CA22145 - Computational Techniques for Tabletop Games Heritage (GameTable)

Games have been a research topic across many disciplines that have long been disconnected from one another. In computer science and mathematics, games have been used as testbeds for the development of state-of-the-art methods in economics, engineering, and Artificial Intelligence. Archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists have examined the motivations behind human play and its social implications on the individual and societal levels. Games have also long been the subject of pedagogical development, and are increasingly becoming recognized as part of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. Nevertheless, much of the heritage of games around the world has been lost due to colonialism, imperialism, and commercialisation.

The GameTable Action aims to create an international and interdisciplinary network of scholars and stakeholders from all career stages across academia, industry, and heritage institutions to inspire methodologies and applications on how to use game AI to study, reconstruct, and preserve the intangible cultural heritage of games. More holistic methodologies will be achieved by developing more human-like AI techniques, using them to analyse mathematical properties of games, and combining them with game-theoretic models, and guiding them with knowledge of games of the past and a cross-cultural understanding of human gameplay. These collaborations will include conferences, workshops, and other cross-disciplinary interactions that will produce publications and digital tools to advance the theoretical and practical applications of research on games. From this, we will develop sophisticated methods for the preservation of games as a form of ancient and modern cultural heritage and game-centric educational programs.