Inside Electroplankton

Electroplankton's unique packaging, itself reflecting the quirkiness of the game inside, is marked "created by Toshio Iwai" on the front. Just as the game itself is different, its creator has a colorful history within the world of "media art". Read on to learn a little more about Toshio Iwai's life, his unique media art creations and his relationship with Nintendo.

Born in Japan's Aichi Prefecture in 1962, Toshio Iwai's involvement in media art really began during tertiary study. After being admitted to Tsukuba University's Fine Arts Department, Iwai began working on a variety of media art projects, including experimental animations, flipbooks and zoetropes. During this time, Iwai was also interested in film, but he was particularly eager to work with non-film visual illusions. Rather than moving directly to film, Iwai found that computers provided the best outlet for his artwork. Iwai's first noteable creation, beyond his early experiments, was a an installation called Time Stratum. This installation garnered him his first award, the High Technology Art Exhibition Gold prize. In addition to this, Iwai won the grand prize at the 17th annual Modern Japanese Art Award. He was the youngest artist to ever win that prize. Toshi Iwai graduated from Tsukuba University's Plastic Art and Mixed Media master's course in 1987. He later completed the Artist in Residence program at the Exploratorium in San Fransisco, in 1992. Two of Iwai's media art creations - Well of Lights and Music Insects - are now part of the Exploratorium's permanent collection.

Toshio Iwai's work has been displayed in various locations around the world and as a result, he has become a kind of cult figure, particularly in Japan. Aside from his various media art creations, Iwai produced computer generated virtual sets for a Japanese science news TV show called Einstein TV. Iwai also created a series of virtual characters and sets for a popular interactive TV show, titled Ugo Ugo Lhuga.

Although Toshio Iwai has worked on several games over the years, his most famous project with Nintendo is a game entitled Sound Fantasy. Unfortunately, the game was never released by Nintendo under that name. Instead, it was taken up by Maxis and converted into a game called Sim Tunes. In many respects, Sim Tunes is like Electroplankton. The player begins with a completely blank screen, except for some simple editing tools including various paints and patterns that can be used to decorate the empty canvas. Each dot within the artwork that the player creates represents a musical note. Once an image has been produced, the player can apply several "bugz" onto the screen. The bugz walk along the screen and as they encounter dots, they emit the note that the dot represents. The bugz themselves are each a seperate musical instrument and they are seen on the screen as caricatures of the instruments they represent. The player can choose up to four bugz at a time and each one plays the role of a different instrument. Some of the instruments are more standard fare, such as a piano or guitar, while other bugs represent steel drums or cymbals. In addition, some bugz can include complete riffs, sound effects or vocal chords. One of the most interesting things about Sim Tunes is the way in which players can interact with it. Some players choose to draw very carefully, with the intention of making a very specific melody. In this way, their pictures may not look like anything in particular, but at the same time they are able to directly control the music that is created. On the other hand, some players prefer to draw a very specific picture or scene. As the bugz encounter the artwork in their travels across the screen, they react accordingly with various notes. The end result is something far more random. Still, it's interesting to see how a picture you've created actually "sounds" when expressed aurally via the bugz.

One of the most noteable aspects of Toshio Iwai is that he creates all of his work himself. In other words, he not only creates the concept and graphic design, but is also responsible for animation, programming and sound production. This is also largely true of his video game projects, where he is not merely directing a team who apply his ideas, but here he builds and applies his own concepts. This is one of the reasons why the packaging for Electroplankton contains Toshio Iwai's name on the front. Within Nintendo's recent Electroplankton exhibit at Tokyo's Harajuku fashion center, Satoru Iwata explained that game creators often don't have their name on the front cover of a product because so many people are involved in a game's development. However, games such as Electroplankton do not require large teams of developers. Due to the relative simplicity of the game, it is possible for an individual to take primary responsibility for the game's development. In that sense, Iwata suggested that Electroplankton could be a positive sign of things to come, where unique ideas - ideas that may not always appeal to hardcore gamers - are easier to produce because of the much smaller financial and labor investment involved. So, Electroplankton is an example of both a alternative game design philosophy for the end user, as well as an alternative development possibility for game creators.

The Electroplankton exhibit at the Harajuku fashion center not only allowed Nintendo to show off the game itself, it also provided an opportunity for Toshio Iwai to display several other of his inventions. The variety within the exhibit was impressive. It included works that Iwai had made with his children, a demonstration of how his works had changed from childhood through to adulthood. The exhibit even included a funny little cube, with screens for eyes. Depending on what you do with the cube, its facial expression will change; it is capable of blinking, looking shocked, falling asleep and even dying. There were also several Nintendo-themed examples, including the aforementioned Sound Fantasy game (the game's booklet and packaging were shown). Also, Iwai had his very own Nintendo DS creation on display; an odd (yet incredibly cool) Swiss cheese DS. During the exhibit, Satoru Iwata commented that Toshio Iwai's name had come up frequently during the development of the Nintendo DS. In fact, Iwata described it as the perfect console for Iwai. Originally, Electroplankton had been in development for PC, using a touch screen of similar size to the DS's touch screen. This was the state in which the game was demonstrated to Nintendo initially.

At the same exhibit, Toshio Iwai commented that he had some reservations about the game, even during its development. He said that, upon browsing various message boards, he'd been disappointed with the negative reaction by some gamers, though he did expect that. Satoru Iwata then said that while some gamers were disappointed with the game and put it down after only a few minutes, others spent a good hour on the game (something I can attest to, as you've read above). At the end of the exhibit's informal talk session, Toshio Iwai briefly touched on the subject of the game's packaging, which is completely unlike other DS games. He said that current packaging is too similar, with store shelves filling up with boxes that look the same. The intention was to create very unique packaging, which reflected the game itself.