touch it, rub it, poke it, swirl it. electroplankton says the player is a performer!
electroplankton is a strange multi-media project...it's like a musical tool that allows you to play with it, touch it, poke it and scrub it in order to make it sing.
the theme is plankton, and the sea. the plankton are drawn in supple, eye-pleasing curves, with little faces, and chirpy demeanours.
the appearence of the plankton as 'sea-dwelling' is important, and as such, their opacity is turned down, making them sea-through; this style is kept consistant throughout and adds a lot to the aquatic feel, as does the bubble effects.
there are 10 different types of plankton to play with. each plankton is accessible from the start (no unlocking), on a simple menu screen.
each of the 10 plankton look unique and show off a different sound concept.
'lumiloop' is a doughnut plankton arrangement that you spin and sqwirl your stylus around, like spinning plates. there are 5 of them, and touching each of them emits different colours and sounds. it's really quite soothing and calming, when you let go of spinning several, and hear them all throbbing and humming. it's definately something to play before bed.
other plankton range from simple snow drop-shapes that appear when tapping the stylus on the screen multiple times, to sound-based plankton that allow you to clap, shout, talk or whisper into the mic, recording that sound inside the screen, and playing it back.
probably the most in-depth and advanced (and most game-like) is 'hanenbow'. hanenbow is a little pink plankton that is constantly shot out, and you have to arrange some leaves for it to land on. upon contact the hanenbow make plinky-plonky noises. there is quite a bit of variety you can get by improvisation and arragement, until a distinct tune can be heard. there are also different plant 'levels' to experiment with.
this is about 'it' though. electroplankton is quite simple and minimal. it's hard to wonder about the kind of person that would be attracted to it. it seems like an introduction to basic concepts of sound, colour, motion and contact. maybe girls like it...i don't know.
there is hidden potential though... (a saving grace perhaps?) interestingly the game is divided into 'performance mode' and 'audience mode'. the former is where the tool is just left out for the player to edit and make something out of, and the latter is the game performing for the player (the one-person audience).
if you can get several DS systems together, a projection screen and more of an audience, this is how you can perform for other people. think about...multiple spinning-plate lumiloops to a background of trickling hanenbow. it would be pretty trippy...