Electroplankton is not a game, nor is it a music-making utility. Electroplankton is 'concept software'; as DS carts are to music albums, Electroplankton is to Sgt. Pepper. Electroplankton can be musical, producing beautiful and surprising melodies. They are equally capable of producing garish dischordance, random scatterings of fractured notes and mind-numbing repetitive drones. And these are all equally 'acceptable' outcomes of playing with them!
Electroplankton's genre, 'touchable media art', manages to both perfectly categorize the title and succeed in telling you very little about what to expect from it. Naturally, if you know something of media art and the works of Toshio Iwai, you can ignore that last statement, and probably the rest of this paragraph. Electroplankton is better categorized by what it doesn?t offer: It isn?t a game because there?s no way to 'win' or 'compete' at playing with it. It lacks the flexibility of a 'true' digital musical instrument, you can't explicitly compose music within it and there's no way to save any arrangements you might make, other than by recording your performance externally.
If the notion of interacting with virtual, autonomous ?creatures? of light and sound for no other reason than simply the experience of playing with them doesn?t peak your curiosity, you?re probably not going to see ?the point? of Electroplankton and you could save valuable gaming time by not reading any further. The rest of us may come to find it to be both dogmatic yet inspiring, logically structured yet chaotic, and challenging whilst fun. Electroplankton is a collection of ten individual ?species?; each with something different to offer and demanding of specific consideration. But whilst all Electroplankton are equally special, some 'plankton are more equal than others...
Beatnes, Volvoice and Rec-Rec are by far the most accessible 'plankton available, and also the least likely to hold your attention for any sustained period. A child can build enjoyable 8-bit game sample filled sequences by prodding the body parts of swaying Beatnes as they briefly 'remember' and echo your quantized taps. 4 distinct sets of voices and accompaniments are available, but only Famicom otaku will want to hear these in anything more than short bursts. Volvoice 'absorb' vocal audio from the mic then repeat your words over and over, speaking in one of 16 different voices. As you can say anything to it, there's no limit on what it can produce but reverse word games aside, there seems little to play with for long. The Rec-Rec fish are an easy to use four-voice sampler. Playing with their tempo and the selection of 8 accompaniments (including silence) enhances both the range and ease of sequence creation with them, but their immediacy trades off heavily against flexibility.
By rights, Lumiloop should fall victim to the same fate; the 5 of them simply 'hum' when you draw circles on them, and the selection of timbres they can resonate is very limited. But the process of making sound with them has a curiously hypnotic effect; spinning the pulsating, smiling hoops to create expanding circles of colour and ever-changing harmonies can be entrancing. Sun-Animalcule share this hypnotic quality, after being ?planted? they grow, 'shine' and disappear throughout the cycle of their days and nights. Creating constellations of suns and moons produces musical arrangements, and watching them sparkle and glow as time passes can be mesmerising. But whilst allowing for ?relaxed? interaction, Sun-Animalcule can also be difficult to play; cacophonies will abound if you've not spent some time experimenting first.
The same can also be said of Tracy and Marine-Snow, which can both seem erratic with respect to ?musicality?. Tracy swim the vectors you draw, which sounds straight-forward, but they are highly sensitive to the precise velocity of your stylus stroke. A subtle mastery of this interface is required to create anything but fierce, arpeggiated dischord. Marine-Snow 'chime' only when you touch them, but move whenever 'played'; forming an exquisite keyboard of snowflakes that changes it's layout constantly when struck, returning to an ordered arrangement only after 'rest'. The depth of your curiosity and patience are the only true limitation all these species share with respect to the ?music? they can be coaxed into producing.
Unlike all those described so far, Hanenbow and Luminaria exist in an environment you must interact with in order to influence sound creation. The variables involved are always simple, but their interdependencies can produce a staggering complexity. Hanenbow are regularly projected into the air to bounce off the resonant, precision angled leaves of differing plant formations and the sonorous walls of their world, until they 'plop' into the water they came from. Leaves can become excited by the dynamics of these impacts, changing in timbre sympathetically and the effect of the smallest of adjustments in position can result in unpredictable outcomes. Hanenbow exist in a noisy little Zen-garden of experimental rhythms and tonal sequences; you can easily lose yourself playing with them there.
Luminaria are inspired of Toshio Iwai?s prior works - they seem to have evolved from ?Composition on the Table, 1998/99', a physical, table-top interface with which those interacting could direct the movement of lights in order to indirectly influence the production of sound. Once touched, they move endlessly at different speeds over a grid of arrows that direct their motion, with each resonant, 8-way arrow being either fixed in direction or in motion itself, and each tone varying in timbre by the Luminaria passing over it. Previously, experiencing this kind of interaction was the preserve of visitors to media art galleries; with your DS you can experiment with them in private to your heart's content, or perform with them wherever you wish.
Lastly, Nanocarp are the only species of 'plankton to exhibit any truly random behaviour. All other species can sound chaotic, but actually produce sounds strictly as a function of your input and the 'laws' of how that interaction is made manifest audibly. But the 16 small, but beautifully formed Nanocarp swim unpredictably about the screen, each at a different, variable speed and in random directions. Each Nanocarp has a specific tonal resonance, with timbre varying by interaction. A pulse can be made to 'strike' them all as sequences from one of four directions, the ripples created by touching their water also affect them. With practise, they can be 'commanded' to assume pre-configured musical and geometric formations beforehand, or they can be left to wander around either to create unique formations or simply to bounce off the walls of their world like a digital wind chime.
