ok.. here's the deal..
for all those of you who didn't make it to GDC this year.. you missed out.. it was a blast!!
i walked away with a bunch of hardware.. i mean hardware here not peripherals.. i don't wanna make you jealous.. so i'll drop that now.. but you should go next year. cuz you might show my schwaag gettin skillz up..
so.. the highlight of the show incredably wasn't the hardware.. no.. no.. no.. it was a place i saw a blurb on http://www.geek.com/ called digiscents (http://www.digiscents.com/)..
this was the shiznat.. i mean fukkin K-rad!! (betcha haven't seen that one in a while ;) they're making technology to well.. how do i say it?? make your computer smell.. err.. emit smell.. they had a little box.. think of a ink jet printer.. with a fan and a vapor chamber where you mixed these 128 different unique smells to get over 10k different unique smells.. ok.. sure 4,000 of them might not smell "good" or even like something you could recognize.. but they're working on the technology still.. so cut 'em some slack... hell crayola only has 256 names for colors.. and we know we can make over 16 million unique colors.. i can prove it if you set your display settings to 24 bit ;)
anyhoo.. so you get the general idea.. i thought it was cute.. until i actually tried it.. they had a little sample thingy @ the booth.. and it was dead on.. they had a flavor called ozone.. it smelled like ozone.. i don't know if you've ever smelled it.. but if you have.. you know what i'm talking about.. nothing else smells remotely like ozone.. and it was dead on.. other examples i tried were "gunfire" (I think that's what they called it) and "whiskey bar".. heh.. the gunfire was a little sweet.. not like the old ammo dad has lying around since b4 he got married.. like that new fired off ammo scent.. it was awesome.. Whiskey bar is absolutely indescribable.. except to say.. it smells like a whiskey bar.. like people had been drinkin whiskey sours all nite.. and you just walked in @ last call.. well.. minus the stale cigarette smell
ok.. so where am i going with this.. i knw you're expecting me to bitch about something if you saw the first collumn.. so i'll start bitching now..
games on a whole lately haven't been as good as they should be.. hardware is coming along nicely.. too nicely (I'm not gonna mention the gEforce or the new toy S3 is coming out with ;) but games have been boring lately.. same old shit.. so i hear about this gizmo.. then see^H^H^H smell what it can do.. and all of a sudden i want to put it in quake2.. then i stop and think.. well halflife would probably be better.. but you get the jist.. I mean "smell of napalm in the morning" right from my very own LAN!!
imagine: you're deathmatching in Q3 (it could happen folks).. you fry someone with Plasma (it'sgood for the soul).. imagine the scent of plasma and od roasted flesh.. wouldn't that draw you into the game more??
or how bout what they were saying @ the lecture.. big Oogie nasty thing.. has smell attached to it.. or lil one for that matter.. take the zombies in quake.. having a fetid corpse stench emit when you're near them.. that would be so cool..
or.. (this bit came in a brainstorming session i had a few minutes ago.. note: i should prolly thank the Con Air boneyard scene for this idea.. and Sven's Coop for halflife and i have no idea who made the map with the missile that i blew up 4 times in a row!!) You're wandering down a corridor.. and you start to smell the faint scent of (choose one of the following: gasoline, propane, chloroform, rotting flesh, fresh chocolate chip cokies, burnign frozen pizza's).. come on!! I know you could find a spot to incorporate that into your game somewhere!! I mean.. shit.. i could do it!! (hopefully ;)
now.. in case you couldn't tell imostly play FPS gmaes lately.. and focus on them.. but.. you don't think you as developers could have some fun with your users by incorporating smell in your RTS, turn based strat, driving *burning rubber = :), adventure, puzzle or whatever game??
Do i need to cite examples??
Whatever game.. it's possible.. that doesn't mean you have to.. and you certainly don't have to do it all the time.. but once or twice level.. just to get it stuck in your players heads.. and people won't forget it.. i assure you..
ok.. welp i'm done for now.. next time I'll do a good rant on something that's pissing me off really bad..
-luvless