This week, we began testing with a new sense – smell.

We held one playtest on Thursday and Friday for students and faculty. Most people (n=14) worked in pairs, but there was also an option to work alone (n=3).

In this playtest, guests were told they were Smell Master Detectives and were the last hope for a serial murder case. Two women were found dead and the primary suspect (whose house we were about to search) was about to be let go due to lack of evidence. The warrant was about to expire and would only cover a few categories of objects: a weapon used to kill each victim, an article of clothing from each victim, and a personal item from each victim. We gave them a goal of four items and, most importantly, handed them two cards we had scented with perfume to identify other objects in a living room with the same scents. We took them into the room blindfolded (to enhance their other senses), putting their hands on chairs at a table, and started a 10 minute timer.

The target items were a wooden rod and a screwdriver, a raincoat and a shirt, and a change purse and an umbrella.

What we were looking for:

-Ability to match perfumes

-Tendency to identify household objects (we expected they would not just smell things, but figure out what they were)

-Navigation behaviors

-Communication/social behaviors

What we observed:

-Smell is a very touchy sense. Some items smelled more strongly than others – the raincoat especially would not hold the perfume. The shirt and umbrella smelled slightly different from the perfume due to having other scents, so they were sometimes smelled and left behind. We will need to be very careful with smells we include in the final experience to avoid frustration and confusion.

-We can use props to move guests around the room. We guided them into the room and left them all at the same point of reference, almost all participants followed the same path through the room. They followed walls and pieces of furniture and avoided open spaces where there was nothing to hold onto.

-Guests can and will identify props and try to match them to the story. This means we will certainly need to find props for our final experience rather than build them – it’s the easiest way to have fidelity for touch.

-Guests may need permission to crawl. Some people are comfortable with it, but others still recognize that they are being watched and feel uncomfortable. We want guests to feel comfortable in this space, so we are working on ways for the environment to reinforce that.

-The story was memorable and the goals were clear, but guests need reminders of goals as well as feedback as they go through an experience, especially when playing alone. We are avoiding having a live actor for the final experience, but are thinking of using some AI to give audio reminders if guests ask for it.

-We asked guests after the experience to give valence-arousal feedback for the following moments: entering the room, exploring the room, and finding items. For the most part, guests reported feeling positive for the whole experience and higher arousal when they found items. Guests who have playtested with us before tended to feel more relaxed at the start, which could be because they are comfortable with us or because they are just more comfortable with new and nonvisual experiences.

Overall this was a very enlightening playtest, and we look forward to exploring scent in a new way next week.