NPC

noun

\ɛn-pi:-si:\

A character who exists to enrich the game

Nathan Partlan

Education

Doctor of Philosophy, Computer Science

(in progress)

Northeastern University, Boston, MA

Master of Science, Computer Science

2020

Northeastern University, Boston, MA

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

2012

Brown University, Providence, RI

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Papers

Partlan, Nathan, Luis Soto, Jim Howe, Sarthak Shrivastava, Magy Seif El-Nasr, and Stacy Marsella. 2022. “EvolvingBehavior: Towards Co-Creative Evolution of Behavior Trees for Game NPCs.” In Foundations of Digital Games. ACM Press. https://doi.org/10.1145/3555858.3555896.

Partlan, Nathan, Erica Kleinman, Jim Howe, Sabbir Ahmad, Stacy Marsella, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2021. “Design-Driven Requirements for Computationally Co-Creative Game AI Design Tools.” In Foundations of Digital Games, 12. Montreal QC, Canada: ACM. http://arxiv.org/abs/2107.13738. Best Paper Honorable Mention

Lee, Vivian, Nathan Partlan, and Seth Cooper. 2020. “Precomputing Player Movement in Platformers for Level Generation with Reachability Constraints.” In Joint Proceedings of the AIIDE 2020 Workshops Co-Located with the 16th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2020).

Carstensdottir, Elin, Nathan Partlan, Steven Sutherland, Tyler Duke, Erika Ferris, Robin M. Richter, Maria Valladares, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2020. “Progression Maps: Conceptualizing Narrative Structure for Interaction Design Support.” In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Honolulu, HI, USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376527.

Partlan, Nathan, Abdelrahman Madkour, Chaima Jemmali, Josh Aaron Miller, Christoffer Holmgård, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2019. “Player Imitation for Build Actions in a Real-Time Strategy Game.” In Joint Proceedings of the AIIDE 2019 Workshops Co-Located with the 15th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2019). Atlanta, GA: CEUR-WS.org.

Mahajan, Shruti, Leo Bunyea, Nathan Partlan, Dylan Schouten, Casper Harteveld, Camillia Matuk, Will Althoff, Tyler Duke, Steven Sutherland, and Gillian Smith. 2019. “Toward Automated Critique for Student-Created Interactive Narrative Projects.” In Joint Proceedings of the AIIDE 2019 Workshops Co-Located with the 15th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE 2019). Atlanta, GA: CEUR-WS.org.

Partlan, Nathan, Elin Carstensdottir, Erica Kleinman, Sam Snodgrass, Casper Harteveld, Gillian Smith, Camillia Matuk, Steven C. Sutherland, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2019. “Evaluation of an Automatically-Constructed Graph-Based Representation for Interactive Narrative.” In Proceedings of the Workshop on User Experience of Artificial Intelligence in Games at FDG. San Luis Obispo, CA: ACM Press.

Partlan, Nathan, Elin Carstensdottir, Sam Snodgrass, Erica Kleinman, Gillian Smith, Casper Harteveld, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2018. “Exploratory Automated Analysis of Structural Features of Interactive Narrative.” In Proceedings of the 14th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment. Edmonton, AB, Canada: The AAAI Press, Palo Alto, California.

Posters and Peer-Reviewed Presentations

Sutherland, Steven, Will Althoff, Anna Amato, Leo Bunyea, Tyler Duke, Casper Harteveld, Camillia Matuk, Kate Olguin, Nathan Partlan, Magy Seif El-Nasr, Sam Snodgrass, and Gillian Smith. 2020. “Analysis of Design Decisions on Reinforcing Stereotypes in Games.” presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA.

Matuk, Camillia, Steven Sutherland, Will Althoff, Sam Snodgrass, Nathan Partlan, Gillian Smith, Magy Seif El-Nasr, and Casper Harteveld. 2019. “Synergies between Research and Game Design: Reflections on Interactive Narrative Experiments by Student Game Designers.” presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 5.

Troiano, Giovanni Maria, Sam Snodgrass, Erinç Argimak, Nathan Partlan, Gillian Smith, and Casper Harteveld. 2018. “Finding Effective Metrics to Evaluate Student-Designed Games.” In CHI 2018 Workshop on Data-Driven Educational Game Design.

