Inside Electroplankton

Electroplankton is a difficult game to describe, so I'll begin by explaining the most basic elements first. When you start the game, you are greeted with a very simple menu screen, containing the three following options:


Performance Mode is essentially the main game, where you can select one of ten distinctly different plankton to play with. When you enter Performance Mode, you are taken to another simple menu, which contains ten small colored dots along the bottom edge of the touch screen. Above that, you'll see an image of the first plankton (Tracy), with left and right arrows on either side of it. The upper screen displays the name of the plankton and provides a small description. From here, you can either touch an arrow to look at the next plankton, or you can touch the small circles underneath to go directly to the plankton of your choice. If you want to play with the plankton shown on the screen, you simply touch it. There are a few interesting details about this menu screen. First of all, each colored dot on the menu makes a musical note. So, if you draw over the dots (or if you just tap them individually), you'll be able to make a little tune on the menu screen itself. This also works by touching the arrows, but obviously the arrows don't allow you to immediately jump from one end of the list to the other. In addition, if you touch the background, the tip of your stylus will make a little stream of bubbles, which float from the touch screen to the upper screen (the bubbles also make an audible sound). Even when you are playing the game, your stylus always produces bubbles - it's one of many little details that you'll find as you play.

Audience Mode is essentially very similar to Performance Mode, except that this time, the DS takes over for you. When you enter this mode, the DS will randomly select a plankton and begin to play without your input. So it's possible to just sit back and enjoy the show. Each plankton will be on display for a minute or so, until the DS switches to another random plankton. Some of the tunes created here are quite cool and they provide an interesting example of what is possible in the game. Interestingly, you can still interact with the game while in Audience Mode. As the DS is creating a tune in Beatnes, for example, you can join in. This doesn't override the DS, however. Instead, it's almost like having a jam session with two people, which makes it a slightly different experience to the Performance Mode.

The third and final option on the main screen simply allows you to select which type of sound output you'll be using. You can adjust the game to play specifically for speaker output or for headphone output as you wish.

Although Electroplankton primarily uses the stylus and microphone for interaction, it's also possible to use the DS's buttons for some extra effects. Some controls are global and apply to the entire game. For example, pressing B while you're with one plankton will always take you back to the plankton select menu. Beyond that, each individual plankton has slightly different optional controls. In most cases, pressing the Select button will allow you to change something about the plankton you're interacting with, be it the back beat, or simply resetting the plankton to its original state. Also, some plankton take advantage of the D-Pad for various added interaction. Below, you'll find a description of each plankton, including optional controls and impressions. However, I should note that part of the fun of Electroplankton is the process of discovery. Therefore, I do not want to reveal everything here; I will only provide sound and diagrams for certain plankton. I'll cover the basics and give you some insight into things that you may not have read elsewhere, but believe me when I tell you that Electroplankton contains more funny little surprises and options than most impressions and reviews have suggested. Nonetheless, please be aware that this article will contain spoilers.


Tracy is the very first plankton in the menu. As you read my description, you will be able to click on pictures that link to small, compressed audio files. The sound you hear exactly represents what's going on in the picture and the caption. If you don't want too many spoilers, it may be a good idea not to click on the images, just to be safe.


When you select Tracy from the menu, you'll enter a new screen with six plankton sitting in a row along the bottom edge of the touch screen. Each plankton is a different color (yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, purple and red). And each one makes a different sound. To begin, you touch a plankton and then draw a line on the screen. The plankton will move toward the finishing point of your line (so, the sound is somewhat dependent on where you start and end your line). You'll also notice that the plankton's position on the screen plays a role in the kind of pitch you hear. For example, if the plankton moves toward the upper portion of the screen, the pitch will become higher. In addition, moving between the left and right sides of the screen alternates the sound's emphasis between the left and right speakers.

