Home > Previews > DS > #392

Preorder : Gameswarehouse |

Electroplankton Preview

Writer: Nick Schaedel
Posted: 18th Apr, 2005

Publisher: Nintendo
Website: http://www.nintendo.com.au The Nintendo DS is quickly becoming the home of the anti-game. You know, games that you couldn't possibly, in your wildest dreams, imagine being fun when you see it in writing. Tasks like squashing bugs, pulling weeds or watching bouncing aquatic critters. Well here's a reality check: WarioWare and Animal Crossing are fun. So let's check out the bouncing shrimp, okay?

Electroplankton is a pet project of Toshio Iwai's. On the box, beneath the title, it says he made it. This is absolutely true - Toshio Iwai is not just a game designer, but also has roots in programming too. For over a decade he has been coming up with ideas, and then putting it into action himself. The contemporary Japanese musician refers to the games as a "Touchable Media Art" game, which pretty much sums it up. Nintendo themselves seem pretty impressed by it too.

In Japan recently, Nintendo held a special event highlighting Iwai, his creations and Electroplankton. Iwai had worked with Nintendo years ago for SNES in a project that eventually became Sim Tunes for PC. Both Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto were at the event, as were tons of demo DS systems highlight each of the individual plankton's characteristics. It's refreshing to see such support for a game, if you can call it that, which is very different to anything we've seen before. It offers an otherworldly array of sights and sounds aimed to soothe or stimulate players with the innovative use of both the touch screen and voice interaction. Satoru Iwata explained that the game "...is designed to produce harmony, not adrenaline."

Anyhow, Electroplankton are little critters that bounce around your Nintendo DS screen. You can touch them, drag them and throw them all over the place. There are ten different 'species' of plankton, each with unique traits. The creatures react to your voice as well, and depending on the input of the player, will emit music and altered voice effects. Each of the species, with semi-corny names lie Luminaria or Volvoice, use the DS's features in different ways. One type of plankton simply adds all types of effects to your voice when you touch them, while others emit music. You can make your own songs up by placing objects in the water or setting them up in different backgrounds. You can also set it to randomly make music by entering the 'Audience Mode'.

The ten types of plankton can be positioned around the environments, each of which features interactive items that give off specific notes. In one mode, four fish-shaped plankton swim from right to left across the screen. By tapping one and then speaking into the microphone, the plankton will record what you say and play it back against a thumping beat. You then have three other 'tracks' to record on. At the recent Game Developer's Conference, the feature was demonstrated by Bill Trinen, who spoke "Yeah", "Nintendo" and "Who's your daddy?" into the DS microphone, and ended up with a loop of "Who's your daddy? Nintendo! (continued next page)