Chronicle is an Unreal Engine plugin for building narrative-driven games. It gives developers a visual way to create branching dialogues, hook up game logic through a rule system, manage characters, and cinematic timelines - all from within the editor.
Chronicle is divided into separate modules for clarity and easier maintenance. Each module has its own detailed README in the Docs/ folder.
See full Dialogue System documentation →
See full Cinematic Timeline documentation →
See full Rule System documentation →
See full Character System documentation →
Development paused. Chronicle is currently on hold. It's been a solo project from the start, and without other contributors I don't have the bandwidth to keep active development going right now. The repository stays public and the code remains usable under the MIT license - feel free to clone, fork, or build on it. The roadmap below is kept for reference rather than as a committed plan. If you'd like to help revive the project, see Contributing.
Planned features for Chronicle in no particular order:
- Smoothen transitions between sequences (Cinematic Timeline)
- Add facial animations (Cinematic Timeline)
- Fix animation transitions (Cinematic Timeline)
- Add conversation flow debugger (Cinematic Timeline)
- Improve sequences generation (Cinematic Timeline)
- Add more designer-friendly project setup (Emotion Subsystem, Rule System and Character System)
- Localization support (Dialogue System and Cinematic Timeline)
- Clone or download this repository
- Place the plugin in:
(Project)/Plugins/Chronicle - Open the project in Unreal Engine
- Enable Chronicle in:
Edit → Plugins → Tools - Restart the editor
- Unreal Engine 5.x
- Editor build
Usage and integration instructions are included in each module’s README:
- Dialogue System – Create and manage branching conversations with visual nodes
- Cinematic Timeline – Convert dialogue graphs to in-game cinematic sequences
- Character System – Manage characters - models and animations
- Rule System – Define game logic and conditions
Chronicle has a sample project, which can be found here: https://github.com/janikowski-dev/Chronicle-Sample
Chronicle is open for contributions. Active development is paused, but the project is very much open to people who want to pick things up - bug fixes, documentation, or new features are all welcome. Fork the repository and submit a pull request, and feel free to open an issue first if you'd like to coordinate.