iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cellular automata are powerful but painful to author. Rules are a lookup table; neural CAs are more expressive but a black box. What if each CA rule was just code that you can read? Introducing Programmable Cellular Automata (PCA)

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Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

New paper! We are honestly surprised that nobody seems to have explored this idea before. Results are interesting!

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Ahmed Khalifa @amidos2006.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It can be represented as trees or python code with other generation methods. So having an LLM doesn't limit the work, we need to investigate more on usage of non llm and compare the results

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For more details, read the paper: arxiv.org/abs/2609.06102 This work was done by Muhammed U Nassir, Matthew Siper, Steven James, @togelius.bsky.social, and me. #AIandGames #PCG #LLM #AI #LevelGeneration #GameDev

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Honest limitation: high fitness ≠ visual diversity. Our Zelda generator learned to clear the room and shuffle the key/door/player around — great by the shortest-path diversity metric, boring to look at. Quality-diversity search is the fix we'd reach for next.

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Because the functions are code, we could read them. The most common discovered global function across every domain? A counting function (~5 lines), then connectivity, then spread/distribution functions for aesthetics.

Also, global functions slash iteration counts. Sokoban went from ~98 iterations (0 globals) to ~7–24 with globals. Surprisingly, 5 globals wasn't better than 1— evolution splits functionality across functions, and some end up inefficient.

The main result is that having at least one global function changes everything. Other than Binary, all the problems need at least 1 global function to be highly playable. For example, Zelda has ~0% playability (0 globals) but ~100% playability (1 global).

We represent all the code as Python code and use LLMs (Claude Opus 4.8) as our code generator, where the prompt directed it to follow the signature of the code and produce a new useful function different from the one being used by that chromosome.

PCA represents a level generator, so the fitness is a cascaded fitness where the generator needs to produce 100% playable levels before considering the diversity between the generated levels.

We tested PCA on 3 problems from the PCG Benchmark: - Binary: a fully connected maze with long path length. - Zelda: an arcade dungeon crawler where the player collects a key and reaches the door. - Sokoban: a puzzle game where the player needs to push boxes over targets.

Since the rules are programs, we can evolve them using genetic programming, where: - Chromosome: a list of all the local functions, global functions, and the decision function. - Crossover: swaps programs between parents - Mutation: swaps a program with a new program.

Global functions break the strict locality of CA, but it enables the CA to finish faster. For example, counting is an easy problem using a global observation, but using local observation, the CA needs to propagate information across the whole board.

Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

The core idea is to modularize CA into multiple small groups of programs: - Local Functions: neighborhood → value - Global Functions (Optional): the whole state → value - Decision Function: takes the outputs → the next cell state

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Last but not least of our IEEE Conference on Games papers this year: PuzzleJax, presented by @smearle.bsky.social with Yuchen Li, @amidos2006.bsky.social Graham Todd, Muhammad Nasir, Andrzej Banburski-Fahey and myself. Spoiler: LLMs are NOT GOOD at PuzzleScript games. Search is good, and RL decent.

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

@amidos2006.bsky.social presenting our work (led by Matt Siper) on Procedural Content Metageneration via Continual Abstraction Discovery here at IEEE Conference on Games

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Ahmed Khalifa @amidos2006.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

This is a very exciting work that will be presented at the IEEE Conference on Games 2026 :) If you love #PCG and fun new ideas on how to build understandable generators, check it out :) #aiandgames #gamedev #proceduralcontentgeneration #cog2026

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Julian Togelius @togelius.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

Celebrating Dr. Matt Siper, who passed his PhD defense yesterday, supervised by myself and @amidos2006.bsky.social !

