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Electroplankton - Published by N-Philes, Jan 25, 2006

What is a videogame? Nintendo asked everyone to challenge his or her answers to this question by offering software that doesn't quite fit the standard mold. Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS is not so much a game as it is an interactive affair that asks the user for content, rather than imposing content on the user. Electroplankton is different, but is the underwater sand box game sound, or does it drown in its own compounding gameplay?

Electroplankton was created by Toshio Iwai, a media artist famous for creating interactive installations of light and sound, as well as some early music games, Otocky for the Famicom Disk System and SimTunes for PC. The game closely follows his portfolio, allowing players to both directly and indirectly manipulate digital plankton in order to create waves of color and sound. Each of the game's ten main modes features a unique plankton specie that behaves differently to the stylus and microphone.

Ten different modes may sound plentiful, but you're fairly limited by what you can do in each mode. With the Rec-Rec plankton, you can only record four four-second voice samples, and with the Tracy plankton, you cannot modify a path for the plankton once you've drawn it. However, most plankton modes can be a lot of fun once you discover how to adapt the game to your sonic tastes (Beatnes, the plankton offering Nintendo samples is best when played sideways). You'll find yourself revisiting some plankton over and over again, like the arrow-following Luimnaria, but your stylus will grace some plankton, like the claptastic Nanocarp, a small handful of times.

Both the touch screen and the buttons are used to affect the plankton during their melodies. Generally, the touch screen affects the overall melody, while the buttons tend to affect things like tempo. Adding depth and longevity to your performances, most modes can be remixed, offer new sounds, or be reset by pressing the select button. The controls are complicated, since they are never the same between two plankton modes, but this leads to perhaps one of the most surprising delights of the game: the instruction manual. The instruction manual is thick, thoroughly breaking down exactly what you can do in each mode. Imaginative art and a message from Toshio Iwai himself make this one of the most impressive instruction manuals in the past decade. If reading isn't your thing, the game has an "audience mode" where the plankton take over, showing you what they can do.

The visuals in the game are simplistic, never rising above a Flash-like presentation, but the eternally smiling plankton and the underwater world they live in give the game a unique and coherent artistic direction that never feels sub-par. The upper screen is used to magnify the plankton, as if looking though a microscope. The concept is awesome, but it's fairly useless when it comes to gameplay. Of course, the most important element of this game is sound, and Electroplankton doesn't disappoint. All the sounds are clear and fluid, from the piano notes in Marine-Snow, to the harmonious vibrations in Lumiloop. Sometimes the melodies that come out of the speakers sound like a garbled mess, but the game isn't at fault. When the melody is balanced, it sounds stunning whether with headphones or using the system's speakers.

Steady Beat - The beats don't get any steadier than with Electroplankton!

Electroplankton is a waste of time and money if you can't get over the idea that a game must have an eventual goal, as the closest this game gets to a reward is the production of a flower when all the Hanenbow plankton change the all the tree leaves from green to red. While the presentation might turn off those who need cutting edge graphics, the brilliant quality and use of sound will put a smile on any audiophile's face. Unfortunately, the game has one glaring flaw: there is no way to save any of your digital symphonies, nor is there a way to transfer them to a computer, or to another DS so that others can see and hear your creations. Electroplankton is truly a shining example of how art and videogames can walk hand-in-hand, and how Nintendo is serious about exploring the many planets in the interactive entertainment universe. Nintendo fans will want to pick this up, as it's sure to be a classic collector's item at some point. It's unfortunate that the game's simplicity is its Achilles' heel (if plankton have feet), since there might not be enough here to keep players coming back for more.

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