ART GAME: ALAN KWAN'S SCENT (ONGOING)
Eight years ago we shared on GameScenes Alan Kwan's groundbreaking project Bad Trip in which the artist connected a small camera to his glasses in order to develop a videogame about my virtual memories. It remains one of the most inventive project at the crossroads of technology, gaming, and digital art. At the time, Kwan was a student. Now he is a full time artist. For the past few years, Kwan has been making experimental games and VR games while researching at MIT, in Boston. His latest project, Scent, is a video game that takes place near the border of a city undergoing a massacre. A stray dog follows scent trails of human fear and carries out its job to help human souls reincarnate. The game uses stealth mechanics and a contemplative, meditative gameplay.
This game focuses on delivering an interactive cinematic experience with simple control. While using the mouse to look around, players control the dog to walk/sprint/hide/stop and the steering is automated. A bit similar to the control of a 2D platform game like Mario but the players can also look around in a 3D environment. For most of the gameplay, players are walking, hiding, or witnessing.
As Kwan wrote in an email, "In this chaotic world right now, I wanted to create this game to invite players to contemplate on fear, deaths, and the collapse of a city. " Indeed, Scent is a timely project.
Kwan is developing Scent for Windows-based platforms.