curation-tree

The Curation Tree framework implements basic features for drag-and-drop puzzle and narrative games built in Unity.

The Curation Tree framework consists of three primary types:

• The GameLoop, which loads a script that specifies the mechanics of the game.
• The World which stores global state and manages player input.
• Behavior which implements game features such as playing sounds, playing animations, moving objects, setting text, changing colors, and responding to player events. Behaviors are organized as a tree that execute from the root.

We have been using this system for several years across a variety of demos for building agents and testing avatars in virtual reality. This repository demonstrates its basic features with several small examples.

For example, in the following demo, dragging the casette onto to Boom Box plays music and makes the squirrel dance.

To run the demo, open the scene SquirrelHouse.unity in BasicExample/Assets/Scenes

This demo has been tested with Unity version 2022.3.16f1.

The basic workflow for this framework involves

1. setting up the assets (images, sounds, animations) in the scene hierarchy
2. scripting the interactions between the game and the user with a script

For example, in the Squirrel House demo, we can drag and drop the casette onto the boom box to trigger music and the squirrel's dancing. Removing the casette turns the music and dancing off. This is implemented with the following the script.

Repeat:
  IfDrag: Casette
    Hide: Music
    StopAnimation: Squirrel, SquirrelDance
  End
  IfDrop: Casette, BoomBox
    PlayAnimation: Squirrel, SquirrelDance
    Show: Music
  End
End

IfDrag triggers whenever the player picks up the object. IfDrop triggers when the casette is dropped on the boom box. The names, Casette, BoomBox, Squirrel, SquirrelDance, and Music, refer to assets in the scene. To execute the script, we create an empty GameObject and attach a GameLoop component to it. The framework will connect behaviors automatically by matching the names from the script to the assets in the scene.

Please import the unity package CurationTree.unitypackage into your own project. This package includes the sources under BasicExample/Assets/Scripts/CurationTree.

Please import the unity package CurationTree.unitypackage into your own project. This package includes the sources under BasicExample/Assets/Scripts/CurationTree.

• Overview and Examples
• Debugging and troublshooting
• API Documentation

Aline Normoyle, Sophie Jörg, and Jennifer Hill. 2024. The Curation Tree: A Lightweight Behavior Tree Framework for Implementing Puzzle and Narrative Games. In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG 2024), May 21–24, 2024, Worcester, MA, USA. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3649921. 3659840