Devi Acharya | AI in Games

Hi, I'm Devi Acharya

I design and develop AI tools for games & interactive media

  1. Senior Data Scientist, Applied AI @ Zynga

    Developed AI-based tools to support game and creative teams at Zynga

    Procedural Content GenerationStoryletsGenerative AI
  2. Graduate Research Assistant, Expressive Intelligence Studio @ University of California, Santa Cruz

    MS in Computational Media

    Designed and developed AI support tools for game masters of tabletop roleplaying games

    Story SiftingPrologSocial Simulation
  3. Game Designer & Developer @ Brandeis University

    BA in Computer Science; BA in Film, TV, and Interactive Media

    Designed and developed indie games and interactive media projects

    UnityJava

Projects

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TTRPG AI Assistant

Lead Researcher, Developer

A co-creative AI assistant for game masters of tabletop roleplaying games.

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Warmer

Unity Developer

An NSF-funded game about climate change and human impacts on the environment using real environmental models.

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VR / Physical Escape Room

Researcher, Mentor

An escape room made in Unity with asymmetrical puzzle-solving in physical and virtual reality spaces. Made at UCSC's Science Internship Program.

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Terasology: Light and Shadow

Java Developer

A capture-the-flag game mode made for open-source voxel game Terasology, made as part of Google Summer of Code.

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Fusion Galaxy

Lead Artist

A mobile game about collecting and crafting elements together to discover the universe, made with the Massachusetts Digital Games Institute.

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Red Survivor

UI Artist

A strategy game where the player fights to survive against killer robots in a war-torn Russia. Made with a team at Mustachio Games. Shown at Boston Festival of Indie Games, 2014.

Publications

Shoelace: A Storytelling Assistant for GUMSHOE One-2-One

Devi Acharya, Jack Kelly, William Tate, Maxwell Joslyn, Michael Mateas, Noah Wardrip-Fruin
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2023
Best Paper Award

Requirements analysis and speculative design of support tools for TTRPG game masters

Devi Acharya, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Digital Games Research Association, 2022

Computational Support for Game Masters of Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Devi Acharya
Master's Thesis, Computational Media, University of California - Santa Cruz, 2021

Story Improvisation in Tabletop Roleplaying Games: Towards a Computational Assistant for Game Masters

Devi Acharya, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Conference on Games, 2021

Interviews towards designing support tools for TTRPG game masters

Devi Acharya, Michael Mateas, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Poster presentation, International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling, 2021

Tabletop Roleplaying Games as Procedural Content Generators

Matthew Guzdial, Devi Acharya, Max Kreminski, Michael Cook, Mirjam Eladhari, Antonios Liapis, Anne Sullivan
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2020

Spatial cognitive implications of teleporting through virtual environments

Lucia A Cherep, Alex F Lim, Jonathan W Kelly, Devi Acharya, Alfredo Velasco, Emanuel Bustamante, Alec G Ostrander, and Stephen B Gilbert
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2020
Raymond S. Nickerson Award for best paper

Cozy mystery construction kit: Prototyping toward an AI-assisted collaborative storytelling mystery game

Max Kreminski, Devi Acharya, Nick Junius, Elisabeth Oliver, Kate Compton, Melanie Dickinson, Cyril Focht, Stacey Mason, Stella Mazeika, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Procedural Generation Workshop, International Converence on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2019

Building worlds together: understanding collaborative co-creation of game worlds

Devi Acharya and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, 2019