Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge - Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2021: 20th IFIP TC 14 International Conference, ICEC 2021, Coimbra, Portugal, November 2–5, 2021, Proceedings

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With pride we present the conference proceedings of ICEC 2021, the 20th edition of the IFIP International Conference on Entertainment Computing. It was hosted by the Department of Informatics Engineering of the University of Coimbra in Portugal. The mission of ICEC is to bring together researchers and practitioners from diverse backgrounds in the fields of entertainment computing and serious games to discuss and learn from each others experiences in order to achieve more attractive and meaningful applications. Consequently, for ICEC 2021, all working groups in TC14 on entertainment computing contributed with article submissions, tutorials, interactive installations, and workshops, so that we are very happy to present contributions showing the variety of research that is required to develop good entertainment computing applications. In addition, theres a continuing desire to create a real global community, connecting researchers from all parts of the world to further the science of entertainment computing and serious games with industry, which was reflected in the invited keynotes. Furthermore, we were celebrating the 20th ICEC conference, and at the same time IFIP was celebrating its 60 anniversary with a set of activities, so we are happy to host one of these events as part of the conference.

Entertainment computing and serious games operate on the multidisciplinary intersection of design, art, entertainment, interaction, computing, psychology, and numerous serious application domains, bringing together researchers in all these fields, and therefore the program mirrors this diversity. The conference received a total of 83 submissions, and after an extensive review process 26 full papers, 13 works in progress papers, 3 interactive entertainment/experiential works, 3 student competition papers, 4 workshop papers, and 1 tutorial were accepted. The ICEC 2021 Program Committee was composed of 84 experts from 23 different countries, comprising a unique representation of the global entertainment computing and games communities. We thank all the members of this committee and all the additional external reviewers for their work and commitment. The importance and credibility of these proceedings are sustained by the competence and dedication of these professionals.

The conference program was furthermore enriched by two keynote speakers. Ana Paiva (University of Lisbon) gave a talk on how to make robotics social, namely the problem of engineering agents that exhibit specific social capabilities, including aspects such as emotions, personality, culture, non-verbal behavior, empathy, collaboration, and others. Josu Monchan (Pendulo Studios) spoke on narrative writing and other creative challenges behind games, helping us to understand several aspects of managing the creative process. Moreover, we inaugurated a special track of invited talks to recognize some of the most influential papers published through the Entertainment Computing journal.

We wish to recognize the hosting institution, the University of Coimbra, the cooperation of Sociedade Portuguesa das Cincias dos Videojogos, and the support of Instituto Pedro Nunes in helping to facilitate several aspects of this years conference organization.