Electroplankton Update

Electroplankton is yet another unique game for the DS that was shown off at Nintendo's recent Gamer's Summit in Seattle. Though not a traditional game, the brainchild of media artist Toshio Iwai lets players make music by interacting with one of 10 musical virtual fish, called electroplankton. Though it will likely confuse players initially, given its lack of a traditional structure, today's demo showed off just some of the game's unique appeal.

You'll find two modes in the game: performance and audience. The performance mode lets you both frolic with musical fish and make music, while audience lets you emote until your heart is content. The demo showed off a creative use for one of the fish: the rec rec (which acts as a sampler of sorts). You'll simply record something, and it will be folded into a set of the fish that moves across the screen--with your sample folded into the beat that's playing as the fish swim. We also got to see a slightly different fish, the nano karp, which is likely to form the most musical, synchronized swimming team of virtual fish ever seen. You'll manipulate the team via the unit's microphone, and you'll encourage it to play all manner of music by getting it to assume different shapes. The second mode in Electroplankton is the audience mode, which lets you kick back to see the funky sea life doing its thing. The resulting tunes end up offering good background music you can leave running while you go about your day.

We're happy to see a game like Electroplankton hit the States, even though it'll be an online-only purchase. However, it's not a game we'd wager people will find themselves playing for hours upon hours. Electroplankton is currently set to be sold online early next year.