Inside Electroplankton

At this year's Game Developer's Conference, Satoru Iwata delivered an impassioned speech titled "Heart of a Gamer". Although it was designed to shed a little light on Nintendo's Wi-Fi plans for the DS as well as Revolution's backward compatibility, the speech was focused on one thing: Nintendo's philosophy and its vision for the future. More than anything else, Satoru Iwata's speech clearly defined the direction that Nintendo is taking with both DS and Revolution. To illustrate the company's approach more clearly, Nintendo's Bill Trinen appeared on stage to demonstrate two key software titles for Nintendo DS; titles that exemplify Nintendo's pursuit of "new genres" of video games. The first game shown was Nintendogs, a Tamagotchi-like game, which utilizes the DS's touch screen and microphone extensively. Upon its release in Japan, it received a perfect score from the prestigeous Famitsu magazine. The second game demonstration, Electroplankton, has also been released to a noteably more dubious response; as Iwata mentioned during the demonstration, some gamers appear to be confused as they look for enemies to destroy or their high score. At the same time, other gamers seem hypnotized and seem unable to turn the game off (upon saying this, Iwata pointed to Bill himself, who seemed to have fallen under the game's spell).

Satoru Iwata went to great lengths to explain that Nintendo's present course is different than its competitors. Where Sony and Microsoft are fighting over the same market - over the same consumers - Nintendo is seeking to attract consumers who aren't currently considered "gamers". Perhaps some games have become too complex, suggests Iwata; perhaps the learning curve for non-gamers is simply too high. Afterall, hardcore gamers have had years to become used to ever more complex game controllers (just look at the amount of buttons, sticks and other things that exist on current controllers and compare that to your NES controller, which seems highly simplistic in contrast). Or alternatively, perhaps current genres and game styles - which have changed little over the last twenty years in their broad definitions - simply don't appeal to non-gamers. In more recent interviews, Satoru Iwata mentioned that in households containing video game systems, there are often members of the family who simply regard the consoles as annoying machines that make noise. So the question arises, how does a company like Nintendo appeal to such people?

Electroplankton may very well be a game that bridges the gap between Nintendo's current consumer base and potential consumers, who have either never played a video game in their life, or who perhaps lost interest in gaming at some point in the past. Nintendo describes Electroplankton's genre as "touchable media art". At first glance, the game may seem like "just another music game". And while it certainly shares some similarities with other types of games, it must be noted that Electroplankton is still very different from anything that came before it. Most critically, Electroplankton does not contain many elements that you'd expect to find in a video game. It has no enemies, no goals, no score and no traditional level progression. In addition - and unlike some other music titles that currently exist - Electroplankton does not allow you to save any of the music that you make. Rather than being a specific "music creation tool", Electroplankton emphasizes the experience of interacting with music. To that end, there are varying degrees of control that the player has in the game. In some cases, you will be able to directly create and control musical notes, but in other cases, you will simply influence the music either directly or indirectly.

Like many other DS games - and unlike many "traditional" video games - Electroplankton requires no gaming knowledge at all to play. The player doesn't need to have experience with a D-Pad and they don't need to have any understanding of the basic "rules" of a game. In preparation for this article, I actually performed a small test. I decided to hand my Nintendo DS to my mother without providing any explanation of the game, nor any explanation on how to operate the DS itself. Given what Nintendo has said about Electroplankton and given the company's goal of attracting non-gamers to its products, I was eager to see the reaction of a forty-six year old woman who had never touched a video game in her life. Actually, I tell a lie; my mother did once attempt to play F1 2004 on PlayStation 2 (with a full wheel and pedal set-up), but after taking the wheel, she almost immediately crashed into a wall and gave up. It's safe to say that her first experience with games wasn't exactly encouraging. When she crashed her vehicle in the game, it seemed to confirm her own assumption that games were too confusing and required too much time investment to become comfortable with. So, needless to say, her reaction to Electroplankton would be highly interesting. Upon handing the DS to her, she momentarily explored the game's opening menu with the stylus. In a matter of seconds, she was playing with Beatnes, one of the ten plankton included in the game. At first, she simply stabbed at the screen with the stylus, having no real idea of how to approach the game. But with each stab, a musical note was created. She soon understood that it was possible to create a chain, linking several notes together that, along with the already-provided back beat, would create a melody. Within a matter of seconds, the stylus was fluttering across the touch screen as she looked on with glee. Twenty minutes later, she was still sitting with Beatnes, but now she had discovered how to change the instruments and style of her music. At one point my younger brother walked past her and was quickly told not to speak, should he distract her from the serious business of conducting a mini-orchestra. In the end, she discovered that there were other plankton to play with; she also discovered how to quickly navigate from one plankton to another and how to reset each plankton to its original state. An hour or so later, she handed the DS back to me and said "That's really fascinating. I could see myself playing with that for a few minutes now and then, if I feel like relaxing."

Would my mother actually buy a Nintendo DS to play a game like Electroplankton? That's another question. But the fact remains, it was her first truly positive experience with a video game. And unlike other games, the learning curve was not frustrating. Rather, the element of discovery made the game that much more enjoyable. I asked her why Electroplankton was fun. She told me that, as someone who has very little knowledge of computers and technology, it was not intimidating because it was "just like writing with a pen on paper; anyone can do that." In addition, she cited the actual music samples as being a major factor in her enjoyment of the game. Electroplankton's music - sans the NES-style Beatnes - is made up of a variety of traditional instruments including the piano and even the xylophone. The end result is a generally peaceful and serene experience, which appeals to all ages. For all the theory surrounding Electroplankton and its intended effect, there's nothing like actually seeing the philosophy behind the game in action. The results of my little (and totally unscientific) test not only give me confidence in the game itself, but also in Nintendo's general strategy. If my mother can sit down and play a game for an hour (all while posessing the grin of a slightly obsessed person), anyone can.