The Binding of Isaac is a hugely successful videogame, and thanks to two extremely lucrative crowdfunding efforts that netted around $8 million, you could argue that its a highly successful card game as well. The videogame fits almost too perfectly into begin turned into cardboard, with its roguelike genetics being suited to the randomness of dungeon crawler, variable bonuses and and player powers sitting well within the tabletop realm. There's around eighty thousand people who have some kind of variation of the tabletop game. So surely its extremely good because well funded games are always amazing, aren't they. I'm approaching this as someone who is away from the hype canoe sailing down the river rapids of marketing and excitement and so this is probably going to be dull in comparison. I'm also someone who is a fan of the game, and has spent many an hour running around randomly generated dungeons of blood and filth. For those unfamiliar with the videogame, you play
This review is based on the final retail version of Aroma - A Game of Essence, provided to us from Organic Aromas. We were not paid for this review. We were provided a copy of the game for evaluation purposes. Ritual smelling. Or things that you would normally take in deep breaths of at the first given opportunity. The smell of fresh sheets when you climb into bed, the blast of escaping coffee gas when you first break the seal on a new jar. The smell of their hair when you are snuggling. The printed centre of a new rulebook. Scents are something that can take us places to the point where they can elicit an emotional reaction. Whether that be pleasant or unpleasant, smells have a way of coding themselves into our very memories to leave a lasting impression. Interestingly enough, apart from the chemical joy of a freshly printed rulebook, I've never really played a game based around the sense of smell, and so when it came to being offered a chance to look at Aroma - A Game of Essen