[CFP] Special Session on Games@WCCI/IJCNN2026 (Submission deadline: 31 January 2026)

[Jialin Liu]

[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP]

Call for Papers - Special Session on Games

The 2026 IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI) - International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

Maastricht, the Netherlands, 21-26 June 2026

https://attend.ieee.org/wcci-2026/

Important Dates

Submission deadline: 31 January 2026

Notification: 15 March 2026

Final paper submission: 15 April 2026

Special Session Webpage: https://aingames.cn/wcci2026-games

Submission Website: https://ssl.linklings.net/conferences/WCCI/

Information for Authors: https://attend.ieee.org/wcci-2026/submissions/

Please select "IJCNN" and "IJCNN-SS42: Games" when submitting your paper.

Organizers

Xiangyu Wang, University of Science and Technology of China, China, sa312(at)mail.ustc.edu.cn

Jialin Liu, Lingnan University, Hong Kong SAR, China, jialin.liu(at)ln.edu.hk

Georgios N. Yannakakis, University of Malta, Malta, georgios.yannakakis(at)um.edu.mt

*This special session is organized in association with the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) Technical Committee on Games (Game TC).

Aim 

Games are an ideal domain to study computational intelligence (CI) methods because they provide affordable, competitive, dynamic, reproducible environments suitable for testing new search algorithms, pattern-based evaluation methods, or learning concepts. Games scale from simple problems for developing algorithms to incredibly hard problems for testing algorithms to the limit. Additionally, there is great potential for CI methods to improve the design and development of computer games as well as tabletop games, board games, and puzzles. This special session aims at gathering leaders and neophytes in games research as well as practitioners in this field who research applications of computational intelligence methods to computer games. 

Scope 

In general, papers are welcome that consider all kinds of applications of methods (evolutionary computation, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, fuzzy systems, game-tree search, rolling horizon algorithms, MCTS, open-ended learning etc.) to games (card games, board games, mathematical games, action games, strategy games, role-playing games, arcade games, serious games, etc.).

Topics include but are not limited to 

• Adaptation Automatic game testing 
• Adaptation in games 
• Automatic game testing 
• Coevolution in games 
• Dynamic difficulty in games 
• Games as AI test-bed 
• Imitating human players 
• Learning to play games 
• Multi-agent and multi-strategy learning 
• Player/opponent modelling 
• Affective game computing 
• Procedural content generation 
• CI for serious games (e.g., games for health, education or training) 
• Results of game-based CI and open competitions 
• Game and puzzle design with computational intelligence 
• Representation of knowledge in player agents 
• Representation learning and computer vision in games 
• LLMs and games