Adventures in sinaesthesia: a fragrant videogame!

-

lostwinds-20080408034306093_640w I’m not some huge videogame buff, much preferring to spend my leisure hours reading, hanging with friends, or even watching shows, but once in a while I do enjoy a good zone-out on our Playstation or Wii consoles. The proble

m I have with videogames is that they are often too violent for my tastes, or they require some sort of intense focus, which is about the last thing I want after a long day studying.

To my great delight, I have found a game—or really, two games—on the Wii console that I really enjoy playing. Called Lostwinds and Lostwinds: Winter of the Melodias, this game allows you and a companion to wander through a Zen-like natural landscape on a slow-moving quest to do something or other (the plot’s just not that important, and there’s no hurry). It’s meditative, beautiful, and best of all, it is fragrant! Well, you can’t actually smell all the flowers in bloom, but you can see them release their scent and pollen in the air—it’s the next best thing to really smelling the and I find it quite lovely. You can shake ferns, flowers, and trees with your cursor to make them release pollen and little spirits—little animistic deities that live inside a

ll living things, I presume, for this is a quintessentially Japanese game.

SO, for this week’s adventure in sinaesthesia, if you feel so inclined: make yourself a nice floral drink, spritz on a fougere or a white floral fragrance, and enjoy a few quiet hours playing this pleasant little game.

I look forward to cracking this game out again in the dead of winter, when not a bloom nor a leaf remains to be seen, and I’m starving for a little natural beauty that’s not covered with hoarfrost.

You can’t buy this game at a store; it can only be purchased (at a quite reasonable price) on the wiiware store on your wii console (if you have one)

OK, now, reading this over, I feel like kind of a sellout, but I really did enjoy playing this; it appealed to my sensibilities. 

CREDITS:

screenshot courtesy of ign.com.

Technorati Tags:

 

 

 

Comments

  1. BellatrixJune 24, 2010 at 4:06 AM

    Love the music. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. MyPerfumeLifeJune 24, 2010 at 7:55 AM

    Funny you should mention this now. Last Friday I went out and bought a Wii, ostensibly for father's day. But I was pretty sure the children would like it too! We haven't had any computer games at home before and they are all sport/violence focused. This is a lovely recommendation - and I'm sure my daughter will like it too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. La Bonne VivanteJune 24, 2010 at 8:45 AM

    Oh Good! I do like it, and I bet you will enjoy playing it with your daughter--it's strange, but it seems there are very few games which allow two-person play on the wii...

    I also really like playing wii cheer--it's really fun to dance and jump around, although the avatars are a little gross--oversexualized preteen anime. But I bet you'd have fun playing that with your children as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ScentScelfJune 24, 2010 at 9:38 AM

    Tennis! Frisbee competition! The old school stuff has two player options. :)

    I went through a rather serious WiiFit phase...it is handy when the weather outside is frightful...but have to admit the console hasn't seen any action in a while. Not that I mind; good weather, gardening, positive things call. But I have filed this away for a rainy day...thanks.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

what thinkest thou?

Popular posts from this blog

A Perfume Riddle

-
Image
I am introducing a new feature here on Hortus Conclusus , in which a perfume bottle sings a little riddle, and it’s up to you, dear readers, to guess which bottle of perfume is riddling. To start us out on the best possible foot, My first poem has an easy solution! Which of you will be the first to guess, I wonder: I’m not a pentangle. I live in a square I bubble like golden champagne filled with air, My obscure beginnings are shrouded in mystery But that won’t stop people from telling my history. I fly through the air, I swim with the fishes. Scientists say I reside in all ditches. I go everywhere, and all know my fame therefore I know that you have guessed my name. I will never die; you keep me alive. By now you have guessed, I’m ________! Image of Oedipus and the Sphinx by Gustave Moreau courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.  
Read more

book and fragrance giveaway: Rebecca

-
Image
Many authors use pe rfume as a novelistic shorthand for memories awakened in complete recall. A character smells something and it awakens deep memories, or takes him back in time. In Daphne du Maurier’s neo-gothic romance Rebecca , this motif takes a sinister turn. A youung girl marries a widower with an obscure, tragic past and moves to his ancestral estate . She soon discovers that the place is haunted by the presence of the memory of the previous wife, Rebecca.  This ‘haunting’ is mostly expressed through smell and fragrance. Azaleas, overpowering, overfeminine, unnaturally-abundant blooms which choke the manor of Manderley, become a symbol of the dead wife’s overpowering femininity. Rebecca even wore a perfume which smelled of azaleas. The hapless new wife discovers traces of perfume on Rebecca’s clothes, which have turned musty with age, she experiences the oppression of the obscure yet present past in the form  a choking fog that blights the landscape at the mom
Read more

Tauerama!: Tauer perfumes discovery set giveaway

-
Image
  The generous and talented Swiss perfumer Andy Tauer was kind enough to send me samples of all his fragrances to review over the coming week or so—and an adorable sample set to give away to YOU ! Yay!  I am very excited to announce this new giveaway drawing! Tauer got his PhD in chemistry, and went on to start a small perfumery, which has gone on to win many awards and even more praise. For more about Andy, and to get  a real sense of what a cool dude he is, I highly recommend this fragrantica article. Details about my giveaway below : What is it? A very sweet glide-cover metal tin, embossed with the Tauer logo, with 5 1.5. ml samples of Tauer fragrances inside. when will the winner be announced ? There’s no fixed end date; when I have written something about all ten of the fragrances, the winning name will be drawn. how do I enter? post a comment expressing interest below, then keep checking in at Hortus Conclusus ;-) I will post links to all my comm
Read more