Electroplankton

Electroplankton is thouroughly delightful experience.

It might not be considered a game as much as a new type of instrument. In it, little nanite beings are electrified palnkotns that were empowered to chime by a creative musical sorcerer Toshio Iwai. In each of the ten Plankton environments you interact with the creatures differently. Using the stylus you can get them to spin or jump and depending on the screnario they will make a performance of chimes or piano sound in the no brainer pentatonic scale. The Plankton make you sound like a maestro with out any musical knowldge. The free flowing new agey sound amps up from one envoronment to the next. In the Rec-Rec’ fish tank you can change the tempo from house, Pop, African, Industrial beats. Each fish “eats sound” and by clicking on the fish you can record short samples and then the hilarious sounding fish sing them back to the rhythm.

Other Plankton whirl and make a hamrnious gothic chorus. Snowflakes dance and imitate piano keys that never go out of tune or make a dissonant sound. The Volvoice will take one sample and add a variety of special effects to it. A short time ago vocal effects machines, sampling boards and other sound technology that did these things were huge metal boxy things that only audio engineers knew how to set up and operate. Now a mini sound studio with light and tiny colorful creatures accomplishes the same tasks better for a fraction of the space and cost. I enjoy the way that the musical interface has evolved from beyond being limited to instruments that are made of wood, ivory and cat guts.

My favorite is the Hanenbow. They look like little pink fish, they jump out of the water and bounce off leaves. If you do it right the leaves begin to get happier and turn red. If all of the leaves on the plant turn red then it will bloom. A spinning white blossom appears on the top of the plant and will remain there as long as the perfect ecosystem is attained. With ear buds in the sound is a tinkling waterfall of relaxation. The adorable and eubulient graphics are psychadelic and amusing as hell. Elecktroplanton on the DS is an instant cheer up machine.

The game was made to embody the designers favorite toys from childhood. A microscope, a tape recorder, an NES and a synthesizer. There are no items to collect in Electroplankton. It is an exploratory visual and audio journey through the mind of Japanese artist Toshio Iwai. Even after a few days of playing it you can still discover new ways to make music with the creatures.

Electroplankton blends nostalgic memories of Nintendo’s past for collectors with the music you can compose from layered remixes of a number of NES classics. It also has a truly pioneering approach to videogame design. Its appeal is difficult thing to describe. It is potentially limitless sonically and it sounds lovely. It is a very original piece of software.
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