Towards a Scent-based Narrative

Scented media and technology offer a unique way to engage users, specifically to convey information and alternative sensory experiences. What if it can be the main game narrative, than its being merely ‘novel’? Scents with ample potential to evoke memories and be a reward system are explored.

My Role
Lead concept proposal, Smell diffuser design, Game design
Team
Yi Xie: Game design, Unity development | Paul Chen: Game art, Narrative design

Location
University of California, Santa Cruz—Silicon Valley Extension

Time
6 week prototyping

3 month project

Deliverables

Unity Game a narrative on smell impairment

Smell device functioning with user input

Video trailer

How Did We Design the Game?

Smell Narrative
Scent Diffusion
Sensory Design

The olfactory game video preview

Gameplay Video

We devised the view from each character’s perspective, so needed two monitors in total. The characters can each account for their health status and perspective.

Player’s View

Another view in terms of the player’s view.

Design Method

Conceptual Design:

The game revolves around reality-based situations and difficulties and the narrative design relies on identifying contextual experiences of smell impairment as the interwoven story. We utilize the diary studies and user journey map through in-depth interviews as the main design method.Then, we extracted scenarios for the conceptual design of the gam and apply the body storming strategy test out the game flow.

Smell Diary

Interviews

Olfactory Design

Interaction Mechanics

The olfactory system comprises an Arduino Uno and a 5V power supply, linked to four humidifier modules on a PCB board. A fan motor is positioned nearby to disperse the scents. Our game interfaces with the Ardity Unity asset, enabling communication to activate the relays controlling the humidifiers seen in Figure 3. Each humidifier module is housed in oval bottles containing distinct scents from the Candlemaker’s Store that are compliant with IFRA and EU Allergen standards. To avoid biasing players, the bottles and wiring are concealed with cardboard. To maintain player engagement and prevent surprises, the setup is labeled as a 'Smellbox' using color markers.

1. Leveraging scent-based memory

We use the literature-based theory that scents are critical and integral to human memories and survival—liked with reward system. We want to observe and enhance player empathy and learning.

2. Craft an olfactory narrative design

We construct a cohesive narrative design that combines olfactory engagement with other sensory elements. This demo paper presents a detailed discussion of the current design of Scented Days, as well as design considerations for future scent-based narratives.

Arising Research Question:

How Might We Use Scents as Narrative utilizing the empathetic potential of smell?

Project Goals

Jan L Plass, Bruce D Homer, Andrew MacNamara, Teresa Ober, Maya C Rose, Shashank Pawar, Chris M Hovey, and Alvaro Olsen. 2020. Emotional
design for digital games for learning: The effect of expression, color, shape, and dimensionality on the affective quality of game characters. Learning
and instruction 70 (2020), 101194.

Hanna Wirman and Simon Niedenthal. 2015. Designing Smell Games, Learning from Animal Play. In Philosophy of Computer Games 2015 Conference.

Rebecca Tortell, Donat-Pierre Luigi, Aimee Dozois, Sean Bouchard, Jacquelyn Ford Morie, and D Ilan. 2007. The effects of scent and game play
experience on memory of a virtual environment. Virtual Reality 11 (2007), 61–68.

Jonas K Olofsson, Simon Niedenthal, Marie Ehrndal, Marta Zakrzewska, Andreas Wartel, and Maria Larsson. 2017. Beyond smell-o-vision:
Possibilities for smell-based digital media. Simulation & Gaming 48, 4 (2017), 455–479.

Polishing Hardware

Simplifying the existing scale into a 6-item assessment and designing the input method as an intuitive button, I have constructed the hedonic assessment digital sheet.

Aiming to test the scale on two groups of players, the upper-body player (punching) and the lower-body player (locomotion) as per our game mechanics, I created two sheets and two graph visualizations.