Woolgatherer

Woolgatherer is the final and major design artefact I produced as part of my PhD. It is an interactive game-like experience that has similarities to first-person narrative experiences like Dear Esther and Gone Home. It is provided here in part as a supplement to my thesis for readers, but freely available to anyone who is interested. 

If you aren't aware of my research, I recommend going in with no knowledge and playing Woolgatherer first. Multiple playthroughs are recommended.

You can read more about my work at:

https://www.lukeskarth.com

and

https://highlights.cdt.horizon.ac.uk/students/psxls4

You can also download a version of the Unity plugin I developed for my research, which is used in Woolgatherer.

Please note Woolgatherer is an experimental prototype, and by game standards "unfinished". It has a requirement of at least 8GB RAM and a mid- to high-end graphics card from the last 2-3 years. It is provided as is with no support at present. In the future if I have time I'd like to add some settings and options and iterate on the experience, but my current circumstances mean my focus is elsewhere.

UPDATE 25-02-2025 - Some kind colleagues will be offering Woolgatherer amongst some other demos at SXSW this year. To that end I've updated the experience a little, mainly lighting in the first room for clarity, and added some details about controls and some basic settings (volume, look sensitivity) to improve quality of life. I'd like to expand this experience or build another along similar lines, but in the meantime this new version might be a little easier to use.