Electroplankton

© 2006 Nintendo of America
$35, Nintendo DS
Teaches: music, creating melodies, art, creativity, drawing, publishing, listening to one's own language, making recordings
CTR Rating: 96%

CTR Review

Better described as musical scribbling than a game, Electroplankton is a completely different kind of musical "sandbox" for the Nintendo DS. This is actually the second title by Toshio Iwia, Electroplankton's author. The first, SimTunes (Maxis, 1996), ran on Windows, and let you program tiny moving bugs; each with a musical attribute, on a football-field like grid. At the time, the program was recognized in the new media community as completely different, but it didn’t sell. Now, a decade later, Iwai has returned with ten times more content, running on the Nintendo DS, a platform that seems made for this type of activity, especially when you plug it into your surround sound stereo system. If you're looking for a game, you may be left wondering "what's the point?" The point is that you can create visual and musical effects; and the process can be fun and relaxing. It's like stepping inside a painting, with sounds and dynamic art. Some of the activities sample your voice, and incorporate it into a rap-like song. Tiny critters sing, expand, mimic your speech, or explode into colors. You can start plates spinning, and as they spin, they create rings of color. The quality of the sounds and graphics are great; but it helps to plug your DS into an external speaker system. Our testers ages and opinions ranged considerably. Our preschool-age testers delighted in hearing their own voices; a great informal early language activity. Jon (18 years), said, "Electroplankton is a work of art that should be recognized by anyone who likes to create music. The sounds you hear in this game are like nothing you've ever heard in a video game. It is easy to get addicted to this game. The game is simple and can be played by any one who can poke little things with a stick." Drawbacks are few; it would be nice to be able to save works of art on the cartridge, which is not possible. Hats off to Iwia and Nintendo for having the courage to publish something completely different.