Roles of Planning in Games (RPG) at ICAPS 2026
Dublin, Ireland
June 2026
https://rpg-workshop.github.io/rpg-worksphop-26/
The RPG workshop invites submissions of original research papers, position papers, and case studies on the application of Automated Planning and Scheduling (APS) techniques to games. We welcome contributions addressing theoretical advances, practical implementations, and empirical evaluations of planning methods across a range of gaming contexts, including video games, tabletop games, and interactive narratives.
Topics include, but are not limited to:
Decision Making in Games: Domain-specific heuristics, knowledge representation, search methods, and planners for playing and understanding existing games.
Real-Time Planning: Techniques for interleaving planning and execution under strict time and memory constraints.
Planning for Quality Assurance: Using automated planners to generate test coverage, detect soft-locks, and validate playable content autonomously.
Neurosymbolic AI in Games: Combining neuro-inspired models with symbolic planning to create NPCs that are both conversational and goal-directed.
Hierarchical Planning: Advances in hierarchical task networks (HTNs) tailored for controlling agent behaviors or developing structured game content.
Plan, Activity, and Goal Recognition: Inferring player intent to adapt game difficulty or content dynamically.
Procedural Content Generation: Constraint-based planning for generating game content such as solvable levels, puzzles, and narratives.
Planning for Game Design: Applications of APS to game or level design for videogames and/or tabletop games.
Representing Games as Planning Problems: Modeling game domains for (semi-)automated problem solving systems.
Tools for Planning in Games: Software or libraries using games that make use of planning.
Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: 4th of May
Notification: 11th of June
Submission Details
Submit papers via EasyChair using the ICAPS 2026 paper template. Please send questions to rp...@easychair.org.
Regular papers: up to 8 pages + unlimited references
Short / position papers: up to 4 pages + unlimited references
All submissions must be in PDF format
At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the ICAPS 2026 workshop day. Accepted papers will be made available on the workshop website.
We look forward to welcoming you in Dublin!
Sincerely,
Pavan Kantharaju, Emanuele De Pellegrin, Rick Freedman, Lorenzo James, and Myriam Kapon
The RPG Organizing Committee