There are a few other ways that you can control your Tracy plankton. If you wish to move a plankton somewhere else on the screen without actually drawing a line, you can tap the plankton and then tap the desired location; it will move there without actually making any music. This is useful, because as you draw lines with each plankton, you may want to erase a line here or there and redraw it. So it's possible to get plankton out of the way (you could line them up on one side of the screen for example). When a plankton is moving along the path you've drawn, it will continue to repeat that movement over and over again. You'll find that each line ends with a little glowing circle, which you can tap if you want to cancel/erase that line. Pressing Select will cancel all lines.

Much like Sound Fantasy, there are two ways that I play with Tracy. One way is to try to actually make a cohesive melody by carefully drawing lines in the appropriate places. Another way is to actually draw a picture, or write something, with your lines. I thought it would be fun to write my initials using the plankton to see what it sounds like. Of course, a large part of the fun is simply to experiment with different types of lines and different combinations, to experience the varying melodies.


Hanenbow is definitely one of my favorite plankton. It's also one of the more "game-like" plankton. Once you've selected Hanenbow, you'll be greeted with a scene of a plant on the right hand side of the touch screen, with a leaf on the left side. Both the leaf and the plant are sitting in shallow water. The little plankton leap out of the leaf into the air, where they then fall down into the water. With the stylus, there are a number of things you can do. Firstly, you can adjust the angle of the leaf itself, which in turn changes the angle at which the plankton hit the plant on the right. Secondly, you can adjust the individual leaves of the plant, to create different paths for the plankton. As the plankton hit the plant, they'll bounce off its leaves and each time they bounce, they'll produce a musical note. Specifically, the plankton hit the spine of each leaf. When they touch the spine of a leaf, it will glow for a split second as the note is played. Not only do the leaves themselves produce different notes, but each part of a leaf's spine represents a different pitch. So, if a plankton touches the outer edge of the spine, the pitch might be higher and if it touches the inner part of the spine, the pitch might be lower.

So, by adjusting both the jumping angle of the plankton as well as the leaves on the plant, you're able to create an obstacle course of sorts that the plankton follow. The musical notes will also be different depending on where the plankton hit the water. But there's much more to it than that!


It is possible to control the rate of fire of the plankton by using the D-Pad. If you tap up on the D-Pad, you'll be able to fire up to three plankton in rapid succession. If you hold right on the D-Pad, you'll be able to produce a continuous stream of plankton. Pressing down on the D-Pad cancels these changes and restores you to the original "tempo". Furthermore, there are multiple different "levels" within Hanenbow. The default configuration includes the plankton-shooting-leaf on the left, with the plant on the right. However, there are actually four completely differnt configurations; one includes a big plant and a small plant and another includes two plants hanging overhead, with the plankton-shooting-leaf at the bottom of the screen. You can press Select to instantly access all of these seperate layouts.

Finally, Hanenbow includes a cool little bonus for those who want to give themselves some challenge. When the plankton hit a leaf on the plant enough times, they will change its color. The leaves start off green, but change from green to yellow and eventually they become red. If you can make all of the leaves on the plant red, Hanenbow rewards you with a delightful little surprise. I won't tell you what it is, but I will tell you that getting there is great fun.


Luminaria is probably a little more like Hanenbow, in the sense that the player does not have direct control over the sound (unlike in Tracy). Instead - and more like Hanenbow - the player merely influences the sound in a somewhat indirect fashion.

You begin with a kind of grid on the touch screen. The screen is covered with little nodes, each one containing an arrow. In each corner of the screen, you'll see a different plankton (red, yellow, green and blue). As with Tracy, each plankton represents a different musical instrument. At first, the plankton will simply sit there and wait for you. If you wish, you can tap any plankton to make it begin moving. When the plankton move, they follow the course of the arrows attached to each node. So if all the nodes on the top row are pointing left, the plankton on that row will continuously move in that direction. At the start, the path is set so that the plankton move in circles within their portion of the screen. If you tap a node, its arrow will change direction (each arrow can point in eight different directions). Whenever a plankton lands on a node, it will travel in whatever direction the arrow for that node is pointing.

