Max Kreminski
mkremins@ucsc.edu
Education
University of California, Santa Cruz
Advisors: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Michael Mateas
University of California, Santa Cruz
Thesis: Designing to Support Authorship Play in Emergent Narrative Games
University of Southern California
Minor in Game User Research
Conference Papers
- “Germinate: A Mixed-Initiative Casual Creator for Rhetorical Games.” Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE), 2020. Acceptance rate: 25%.
- “Why Are We Like This?: The AI Architecture of a Co-Creative Storytelling Game.” Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), 2020.
- “Getting Academical: A Choice-Based Interactive Storytelling Game for Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research.” Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), 2020. Exceptional paper distinction.
- “Why Are We Like This?: Exploring Writing Mechanics for an AI-Augmented Storytelling Game.” Electronic Literature Organization (ELO), 2020.
- “Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research Through an Interactive Storytelling Game.” CHI Late-Breaking Work on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI LBW), 2020.
- “Felt: A Simple Story Sifter.” International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS), 2019. Acceptance rate: 30%.
- “Evaluating AI-Based Games Through Retellings.” Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE), 2019. Acceptance rate: 25%.
- “StoryAssembler: An Engine for Generating Dynamic Choice-Driven Narratives.” Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), 2019. Best paper honorable mention.
- “Immersive Design Fiction: Using VR to Prototype Speculative Interfaces and Interaction Rituals within a Virtual Storyworld.” Designing Interactive Systems (DIS), 2018.
- “Are Game Design and User Research Guidelines Specific to Virtual Reality Effective in Creating a More Optimal Player Experience? Yes: VR PLAY.” Design, User Experience, and Usability (DUXU), 2018.
Workshop Papers
- “Toward Example-Driven Program Synthesis of Story Sifting Patterns.” AIIDE Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies (INT), 2020.
- “Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators.” FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG Workshop), 2020.
- “Generative Games as Storytelling Partners.” FDG Workshop on the User Experience of Artificial Intelligence in Games (UX of AI Workshop), 2019.
- “Cozy Mystery Construction Kit: Prototyping Toward an AI-Assisted Collaborative Storytelling Mystery Game.” FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG Workshop), 2019.
- “Generators that Read.” FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG Workshop), 2019.
- “Gardening Games: An Alternative Philosophy of PCG in Games.” FDG Workshop on Procedural Content Generation (PCG Workshop), 2018.
Posters and Demos
- “Playable Experiences at the 16th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment.” Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE), 2020.
- “Sketching a Map of the Storylets Design Space.” International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS), 2018.
- “Throwing Bottles at God: Predictive Text as a Game Mechanic in an AI-Based Narrative Game.” International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS), 2018.
Doctoral Consortium Papers
- “Creativity Support for Story Construction Play Experiences.” Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE), 2019.
Talks and Panels
Panelist, “Murder Mysteries as a Grand Challenge in Computational Storytelling.”
Justus Robertson, Markus Eger, Gabriella Barros, Max Kreminski, Lara Martin.
INT 2020.
Speaker, “Synthesizing Story Sifters.”
Roguelike Celebration 2020.
Panelist, “Games as Story Generators.”
Mirjam Eladhari, Matthew Guzdial, Antonios Liapis, Anne Sullivan, Max Kreminski.
FDG 2020.
Speaker, “AI Support for Player Storytelling in Digital Games.”
Animal Crossing AI Workshop 2020.
Speaker, “Sifting Stories to Support Player Storytelling.”
Roguelike Celebration 2019.
Panelist, “Changes over the last 10 years in PCG research and practice.”
Kate Compton, Max Kreminski, Adam Smith, Anne Sullivan, Julian Togelius.
PCG Workshop 2019.
Speaker, “Exploring Poemspace Through Procedural Erasure.”
Computational Poetry Workshop 2019.
Speaker, “Procedural Narrative Design with Parametrized Storylets.”
GDC 2019 (Independent Games Summit microtalks: Tech Toolbox).
Speaker, “Procedural Narrative Design with Parametrized Storylets.”
GDC 2019 (AI Summit microtalks: Experimental AI for Games).
Speaker, “Making blackout poetry with computers!.”
!!Con West 2019.
Speaker, “Gardening as a Mode of Play.”
Roguelike Celebration 2018.
Speaker, “Gardening as a Mode of Play.”
QGCon 2018.
Speaker, “Proceduralizing Character Development with Parametrized Storylets.”
UCSC Games Showcase 2018.
Speaker, “Crafting Compelling Character Arcs for Procedurally Generated Characters.”
Roguelike Celebration 2017.
Exhibitions
Why Are We Like This? Melanie Dickinson, Max Kreminski, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Digital game. “(un)continuity” (juried group exhibition). Electronic Literature Organization (ELO). Orlando, Florida. Jul. 16–19, 2020.
Epitaph. Max Kreminski. Digital game. ”QGCon 2018 Arcade” (juried group exhibition). Queerness and Games Conference. Montreal, Quebec. Sep. 28-30, 2018.
Teaching Experience
Primary Instructor
Teaching Assistant
Guest Lectures
“Gardening as a Mode of Play.” 2019. Invited guest lecture, Porter 61 Seminar in Arts, University of California, Santa Cruz.
“Mining and Gardening with Generative Systems.” 2018. Invited guest lecture, Computational Media 176 Game Systems, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Mentoring and Student Advising
* denotes students who contributed to a publication listed above.