Both aesthetically and conceptually, Electroplankton forms a coherent whole, a well-rounded, diverse package of interactive entertainment that could satisfy either casual curiosity or intensive experimental scrutiny. Art can be challenging, contradictory and rewarding - in these respects, at least, Electroplankton is no different.
Electroplankton's genre, 'touchable media art', manages to both perfectly categorize the title and succeed in telling you very little about what to expect from it. Naturally, if you know something of media art and the works of Toshio Iwai, you can ignore that last statement, and probably the rest of this paragraph. Electroplankton is better categorized by what it doesn?t offer: It isn?t a game because there?s no way to 'win' or 'compete' at playing with it. It lacks the flexibility of a 'true' digital musical instrument, you can't explicitly compose music within it and there's no way to save any arrangements you might make, other than by recording your performance externally.
If the notion of interacting with virtual, autonomous ?creatures? of light and sound for no other reason than simply the experience of playing with them doesn?t peak your curiosity, you?re probably not going to see ?the point? of Electroplankton and you could save valuable gaming time by not reading any further. The rest of us may come to find it to be both dogmatic yet inspiring, logically structured yet chaotic, and challenging whilst fun. Electroplankton is a collection of ten individual ?species?; each with something different to offer and demanding of specific consideration. But whilst all Electroplankton are equally special, some 'plankton are more equal than others...
Beatnes, Volvoice and Rec-Rec are by far the most accessible 'plankton available, and also the least likely to hold your attention for any sustained period. A child can build enjoyable 8-bit game sample filled sequences by prodding the body parts of swaying Beatnes as they briefly 'remember' and echo your quantized taps. 4 distinct sets of voices and accompaniments are available, but only Famicom otaku will want to hear these in anything more than short bursts. Volvoice 'absorb' vocal audio from the mic then repeat your words over and over, speaking in one of 16 different voices. As you can say anything to it, there's no limit on what it can produce but reverse word games aside, there seems little to play with for long. The Rec-Rec fish are an easy to use four-voice sampler. Playing with their tempo and the selection of 8 accompaniments (including silence) enhances both the range and ease of sequence creation with them, but their immediacy trades off heavily against flexibility.
By rights, Lumiloop should fall victim to the same fate; the 5 of them simply 'hum' when you draw circles on them, and the selection of timbres they can resonate is very limited. But the process of making sound with them has a curiously hypnotic effect; spinning the pulsating, smiling hoops to create expanding circles of colour and ever-changing harmonies can be entrancing. Sun-Animalcule share this hypnotic quality, after being ?planted? they grow, 'shine' and disappear throughout the cycle of their days and nights. Creating constellations of suns and moons produces musical arrangements, and watching them sparkle and glow as time passes can be mesmerising. But whilst allowing for ?relaxed? interaction, Sun-Animalcule can also be difficult to play; cacophonies will abound if you've not spent some time experimenting first.
The same can also be said of Tracy and Marine-Snow, which can both seem erratic with respect to ?musicality?. Tracy swim the vectors you draw, which sounds straight-forward, but they are highly sensitive to the precise velocity of your stylus stroke. A subtle mastery of this interface is required to create anything but fierce, arpeggiated dischord. Marine-Snow 'chime' only when you touch them, but move whenever 'played'; forming an exquisite keyboard of snowflakes that changes it's layout constantly when struck, returning to an ordered arrangement only after 'rest'. The depth of your curiosity and patience are the only true limitation all these species share with respect to the ?music? they can be coaxed into producing.
Unlike all those described so far, Hanenbow and Luminaria exist in an environment you must interact with in order to influence sound creation. The variables involved are always simple, but their interdependencies can produce a staggering complexity. Hanenbow are regularly projected into the air to bounce off the resonant, precision angled leaves of differing plant formations and the sonorous walls of their world, until they 'plop' into the water they came from. Leaves can become excited by the dynamics of these impacts, changing in timbre sympathetically and the effect of the smallest of adjustments in position can result in unpredictable outcomes. Hanenbow exist in a noisy little Zen-garden of experimental rhythms and tonal sequences; you can easily lose yourself playing with them there.
Luminaria are inspired of Toshio Iwai?s prior works - they seem to have evolved from ?Composition on the Table, 1998/99', a physical, table-top interface with which those interacting could direct the movement of lights in order to indirectly influence the production of sound. Once touched, they move endlessly at different speeds over a grid of arrows that direct their motion, with each resonant, 8-way arrow being either fixed in direction or in motion itself, and each tone varying in timbre by the Luminaria passing over it. Previously, experiencing this kind of interaction was the preserve of visitors to media art galleries; with your DS you can experiment with them in private to your heart's content, or perform with them wherever you wish.
Lastly, Nanocarp are the only species of 'plankton to exhibit any truly random behaviour. All other species can sound chaotic, but actually produce sounds strictly as a function of your input and the 'laws' of how that interaction is made manifest audibly. But the 16 small, but beautifully formed Nanocarp swim unpredictably about the screen, each at a different, variable speed and in random directions. Each Nanocarp has a specific tonal resonance, with timbre varying by interaction. A pulse can be made to 'strike' them all as sequences from one of four directions, the ripples created by touching their water also affect them. With practise, they can be 'commanded' to assume pre-configured musical and geometric formations beforehand, or they can be left to wander around either to create unique formations or simply to bounce off the walls of their world like a digital wind chime.
Both aesthetically and conceptually, Electroplankton forms a coherent whole, a well-rounded, diverse package of interactive entertainment that could satisfy either casual curiosity or intensive experimental scrutiny. Art can be challenging, contradictory and rewarding - in these respects, at least, Electroplankton is no different.