Concept: Pillow Tree

Theme: A Seuss-style fantasyland

User Experience

In the distance, you see an enormous tree in the corner, surrounded by a beautiful flower garden. There seems to be an aura of happiness around the tree, and the garden is full of colorful flowers, lush foliage, and full of perpetual sunlight. The tree looks different than any tree you have ever seen. There are strange colorful shapes hanging from the branches and there seems to be a magical glow around the tree. As you walk closer, you start to hear music reminiscent of lullabies. It sounds soft and soothing like chimes tinkling in wind.

Around the tree are benches where you can sit and enjoy the sights and sounds of the peaceful garden. Near some of the benches are kiosks surrounded by flowers that tell you stories of the garden. One of the flowers is currently telling the story of Miss Merry and the Garden. There are also fun activities like garden tic tac toe. In the corner is a tool shed full of clothes and garden equipment, where you can dress up and help tend the garden.

When you arrive at the tree, you see that those strange colorful shapes you saw before are actually pillows! It is a pillow tree! The tree physically starts out at the corner, and goes all the way up to the ceiling. The branches stretch outwards, and pillows hang abundantly in between the plush fronds. A small pathway leads up to the opening at the bottom of the tree. The whole tree is made out of different fabric materials. The trunk is a patchwork quilt sewn up in hues of reds and browns, while the leaves are different swatches of cloth in shades of green. Vines wind around the tree like a wiry mesh, and once in a while between those vines, you can see magical creatures pop in and out.

You decide to follow the path into the tree. Suddenly, what seems like an opening turns out to be a screen in the tree. A tiny fairy in the tree tells you, “Welcome to the Pillow Tree. Pillows that come from this tree always bring you good dreams! The first thing you need is some magical thread that was spun using the moonlight. Do you have some?”

You remember that you happened to receive some this morning! You place the magic thread in one of the tree openings, and you see it unraveling in the place where the creature was. Looking a little closer, you see that the thread is unraveling in a tiny fairy world. They are using different objects like thimbles to sit on and the grass is taller than them!

The fairy you then asks for your help in growing the pillow. She says, “You need to first sew up the pillow with the thread you gave me. Use the magic wand to sew up the edges”. You pick up the wand, use it to start drawing on the pillow in a sewing motion.

When your pillow is sewn together, the fairy then tells you, “Next you need use the cloud catcher to gather clouds to fill your pillow.” You use your stylus wand to circle the clouds on the screen like a lasso to fill your pillow. You can see your pillow getting fluffier.

The fairy then says, “You’re almost done! You just have to make your pillow grow by watering it with the droplets of morning dew.” You use the stylus wand to now to search through the grass for these water droplets. The watering can in the corner of the screen fills up with water. When it fills up, you water the plants, and the pillow grows to human size.

When you are done, the fairy tells you, “Great job! You just grew your very own pillow of sweet dreams!” The pillow tumbles out of bottom of the tree trunk. You collect it and walk away happy.

The Story of the Garden

A long time ago, Miss Merry wanted to plant a garden for all the children of Give Kids the World Village to enjoy. For two whole months, Miss Merry worked and worked, but for some reason nothing seemed to grow. Though the garden stayed barren, Miss Merry did not give up. Then one day, the Star Fairy fluttered over. She saw that Miss Merry had been working so hard, so she said, “Miss Merry, you’ve been working so hard all day! Use my magical pillow to take a break for a few minutes. It’s so comfortable.” Miss Merry thought a few minutes couldn’t hurt, so laid her head down on the pillow, and immediately fell asleep. At night, while Miss Merry slept, the Star Fairy and her friends came and sprinkled magical dust all over the garden, bringing all the inanimate objects to life. The pillow Miss Merry was sleeping on sunk into the ground, and sprouted a huge pillow tree. The needle, thread, and bobbin from Miss Merry’s sewing kit danced through the dirt, and out came a patchwork garden. The next morning when Miss Merry work up, the garden was full of vibrant and colorful flowers and behind her was the large pillow tree. Surprised, Miss Merry asked the Star Fairy what had happened. The Star Fairy told her, “You’ve been working so hard on the garden, so we fairies wanted to help! The tree you see here is special. It’s the pillow tree of sweet dreams. It’s watered by the morning dew, is sewn up with the threads from the moonshine, fills its pillows with stuffing from the clouds, and grows with love from you and all of the children here at the village.” Ecstatic, Miss Merry cried out, “Thank you!” Her garden was now complete, and she couldn’t wait for the children at the village to visit her garden. To this day, in the very same spot you are standing now, the pillow tree still stands in the Castle of Miracles, making pillows full of sweet dreams for children everywhere.

Location Treatment

Much of this exhibit is technologically simple. The main attraction of the exhibit is the pillow tree. There are several video screens and one touch screen with stylus (similar to the Nintendo DS but larger) located in between the branches connected to a central processing unit located on the back half of the base of the tree. Inside the tree is also a small pillow vending machine located in the front half of the tree. The pillow is released at the base of the front half of the tree. The CPU or the vending machine to refill the pillows can be accessed from the back of the tree. The game is started when the player inserts the spool of thread into a box inside the tree. The spool has an RFID tag, and the box has an RFID reader connected to the CPU. Both strobe lights and floor lights are used to accent the flowers and the trees. Two small kiosks with a video screen, cpu, and a button are located in the garden. When the button on the kiosk is pressed, a story about the Pillow Tree or the garden is told. Speakers are strategically placed around the garden to create appropriate directional sounds and background garden ambience.

Game Design

The Pillow Tree mini-games are centered around the idea of pollination. The child has to go through three steps – sewing the pillow, filling the pillow, and growing the pillow to receive a pillow of their own. Although these experiences are given the name “games”, every child “wins” a pillow every single time. The main platform of these mini-games is a touch screen with a stylus disguised as a wand. The design of the mini-games are similar to Wario-Ware – extremely short and simple interactions.

Mini-Game 1: Sewing the Pillow

The first interaction of the game is to sew the pillow together. The player must use the stylus to follow lines on the pillow. These lines signify seams, and as the player draws on the line, an animation showing the sewing of the pillow will occur.

Mini-Game 2: Filling the Pillow

The second interaction in the game is to fill the pillow with clouds. The player must collect clouds by circling them with a “lasso”. They must catch three moving clouds to fill the pillow, and then they must drag it back to the pillow. The pillow will get bigger as they fill it. If they are unable to do so after 30 seconds, the computer will subtly help them by allowing the player to simply touch the cloud to fill the pillow and the player will progressively need to collect less clouds to complete the game.

Mini-Game 3: Growing the Pillow

The third interaction is to grow the pillow. This game is similar to a hide and seek game. The player must search for water droplets located on the screen and click on them to fill a watering can placed on the right hand side of the screen. The can will fill after the player has found 5 water droplets, and a small animation will play to show the watering can watering the pillow. Another animation will follow showing the pillow growing to life size. Similar to mini-game 2, the longer the player takes to find the water droplets, the easier it will become to fill the watering can (i.e. the player will only need to find 3 instead of 5 droplets).