you have come under a barrage of enemy fire and can smell gunpowder all around you the smell of napalm is thick in the air too no you arent in a real battleground but just playing call of duty on your pc from the comforts of your bedroom in the latest twist researchers are adding smell to to games using scent delivery systems like biopac this could not only make games like commando and world of warcraft more real but also help train soldiers as players can experience odours of the battlefield reports times onlineits just one of the techniques the computer scientist is using to make video games more realistic bob stone of birmingham university is helping to develop technology likely to end up in home games consoles to create realistic smell effects players will experience the odours of say the racetrack or the battlefield his research also has a more immediate goal to train future recruits to the british militaryall serious games have been designed using software development kits made available by games designers these kits which are spinoffs from topselling games such as far cry and half life handle the tricky movement and physics of a virtual world leaving stone free to superimpose new gameplaying technology that stimulates other senses especially aural and olfactorythe sds scent delivery system is one of the addons that stone has adopted to make the training games more realistic it consists of eight sealed chambers each of which holds a pot of wax impregnated with a pungent odour available at 25 each from biopac an american educational supplies company they range from the likes of gingerbread and april showers to a mix of odours designed to evoke combat on command from the computer compressed air is blown over some or several of the chambers to stir up an instant impression of kandahar