This means that once you set a plankton going, it can be difficult to directly control its path. So there are a few ways you could go about it. You could actually plan out your nodes before you start the plankton, to create defined paths for each one. Or you could start them all at once and simply change the nodes as you go, to make for a more random (and constantly changing) experience. In addition to changing the direction of each node, there are a couple of other things you can do to influence the plankton. Firstly, you can hold your stylus on a node to make the arrow spin. If you do this, the arrow will keep spinning and will not point to one directly constantly. This further adds to the randomness of the sound created.

Also, you can use the D-Pad to great effect in Luminaria. If you tap up or down on the D-Pad, a white "wave" will move across the screen and change all of the nodes at once. This is a good way to further randomize the experience in one large gesture, without individually changing each node. By tapping up or down, the nodes will still point in different directions (even though they'll all move at once). However, if you tap left or right, you can simultaneously position all nodes in the same direction at once. Again, this can be done before or after the plankton have started moving. As with other plankton, the Luminaria will change their sounds depending on their location on the touch screen. Pressing Select will reset Luminaria and put the plankton in their original positions.


Sun-Animalcule was one of the plankton demonstrated at the GDC this year. Pressing Select will clear the screen of plankton and the D-Pad allows you to fast-forward or rewind time (more on that a little further on).

Nevertheless, Sun-Animalcule still has its own unique style of interaction. You begin with a blank screen (sans the bubbles that continuously float upwards from the touch screen). At this point, you can place plankton on the screen by tapping it at any location. Wherever you tap it, a new plankton will appear. Once you begin doing this, you'll hear an instrument begin to play in the background. This instrument essentially acts as the backing for the sounds your plankton make. Based on the order that you place them, the plankton will emit sound in turn. Depending on their location on the screen, their sound (including note and pitch) will change.


It is possible to touch a plankton and drag it to a new location if you wish. You can also double-tap a plankton to make it disappear. Or, you can press Select to make all plankton disappear.

There are a few key areas that make Sun-Animalcule unique. When you're playing with this type of plankton, the game begins in the day time and moves through a day/night cycle. The entire sound changes based on the time of day and the plankton take on new forms at night (they begin as circular creatures and they look like half-moons at night). Additionally, the plankton will slowly grow. They begin very small and eventually become enormous. As they grow, their sound becomes far richer. By placing plankton at different times (ie: by having plankton of different "ages" on screen at once), you will experience different "depths" of sound, in addition to varying musical notes and varying pitch. Eventually, each plankton naturally disappears, which gives you the opportunity to place more if you wish. San-Animalcule is a pretty relaxing experience and with its day/night, life/death cycle, it contains a surprising amount of personality.


Like Sun-Animalcule, Rec-Rec was demonstrated at GDC this year. This particular plankton is one of several that utilize the DS's microphone. In fact, this plankton is really centered around voice interaction. Of course, whether the player uses their own voice is up to them; it's quite possible to use a combination of voice and other recorded samples. You could even record a few seconds of music, or you could make your own sounds by tapping on objects or hitting things together. In that sense, Rec-Red is a pretty flexible experience and it very heavily relies on the player's input.

Basically, Rec-Red involves four fish-like plankton swimming across the screen, from right to left. As they swim, a simple drum beat plays in the background. In order to begin, you have to tap one of the four fish. When you tap a fish, you wait until it touches the left side of the screen. As it makes its next pass across the touch screen, the drum beat goes quiet (but is still audible) and the fish flashes. During this pass, you're able to make a sound that the fish will remember. Then, the next time it passes, the back beat returns to normal and the recorded sound is played.

