Define: LUTE

LUTE is a tool based on Unity, enabling creative individuals to design narrative-rich, location-based experiences easily. Its node-based structure facilitates quick integration of new mechanics and components, fostering unique and diverse experiences. LUTE aims to empower storytellers interested in crafting engaging narratives at historical sites and places of heritage. It's free, open-source, and dedicated to lowering the entry barrier to game development. If you're interested in creating educational historical experiences but lack game development or coding skills, consider using LUTE.

Define: Target Audience

LUTE is currently geared towards Unity users familiar with game design, particularly those passionate about creating story-driven experiences. It's a great tool for crafting your first narrative-based game, with the added advantage of being able to leverage engineering knowledge to tweak it further. Think of it as a fully-fledged visual scripting engine, but without the complexity. In the future, we plan to expand the target audience to include those who may not be as technically proficient, ensuring that anyone interested in telling historical stories or creating engaging location-based games can do so easily.

Define: Origins

LUTE originated from research within the LogaCulture project. It draws inspiration from notable tools like Fungus, Twine, Inform, and Ren'Py. However, LUTE differs by emphasising locative and XR experiences, rather than solely focusing on narrative-based ones. Additionally, it provides support for integrating custom components, enabling the creation of unique games with added depth and complexity.

LUTE is and always will be free and open source!

Define: Contributions

Those who wish to contribute to LUTE may do so freely. Bugs, new features or suggetions and additional source code can be added directly to the GitHub repository. Additionally, spread the word and join our Discord (link to be disclosed after the research project has come to a close) - we would be more than happy to welcome you!

• Track Issues: Issue Tracker
• Pull or Add to Source: Pull Requests

Define: Authors

Dr Jack Brett is the main author of LUTE along with Dr Yoan-Daniel Malinov .

Dr David Millard and Dr Charlie Hargood have also supported this project as principal investigators for the two work packages related to the LoGaCulture project from Bournemouth and Southampton University