Game Box includes an adaptation of a French board game that has been popular for centuries, where players compete to complete a circuit of the board and arrive first at the destination. A Japanese version of this is called 'Suguroku'. In our game players land on different symbols, a number of which depict images of natural botanical scent sources that are complemented by samples in the box. To proceed in that round a player must correctly identify what the scent sample is. This plays on recognition of scents and the notion of making a journey, and includes the element of play, each of which require actions that stimulate memory and can be shared between people. Playing games is also associated with childhood and we speculate could stimulate natsukashii feelings.

Scentscape incorporates digital technology that links pairs of scent samples with series of scrolling images relating particular narratives of experiences and places visited. As a scent sample is picked up so the set of images it relates to displays on the video screen in the box. The box also contains small objects that relate to each of the 3 sets of imagery. This can be personalised so that the scents included and their associated images are particular to an individual's memories and associations. The intention is to provide an engaging user experience that will stimulate natsukashii feelings that they can also share with others. (Another version of Scentscape links particular scent samples to interactive moving imagery and sound.)

For the final exhibition in Kyoto (March 2019) we created two artefacts that develop the themes of the earlier artworks, exploring different approaches to smell, narrative and interaction. Both artefacts develop the box design concept we originally conceived with the earlier Memory Box, although the arrangement of the contents and means of interaction encourage different responses. The boxes used for these pieces are antique, imparting a sense of time past. They also recall our own childhood experiences of collecting where we each had a special box in which to contain those things we found most precious (shells, rocks and minerals, fossils, coins, buttons, feathers, and many other found and received bits and pieces).

Through the evolution of all of the artworks and designs created for this project we have travelled a journey of discovery that has informed the development of our work over time. We feel that we are now poised to be able to render these olfactory artefacts in a form that could be more universally applied. This will form the basis for the next stage in our research, to create a practical and aesthetically enjoyable design for the delivery of scent samples that can induce natsukashii sentiments and memory recollection to enhance well being for a range of users, including the elderly and those with neurocognitive disorders.

This text is partly extracted from the paper 'Creating Olfactory Narratives as Natsukashii Experiences' presented by Nathan Cohen at the symposium titled 昔の人の袖の香ぞする- 匂い・記憶・創造 (Is not this scent natsukashii? - Scent, Memory, Creativity) at the Shoyeido, Karani Hall, Kyoto, Japan (23.03.2019).