# Conceptual Game Expansion

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.09636 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.09636/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 22 Feb 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Unbounded: A Generative Infinite Game of Character Life Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18975/) (2024)
- [Dungeon and Platformer Level Blending and Generation using Conditional VAEs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12692/) (2021)
- [Grammar-based Game Description Generation using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17404/) (2024)
- [AnimeGamer: Infinite Anime Life Simulation with Next Game State Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01014/) (2025)
- [Mechanic Maker 2.0: Reinforcement Learning for Evaluating Generated Rules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09476/) (2023)
- [Adversarial Random Forest Classifier for Automated Game Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.12501/) (2021)
- [Mechanic Maker: Accessible Game Development Via Symbolic Learning Program Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01096/) (2024)
- [Cardiverse: Harnessing LLMs for Novel Card Game Prototyping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07128/) (2025)
- [Procedural Content Generation via Knowledge Transformation (PCG-KT)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.00644/) (2023)
- [Conceptual Expansion Neural Architecture Search (CENAS)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03144/) (2021)
- [Latent Combinational Game Design](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.14203/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Automated game design is the problem of automatically producing games through computational processes. Traditionally, these methods have relied on the authoring of search spaces by a designer, defining the space of all possible games for the system to author. In this paper, we instead learn representations of existing games from gameplay video and use these to approximate a search space of novel games. In a human subject study we demonstrate that these novel games are indistinguishable from human games in terms of challenge, and that one of the novel games was equivalent to one of the human games in terms of fun, frustration, and likeability.