Scents & Semiosis

This game was made specifically for Emily Short by Sam Kabo Ashwell, and contains a great deal of procedural generation.

The idea is that you're sorting through a large collection of scents that you created during your life. Each one has a collection of smells and a unique bottle that it finds itself in. Each one also brings to mind a specific memory from the past. You can then associate different parts of the smell with different parts of the memory.

In the end, you can conceive of a smell that includes all the elements and memories you chose, even if it could never exist in reality.

The writing is descriptive and evocative. The game uses vorple and has great-looking UI and transitions. I played it a couple of times to see how it worked and what variations there are. It has a definite kind of feeling to it, a kind of worldliness and world-weariness. When confronted with its procedural nature and open-endedness, I struggled to find any meaning in my choices, feeling like it was more like a brainstorming session or tarot reading (which may be a plus for some). Glad I played! Good writing.