It’s no secret that I like rhythm games. I am quite familiar with music and love games. It’s hard to imagine that someone could be serious about music, be a gamer, and not at least draw some pleasure from music games.
I had heard that Electroplankton was some sort of experimental music game, but I never really knew what to expect. I wasn’t expecting to play it this soon, but GameFly was backed up with Halo 3 rentals and somehow this got sent to me instead of a flashy new title.
Electroplankton is really not much of a game. I saw all the levels in under an hour. There were about 10-12 different areas that had little plankton creatures that would manipulate tones in different ways. The spontaneous nature of the music is a lot of fun, but my ears quickly grew tired when there was no melody to follow. I breezed through the levels, and after figuring out what each had done, I thought, “Now what?” Well, that was all there was.
Fortunately, one of my friends was around. He took a look at it and played it in an entirely different way. One level is set up with about four plankton with their own tonal patterns. Each seems to have a certain range, and the notes change depending on the lines you draw for them to follow on the DS screen. While I drew straight lines, circles, and spirals, he drew different types of lines that were more abstract. Suddenly the tones became something new.
I began to see how Electronplankton really is a neat experiment – the way different players toy with the tones is a mark of individuality. The abstract nature of the game allows for more creativity, which is fantastic. However, the experimental nature of the game makes it less of a game and more of an interactive display. I would not buy this game and my rental copy was played for less than two hours by me and my friend combined. While I admire the innovation in this game, it seems like it would do better if incorporated into a more structured game in the future.