpour, Leong, Ploderer, Parker, Webber, Munoz, Loke, Tomitsch, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Sydney, pp. 55-64.
- Sweetser, P 2020, 'GameFlow 2020: 15 Years of a Model of Player Enjoyment', 32nd Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction (OzCHI’20), ed. Ahmadpour, Leong, Ploderer, Parker, Webber, Munoz, Loke, Tomitsch, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Sydney, pp. 705-711.
- Sweetser, P, King, A & DeWan, T 2020, 'Setting students up to succeed in computing internships', 22nd Australasian Computing Education Conference, ACE 2020, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), United States, pp. 114-121.
- Sweetser, P & Johnson, D 2019, 'Evaluating the GameFlow model with different stakeholders', 6th ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2019, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), United States, pp. 697-703.
- Sweetser, P & Johnson, D 2019, 'GameFlow and player experience measures: An initial comparison of conceptual constructs', OZCHI'19: Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York, NY, United States, pp. 317-321.
- Sweetser, P, Rogalewicz, Z & Li, Q 2019, 'Understanding enjoyment in VR games with GameFlow', VRST '19: 25th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, ed. Trescak, Simoff, Richards, Bogdanovych, Duval, Kuhlen, Nguyen, Nguyen, et al., Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Australia, pp. 1-2.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- C2 Sociotechnical Experimentation Collaboration (Primary Investigator)
- Yufei Cao Scholarship: Facilitating collaboration teamwork in multiplayer online battle arena games: shared cognition and team performance (Primary Investigator)
- Human Machine Teaming DSTG student scholarship( PhD ) (Primary Investigator)
- Role-Based Deception in the `Rescue the General' Game (Primary Investigator)
- Hybrid Human-AI Collaboration in Complex Real-Time Video Games (Primary Investigator)
