The game I am designing for this challenge is intended to be run in a coffee shop, but could be applied to any public space where people gather in groups at tables.
I chose to undertake this Gameful Challenge because I thought it would be one of the most challenging to achieve given that I live in England, where on the whole, people just DON’T TALK to each other in public spaces – not to strangers, anyway. To make the task a little more Herculean, I decided I would shoot for the extra credit options of making the game self-starting and self-running.
My starting point was motivation. What woudl motivate an individual sufficiently that it would:
a) Cause them to seek out a stranger and talk to them.
b) Share enough of themselves with that stranger to create a bond strong enough to create a lasting friendship.
So here’s what I came up with: one of the quickest ways to form a strong bond with a stanger is to discover common ground – a shared memory or similar experience for example. That gave me a potential solution to (b). As far as (a) is concerned, the best idea I could come up with was CASH. I set that option aside quite quickly because using cash as an incentive is problematic in so many ways. The best alternative I devised was to use a system somewhat equivalent to cash but without the strings attached. As I had already envisaged my game being run in a coffee shop (I like the potential of that kind of space – informal and relaxed, people with time on their hands, the involvement of a mild psychoactive to lower inhibition…), it struck me that I could use loyalty card stamps as an incentive for people to play. So every time they establish common ground with a stranger, they get a stamp on their loyalty card towards a free coffee. As it happened, it turned out to be the ideal solution as it’s good for the coffee shop (they end up with lots of customers with incomplete loyalty cards who are more likely to come back to claim their free coffee by buying more) and the player (they get free stuff!) so was more likely to be a model that a coffee shop would engage with. So, with that in place I had my answer to (b).
Now came another hurdle. How do people who come into the coffee shop know that this game exists to play? What’s more, how do they know it exists to play even before anyone has started playing it, and find it intriguing enough to want to start the ball rolling? That’s when I happened upon the idea of smell! The sense of smell is the strongest trigger of memory you can get. This is because the centre of the brain which processes olfactory information is very close to the memory centre of the brain (the hypothalamus – I think…). That’s why when you smell a cigar, you’re instantly transported back to memories of your Uncle Jack, or Grandpa Joe who used to smoke them when you were young, or when you visit the beach you remember your childhood holidays like they were yesterday. Smell is also ‘ambient’. You can detect a smell in an environment without specifically looking for the presence of it. The other ambient senses are hearing and sight. Hearing and sight are used extensively as triggers for games, but I can honestly say I have never come across a game that uses smell as a trigger. That sealed it for me! I would become the Olfactory Game pioneer!!
So, all the pieces were settling into place! All I needed now was a few mechanics to tie the elements together. So here is how the game looks as it stands:
A coffee shop is divided into a number of ‘olfactory zones’, each with it’s own memory-triggering smell. In each zone, the tables are furnished with some cards which exude the scent chosen for that zone. The cards invite the visitors to smell the card and record on the card itself the first memory which it evokes for them. They then put their first name on the card and stick it to a ‘memory board’ which is hanging in each zone. Their task is to find an existing memory on the board which matches their own in some respect, then find the person to whom that memory belongs by shouting out their name. The two people then go together to a member of staff who will judge whether they have a valid match and if they do, they will stamp both players’ loyalty cards. If the player gets to the board and there is no match for their memory, they pin their card to the board and wait for someone to call thier name. Players are asked to remove their card from the board when they leave the coffee shop so that other players are not searching for them after they have left.
The issues: The scents I initially identified as good candidates for memory triggers are all natural smells (fresh cut hay, fresh cut grass, the seaside) and I can tell you, they are not easy to get hold of! Any scents used for candles etc are way off in terms of their authenticity compared to the real smell, which leads to weak or nonexistent assossiation for players. The only success I have had so far is fresh cut hay. Any ideas anyone? Anybody got any Eau de Atlantic Ocean lying about? Please!?
Fortunately, I have a friendly coffee shop manager who will be willing to let me play test it once I have the smells in place!
). But you are right that I’ll have to pick my timing judiciously for it to work. I LOVE your suggestion of expanding the criteria to include emotions. Maybe two stamps for a memory, one for an emotion? THANK YOU!! 
