Dr Raluca Gaina
Lecturer in Game AI
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Queen Mary University of London
Research
Tabletop games, Artificial Intelligence, Game-playing AI, Evolutionary Algorithms, Procedural Content Generation, Automatic testing of games
Interests
My research interests focus on the use of AI in tabletop games for playing, testing and analysing such games. I also have experience in evolutionary algorithms for playing or optimisation of games, as well as procedural content generation methods applied to games.
Publications
Publications of specific relevance to the Centre for Multimodal AI
2021
Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms for General Video Game PlayingGaina RD Devlin S Lucas SM Perez-Liebana D
IEEE Transactions on Games,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 14 (2), 232-242.
18-02-2021 2020
Tribes: A New Turn-Based Strategy Game for AI ResearchPerez-Liebana D Hsu Y-J Emmanouilidis S
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment. vol. 16 (1), 252-258.
01-10-2020 Self-Adaptive Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms for General Video Game PlayingGaina RD Perez-Liebana D Lucas SM Sironi CF Winands MHM
2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 367-374.
27-08-2020 Rolling Horizon NEAT for General Video Game PlayingPerez-Liebana D Alam MS
2020 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 375-382.
27-08-2020 Efficient Heuristic Policy Optimisation for a Challenging Strategic Card GameMontoliu R Gaina RD Pérez-Liebana D Delgado D Lucas S
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. vol. 12104, 403-418.
01-01-2020 2019
Analysis of Statistical Forward Planning Methods in PommermanPerez-Liebana D Gaina RD Drageset O İlhan E Balla M Lucas SM
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment. vol. 15 (1), 66-72.
08-10-2019 General Video Game Artificial IntelligenceLié and bana DPXR Lucas SM Gaina RD Togelius J Khalifa A Liu J Ashlock D
08-10-2019 A Local Approach to Forward Model Learning: Results on the Game of Life GameLucas SM Dockhorn A Volz V Bamford C Gaina RD Bravi I Perez-Liebana D Mostaghim S et al.
2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 1-8.
23-08-2019 Learning Local Forward Models on Unforgiving GamesDockhorn A Lucas SM Volz V Bravi I Gaina RD Perez-Liebana D
2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 1-4.
23-08-2019 Optimising Level Generators for General Video Game AIDrageset O Winands MHM Gaina RD
2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 1-8.
23-08-2019 Project Thyia: A Forever GameplayerGaina RD Lucas SM Perez-Liebana D
2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). vol. 00, 1-8.
23-08-2019 'Did You Hear That?' Learning to Play Video Games from Audio CuesGAINA RALUCA
IEEE Conference on Games (COG).
20-08-2019 Tackling Sparse Rewards in Real-Time Games with Statistical Forward Planning MethodsGaina RD Lucas SM Pérez-Liébana D
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence. vol. 33 (01), 1691-1698.
17-07-2019 General Video Game AI: A Multitrack Framework for Evaluating Agents, Games, and Content Generation AlgorithmsPerez-Liebana D Liu J Khalifa A Gaina RD Togelius J Lucas SM
IEEE Transactions on Games,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 11 (3), 195-214.
11-03-2019 Efficient Evolutionary Methods for Game Agent Optimisation: Model-Based is BestLucas S Liu J Bravi I GAINA RALUCA Woodward J Volz V Perez-Liebana D
Game Simulations Workshop (AAAI).
04-02-2019 2018
VERTIGØ: Visualisation of Rolling Horizon Evolutionary Algorithms in GVGAIGaina R Lucas S Pérez-Liébana D
Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment. vol. 14 (1), 265-267.
25-09-2018 General Win Prediction from Agent ExperienceGaina RD Lucas SM Perez-Liebana D
2018 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). vol. 00, 1-8.
17-08-2018 Self-adaptive MCTS for General Video Game PlayingSironi CF Liu J Perez-Liebana D Gaina RD Bravi I Lucas SM Winands MHM
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. vol. 10784, 358-375.
01-01-2018 2017
The 2016 Two-Player GVGAI CompetitionGaina RD Coutoux A Soemers DJNJ Winands MHM Vodopivec T Kirchgener F Liu J Lucas SM et al.
IEEE Transactions on Games,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 10 (2), 209-220.
09-11-2017 Automatic game tuning for strategic diversityGaina RD Volkovas R Diaz CG
2017 9th Computer Science and Electronic Engineering Conference, CEEC 2017 - Proceedings., 195-200.
08-11-2017 Rolling Horizon Evolution Enhancements in General Video Game PlayingGaina RD Lucas SM Perez-Liebana D
2017 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG)., 88-95.
01-08-2017 Introducing Real World Physics and Macro-Actions to General Video Game AIPerez-Liebana D Stephenson M Gaina RD Renz J Lucas SM
2017 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG)., 248-255.
01-08-2017 Population Seeding Techniques for Rolling Horizon Evolution in General Video Game PlayingGaina RD Lucas SM Pérez-Liébana D
2017 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC)., 1956-1963.
01-06-2017 The N -Tuple Bandit Evolutionary Algorithm for Automatic Game ImprovementKunanusont K Gaina RD Liu J Perez-Liebana D Lucas SM
2017 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC)., 2201-2208.
01-06-2017 Analysis of Vanilla Rolling Horizon Evolution Parameters in General Video Game PlayingGaina RD Liu J Lucas SM Pérez-Liébana D
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. vol. 10199, 418-434.
01-01-2017 2016
General Video Game for 2 Players: Framework and CompetitionGaina RD Pérez-Liébana D Lucas SM
2016 8th Computer Science and Electronic Engineering (CEEC)., 186-191.
01-01-2016
Research Group
PhD Students
- Toby Best
Game Master AI For Tabletop Games - Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence - Toby Best
Game Master AI For Tabletop Games - Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence - Joshua Kritz
The Use of AI Strategy Data in Redefining Modern Tabletop Game Design - Fandi Meng
AI For Deduction Games - Dien Nguyen
Efficient Automatic Playtesting of Modern Tabletop Games
News
February 2025
27 February 2025
Board games have always been a playground for AI researchers. With clear rules, defined outcomes, and structured gameplay, they're the perfect testing ground for AI systems. But what happens when game rules have glitches? Enter Diego Perez Liebana and Raluca Gaina, computer scientists at Queen Mary School of Electronic Engineering ... [more]