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

bilge @bilgetbd.itch.io · 18/07/2026

walk is out now on steam! store.steampowered.com/app/4563880/... hope you like it <3

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Ahmed Khalifa @amidos2006.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Our ( @togelius.bsky.social and I) student @debosmita.bsky.social is running a user survey about aesthetic and functional game level generation. Help us by answering a few comparisons of lode runner levels. It should take about 5-10 minutes to complete. Please check: levelcomparesurvey.netlify.app

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Ahmed Khalifa @amidos2006.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Linker @linker.itch.io · 23/05/2026

HEY SO, UH, STEAM PAGE IS UP!!! No trailer yet, but if people want to wishlist the game, now you can!!! And keep your eyes open in June for some more news regarding Next Fest...

store.steampowered.com

Mym's Sword on Steam

Defeat powerful foes and discover a colorful world full of mystery and wonder in this exploratory action platformer! A wandering beast discovers a magic sword, but can she uncover the truth of its ori...

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Rebekah Valentine @duckvalentine.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

Over a year ago, I spoke with @rasheedabueideh.bsky.social about Dreams on a Pillow for a piece that was killed before it could be published. I am honored that he was willing to take the time to speak with me again in spite of that and tell me about his beautiful homeland: kotaku.com/upcoming-ste...

kotaku.com

This Upcoming Stealth Game Wants To Show You A Beautiful Palestine

“We wanted to talk about Palestine, which is a land full of people

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

M Lupetti @mlupetti.upandpunch.red · 09/05/2026

Then there’s the latest Margini videoludici (At videogame margins) column featuring the philosophical game-essay HAMM-3R by @gua-le-ni.com, @amidos2006.bsky.social, @demigiant.com, Irina Tomova, Costantino Oliva and Danielius Degesys.

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Noel Cody @noelcody.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

I made Moss Moss, a #pico8 game about mossing the world and finding secrets. Hope you enjoy ♥ noelcody.itch.io/moss-moss

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Stefano Gualeni @gua-le-ni.com · 30/04/2026

And also play our new small game for free at: hammer.gua-le-ni.com :)

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Ahmed Khalifa @amidos2006.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

Our new #short #philosophical game, HAMM-3R has some nice-looking postcards for events :) Make sure to get yours if you see us at any event :) @gua-le-ni.com #indiegames #IndieGameDev #experimental #indiedev #indie #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #fps #Philosophy #Free #Godot #WebGame #Space

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Institute of Digital Games - University of Malta @indigitalgames.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Sound design in games is easy to overlook, but can be the secret sauce for the mood and knowing whether something hurts or helps. Dr Oliva reflects on the sound design for HAMM-3R: www.um.edu.mt/newspoint/le... #SoundDesign #IndieGames #musicology @gua-le-ni.com @amidos2006.bsky.social

um.edu.mt

Sound Design in Games: Behind the Sounds of HAMM-3R

Learn about the sound design in new experimental philosophical game by Institute of Digital Games

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Markus Moenig @markusmoenig.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Eldiron v0.9.2 is out 🎉 This update adds several new tools (including the new Dungeon Tool), plus more work on authoring and text-style play (IF). Read more: eldiron.com/blog/2026/04... #gamedev #indiedev #rpgdev

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Institute of Digital Games - University of Malta @indigitalgames.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

HAMM-3R - the new experimental game by @gua-le-ni.com and @amidos2006.bsky.social featured on @newgrounds.com! It's free, short, and hopefully thought-provoking, try it out: www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/... #indiegame #philosophy #gamedev #research

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

Our new game, HAMM-3R, can be played over @itch.io: amidos2006.itch.io/hamm-3r @newgrounds.com: newgrounds.com/portal/view/... An experimental short philosophical game (5-10 mins) #indiegames #IndieGameDev #experimental #indiedev #indie #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #fps #Philosophy

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Reposted by Ahmed Khalifa

For the US, I wanted to let you know about our new short philosophical game :) I just noticed that it is #AprilFoolsDay, this is not an April Fool. #indiegames #IndieGameDev #experimental #indiedev #indie #gamedev #screenshotsaturday #fps #Philosophy #RT

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