Electroplankton

• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Published by: Nintendo
• Developed by: Toshio Iwai
• Release Date: Nov 14, 2005
• Genre: Other
• Multiplayer: No
• Online: No

The Good

+ You don't see stuff like this every day

The Bad

- Some people may not want to

Screenshot Gallery

Electroplankton Review Continued..

Whoops, got carried away again. Sorry about that. Electroplankton has that effect from time to time. On to Luminaria, four colorful plankton in the shape of eight-pointed stars. The screen here is laid out into six rows and six columns of arrows, each of which can be rotated to face any of eight angles (up/down/left/right, and the diagonals in between). Each arrow corresponds to a pitch; they are organized in a consecutive ascending pattern: the lowest pitch is in the upper left, the highest in the lower right. The plankton start off at the arrows in each of the four corners of the screen. When you touch a plankton, it moves in the direction of the arrow it is positioned on, and when it hits another arrow, it moves in the direction that arrow is pointing, and so on. Each time it hits an arrow, a note is played. Hitting directions on the d-pad will realign every arrow in the screen in various ways depending on which direction is pushed. Since each arrow has a specific pitch and since you can discretely control where the plankton travel, it is theoretically possible to work out specific melodies for all four plankton, but they tend to move so fast that it becomes too hectic. In fact, "hectic" is the best way to describe the music created by Luminaria. Each of the four plankton moves at a different speed, they quickly shift between very high and very low pitches. I tend to prefer using the d-pad to randomize or align the arrows, then modifying them from there if I'd rather be hearing a particular pitch range. Not much more to say here, so let's check out...

Sun-Animalcule. You create these guys yourself. Presented with empty ocean, you tap the screen in various places and generate tiny little plankton. As rising bubbles pass over each plankton, they will sound notes whose pitches are determined by their position on the screen. Though the Sun-Animalcules start out quite small, you soon discover that they grow over time, and that the environment has its own day and night cycle as well. As the plankton grow bigger they take on more overtones and produce fuller tones until they eventually die. In addition, the various times of day have entirely different sound sets. By creating plankton at various intervals, you can have all sorts of timbres sounding at once. With patience, Sun-Animalcule has the most variety in its overall soundscape, and once you have gained a familiarity with its layout it becomes quite possible to deliberately lay out rough melodies. It can be very soothing both to watch and to hear the plankton transform.

With that, let's shift gears a bit and discuss the good old Beatnes, the workhorse of Electroplankton. Unlike the game's other modes, this can be used to easily create very specific melodies and harmonies. The player is presented with one of four backing tracks taken from classic NES games (the tracks can be cycled through with the Select button) and is given five scales, each with a different instrument again based on classic NES sounds. Only in-key notes are provided, so it's not difficult for non-musicians to construct a pleasant melody. Melodies are inputted by tapping on the various notes of the scales, and they are looped four times, growing softer with each repetition. Hitting left or right on the d-pad will, respectively, decrease or increase the tempo of the backing track; hitting up or down will return it to normal. Beatnes is the most involved and least contemplative Electroplankton of them all. It requires the player's constant involvement, or the music becomes uninteresting. Not surprisingly, it is the type used in demo versions of the game, since the player's actions are very tangibly represented and their effects are immediate.

That mode is similar to Rec-Rec, which takes player involvement one step further by essentially being a basic four-track recorder. There is a drum loop in the background (you choose from seven different loops and can switch on the fly with Select), and over it you can record up to four loops through the DS' built-in microphone. For simplicity's sake, I generally use my own voice, simply singing or humming into the mic, but there's no reason you couldn't record instrumental or percussion tracks in there--just bear in mind it won't necessarily come out super hi-fi. It's a good quick and dirty way to sing short bits of harmony with yourself. Like this goofy Shacknews jingle.

There are even more types of Electroplankton to explore in the game, each with its own distinct personality. There are behaviors and features that take time to fully grasp, despite the game's simplistic and approachable nature. Even after fiddling around with Electroplankton for weeks, there was something of a "secret" hidden in Hanenbow that put a smile on my face when I uncovered it. I won't spoil it for you. Those moments are part of what Electroplankton is all about, when you'll suddenly stumble upon that one musical phrase or visual cue, the one that explains why you've been poking at little sea creatures when you could have been decimating armies or learning spells. It's the type of game that probably isn't even a game, and consequently is very difficult to recommend.

When I say that, I don't mean it's of poor quality, I simply mean it is actually difficult to tell just who will enjoy it. I can't imagine enjoyment of Electroplankton being dependant on whether one is a gamer or a non-gamer; I suspect there would be plenty of people in each category who would feel quite opposite. By the same token, I can't imagine it makes much difference whether one has any musical experience. As a musician, I enjoy being able to deliberately construct layered harmonies in Beatnes and Rec-Rec, but those modes do not depend on such an ability, and the rest of the game is so abstract that trying to apply learned musical principles is generally more frustrating that simply sitting back and absorbing the ambience. When I first acquired Electroplankton, I was somewhat disappointed. I had played a Beatnes demo and loved it, and in retrospect I suppose I expected the rest of the game to have that kind of structure. Of course, it doesn't at all, and it took me a while to really get what was going on. Like I explained earlier, this is not music creation software. It is much more analogous to a museum installation or an interactive music visualizer. The sounds, the visuals, the interactions--they are all part of the enjoyment, and for those who are patient and willing it can be surprisingly compelling. In my experience, Electroplankton is best played during periods of free time, when you won't mind simply sitting back and conducting a few crazy aural experiments.

Toshio Iwai's latest interactive art project is not for everyone, and that's not a bad thing. Nothing about it makes it inherently "good" or "bad", though it is certainly well-crafted and complete. It is simply a unique experience. It was definitely not created by a committee, it was not born out of focus groups; it does not provide a goal, nor any obstacles. It doesn't remember anything about the past, it does nothing but react to your actions at any given moment. It can be thought-provoking, it can be meditative, it can be dissonant and jarring or harmonious and pleasing. It can simply be amusing. It can be lots of things, but it's not for everyone.

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