There’s a new game for the Nintendo DS called Electroplankton which, frankly, is the first DS title to get my attention.
Electroplankton was (as the packaging so prominently asserts) “created by Toshio Iwai” — the Japanese media artist behind, among other things, the SimTunes PC game. (SimTunes is itself a pretty astonishing entry into this video game microgenre. It’s a paint-by-numbers CricketDraw with a goofy emergent soundtrack.)
Andrew Vestal’s preview at 1up is the only thing I’ve read about this game, but it certainly seems to be another exploratory soundscape thing, perhaps more like Tranquility than REZ.
Long story short, it’s a collection of ten aquatic-themed, cartoon tone toys. The point of this game is: you cajole and prod underwater creatures and listen! And then you do it again! I defer to the 1up preview for details:
Most of the plankton create tonal-but-unstructured sounds,
like wind chimes. There’s no way to save or share your
creations, and the dynamic nature of most of the plankton
makes it all-but-impossible to duplicate previous creations.
Also, several of the plankton automatically “decay,” making
it impossible to keep a composition “alive” in a steady
state. Life’s pleasures are fleeting, and art should reflect
life — that’s the lesson of Electroplankton.
I’m looking forwards to playing this at some point; sounds (get it?) like fun.
(tags: electroplankton games music)
