The power of plankton

By Cory Casciato
casciato@mscd.edu

Imagine being sucked into a surreal, underwater world where every movement triggers sounds that coalesce into beautiful, bewildering music.

Now stop imagining because that world exists and it's called "Electroplankton."

"Electroplankton" is a unique musical entity created by renowned Japanese artist Toshio Iwai for Nintendo's portable DS system. As a piece of software created for a handheld gaming system "Electroplankton" could be called a videogame, but it has no goals, no score, and no ending. It would be just as accurate to call it a musical instrument, a toy, or an avant-garde audio-visual experience. Iwai, calls it a combination of a microscope, tape recorder, synthesizer and an NES (the original Nintendo Entertainment System). As strange as that may sound, it is actually a pretty accurate description of the elements that went into the game. Still, this is definitely a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Depending on the perspective it could be considered all of these things and probably many more.

In fact, the only authoritative statement about what it is or is not that one can safely make is this: "Electroplankton" is not a bread machine.

It is a fantastic way to waste time. It's easy to pick up, inviting to play and immersive in the way that the best art always is. It's also the kind of thing that tends to attract curious stares from anyone nearby. Fire it up in a public place and a crowd will almost inevitably gather around to see what's producing those strange sounds. Fire it up at home and don't be surprised to find those tiny creatures swallowing whole hours of time.

The game uses all the controls of the DS well. The touch screen is both the main mode of input and the primary display. Poking and prodding the various plankton and manipulating onscreen objects is simple and intuitive. The top screen provides a close-up view of the currently highlighted portion of the bottom screen. That top view can be zoomed in and out, like a microscope. The directional pad provides a method of speeding up or slowing down the tempo or pitch or making wholesale changes in the behavior of the plankton. The start button pauses the game, select typically provides an alternate sound set or variation on the active plankton. The microphone is used to record sounds or alter the behavior of the plankton. It's nearly impossible to describe but perfectly obvious in action.

There are 10 different instruments, or plankton as the game calls them, in all. Each offers a different sound, interface and experience. Some provide significant structure, such as the Beatnes plankton that allows players to create remixes of classic Nintendo themes. Others are almost completely dependent on user input for their sound, such as the Rec-Rec plankton that's basically a four-track drum machine style sampler. Many of the plankton, including Hanenbow and Lumiloop, create soothing, ambient tones. Others, such as Luminaria or Marine-Snow are capable of producing as much chaotic noise as a young child set free on a drum kit. One, Nanocarp, doesn't produce sound at all but instead responds to input from the microphone in fascinating ways. Clap in rhythm and the little Nanocarp line up like synchronized swimmers. Sing a scale and they line up differently.

The beauty of "Electroplankton" lies in the depth of its interactivity. No two players will come up with the same results. It's actually startling at times how different the results are when the game is placed in the hands of different people. If interactivity sounds like too much work, it does offer an audience mode that features the plankton playing preset patterns. Even in audience mode a touch of the stylus will influence the music being generated.

It does have some limitations. The microphone of the DS is fairly low quality and consequently the sounds "Electroplankton" records tend to be pretty noisy. Perhaps worse, there's no way to save compositions besides recording them to an external device. Still, these are minor complaints that don't really interfere with enjoyment of the experience.

The real problem with "Electroplankton" is that not nearly enough people will get to experience it. Gamers will likely dismiss it for not being a "real game." Musicians and fans of the experimental and ambient fringes of music will dismiss it as being "just a game." Plenty of people will simply find it too weird to catch their interest. The majority of people will simply never hear of it, considering it can only be purchased online or directly from Nintendo. For the select few that set aside their prejudices and simply accept it for what it is, "Electroplankton" offers a compelling, unique musical experience of startling beauty.