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It Stinks!

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Mike "JuMeSyn" Moehnke
FAN EDITORIALIST

The primary means via which players of video games receive input is visual. Regardless of the quality its music, sound effects, and sometimes voice acting might exhibit, an RPG is essentially impossible to play without seeing what is going on (I say an RPG because of an EGM article several years ago featuring a blind man who excelled at fighting games, among other action-oriented genres). Sound is certainly an important element in most players' experience also and prominently employed. The sense of touch as an output of a game is limited to rumble; as an input the DS features a multitude of examples and DDR-style titles do it also. Taste... no, we ought not have to place anything onto the tongue in order to stimulate that sense. But what of smell? Could it not be employed in the video game world? We can build it: we have the technology.

Smell was used in the 50's by theaters in an effort to lure people away from television. Dubbed 'Smell-o-Rama,' the effect left something to be desired as it was nothing more than a gigantic gimmick. Technology has changed in the past 50 years however; the inclusion of little scratch & sniff cards need not be necessary for a game today. Should this still be the only feasible means of bringing about smell's perception to the video game world, I abandon the notion.

Dispensing with the discussion of how feasible the technology's implementation is (and it would probably need to be incorporated into future hardware), how effective it could be I shall touch upon. Smell adds a great deal to interaction with the world. RPGs could use horrible stenches as status ailments, something that would definitely prompt players to keep plenty of remedies on hand. Along with that unpleasant avenue, the path of making bathing wise could be taken; as this would most likely be quite tedious I hope the party members somehow have access to incredibly powerful deodorant. Negatives are not the only way to use sound though: pleasant forests, fields of flowers, roasting food during a party rest; these are some things that come to me with a moment's thought. Many others could be employed. Naturally it depends upon a console existing that can achieve smell emissions, and that would likely depend upon the next adaptation of television beyond hi-def. So this is a fanciful notion for the future, most likely.