Non-Peer-Reviewed Publications

Partlan, Nathan, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2018. “Towards Generating AI for Generative Worlds: Evolving Behavior Trees in Unreal Engine 4.” SEEDS, December 19, 2018. http://www.procjam.com/seeds/issues/3/npc.txt.html

Professional and Research Experience

Graduate Research Assistant, Northeastern University

2017-2018

StudyCrafter

Game Systems Engineer, Turbine, Inc.

2012-2017

Titles:

Game of Thrones: Conquest

Infinite Crisis

The Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep

The Lord of the Rings Online: Riders of Rohan

Batman: Arkham Underworld

Intern Engineer, Demiurge Studios

2011

Titles:

The Nightworld

Independent Research Study, Brown University

2011

AI for Leges Motus, Supervised by Dr. Chad Jenkins

Research Assistant, Brown University

2010

Authenticating Email Search Results, Supervised by Dr. Roberto Tamassia

Google Summer of Code, Thousand Parsec Project

2008-2009

Thousand Parsec

Intern Engineer, Thousand Parsec Project

2007-2008

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

Best Paper Honorable Mention

2021

Foundations of Digital Games

Khoury College of Computer Sciences Fellowship

2017

Teaching

Teaching Assistant

2019-2022

Northeastern University

CS7340: Theory and Methods in Human Computer Interaction

CS5170: AI for Human Computer Interaction

CS4100/5100: Foundations of Artificial Intelligence

CS4150/5150: Game Artificial Intelligence

CS3520: Programming in C++

CS3540: Game Programming

Head Teaching Assistant

2011

Brown University

CSCI 1950N: Android Game Engines

With another undergraduate student, significantly updated and improved course material for the second run of a student-led course. Gave lectures on topics in Android game engine development, supervised student projects, and graded student work.

Teaching Assistant

2009-2011

Brown University

CSCI 1660: Computer Security

CSCI 0320: Introduction to Software Engineering

CSCI 0530: The Matrix in Computer Science

Service

Founding Member, Khoury Graduate Students Association

2019-Present

As a founding member of the Khoury Graduate Students Association (Khoury GSA), served as an organizer to advocate for student needs, coordinate community events, and improve the graduate student experience at Khoury College of Computer Sciences.

Program Committee Member

2023

Foundations of Digital Games, Game Artificial Intelligence Track

Program Committee Member

2022

Experimental AI in Games Workshop at AIIDE

Reviewer

2022

CHI Play

Program Committee Member

2022

Foundations of Digital Games, Game Artificial Intelligence Track

Program Committee Member

2021

Foundations of Digital Games

Program Committee Member

2021

UXofAI Workshop at Foundations of Digital Games

Program Committee Member

2020

Foundations of Digital Games

Program Committee Member

2020

Foundations of Digital Games, Late Breaking Work

Program Committee Member

2020

Experimental AI in Games Workshop at AIIDE

Program Committee Member

2019

The 10th Workshop on Procedural Content Generation at FDG

Reviewer

2019

Transactions on Games

Reviewer

2019

Conference on Games

Teacher, Computer Programming, Turbine

2014-2015

Designed and taught informal programming classes to interested colleagues.

Founder and Organizer, Brown Independent Games Expo (BIGExpo)

2011-2012

As a founder and organizer of BIGExpo, enlisted and organized professional speakers and presenters from the games industry, and student presenters from Brown University and RISD, for annual conferences at Brown. Also obtained sponsors and distributed promotional materials.

Founding Member, Brown Game Developers Group

2010-2012

As a founding member of the Brown Game Developers Group, organized sessions, coordinated meetings with RISD students. Assisted in planning joint projects and in creating, and finding advisors for, student-led classes.

Invited Talks

Panel Member, Q&A with Professional Game Engineers

2016

Northeastern University

Participated in a panel Q&A session, giving advice and information about professional gameplay engineering to students in the Northeastern University Game Developers Group.

“Lessons Learned from A Year in the Game Industry”

2014

Brown University

Gave a talk on engineering tips and advice learned after a year in professional game development, in a presentation to the Brown University Game Developers group.

Professional Memberships

Member, AI Game Programmers Guild

2016-2020

Student Member, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

2018-2020

Research Interests

Game AI

Procedural Content Generation

Computational Co-Creativity