Being that there are four seperate fish, you can record four seperate sounds. It is possible to overlap them and it's also possible to have them play seperately. The key to this is based on the fish's position, as you record. So for instance, if you record a sound when the first fish is on the right of the screen and then you record a second sound with another fish when it's on the left, you'll have one sound play after the other. It's a little difficult to explain without physically demonstrating it to you, but it works quite well.

Like the other plankton, Rec-Rec allows you to make various modifications beyond simply recording your voice. Pressing down on the D-Pad will eliminate the drum beat entirely. Pressing left will make the beat speed up and pressing right will make it slow down. Pressing up will change the back beat entirely (there are seven different types of back beats, all very different). When you make your recording, you will actually see it manifest visually inside the selected fish (as a wavy line). Pressing Select will make the fish literally spit out the sound, so that you can start fresh.


Nanocarp is another one of my favorite plankton. When you play with this version, you'll notice that the little plankton are swimming around the touch screen aimlessly. If you listen carefully, you'll hear them chirp occasionally. As they hit the edges of the screen, they will make musical notes. The plankton that are higher up on the screen will make higher notes, the ones floating around toward the bottom of the screen will make lower notes. Of course, this is constantly changing, because the plankton keep swimming.

There are a number of ways that you can interact with the Nanocarp plankton. This particular version seems to have far more options than the other plankton in the game. When you tap the screen with your stylus, you'll emit a blue circular wave, which extends out from the point that you touched. As it expands, it comes into contact with plankton in the area and as it does so, they each sound off. When they sound off via the stylus, they emit purple circles and produce a particular sound. However, when they bounce against the edges of the screen, they produce blue circles and emit a much higher sound.


With Nanocarp plankton, you can also use the D-Pad for various effects. Pressing left or right will send a line in that direction across the entire screen. As it hits the plankton, they all sound off, but this time they make green circles (and again, a slightly different sound). The sound will also shift slightly between your left and right speakers/headphones. The same thing can be done by pressing up or down, but when you do this you'll get a "lower to higher" or "higher to lower" type of effect. It is possible to combine the D-Pad and stylus control to produce varying types of sound. In addition, pressing Select will reset the plankton's position, either lining them up vertically or horizontally.

However, the stylus and D-Pad are only half of the story with this plankton. The microphone plays a large role this time as well. There are several things you can do with it; each different action prompts a different response by the plankton.

Firstly, you can clap. Depending on how many times you clap (one to four claps), the plankton will congregate in different formations. You can create even more formations by singing to the plankton (ie: Do Re Me). As with the clapping, there are several melodies that you can sing to produce completely different results. You can also hum; if you start quietly and get louder, the plankton will again change formation. You can also do the reverse. And finally, it's possible to blow on the microphone for even more formations. You can blow a certain number of times (for instance, one to four short sharp breaths), or you can blow once for different lengths of time (blow for one second and you'll get one formation, blow for four seconds and you'll get something else). By interacting in this way, it's possible to make a huge variety of shapes with the plankton. The little guys will form everything from a house, to a love heart, to a snow man. This was one of the parts of Electroplankton that seemed to impress people quite a lot.


Lumiloop is one of the more simple experiences in Electroplankton, perhaps only being outdone in that area by Volvoice. That's not to say that Lumiloop isn't worthwhile, though. In fact, it will give you quite a workout!

Lumiloop starts with five ring-like plankton on the touch screen. They're white, on a black background. Interacting with these plankton involves touching each one with your stylus and rubbing it in a circular motion. As you circle your stylus over it, the plankton starts spinning. You can spin the plankton either clockwise or anti-clockwise, with each direction producing a distinctly different variation in sound. As you rub your stylus in circles, you'll notice that light begins to eminate from the plankton. I've discovered that if you rub toward the inside of the ring, the sound will become more intense and somewhat multi-layered. If you take your stylus off the plankton, it will slow down until it stops completely. If you wish to stop a plankton spinning, you only have to tap inside its ring and it stops immediately.

This variety of plankton produces a rich, beautiful sound. It's quite hypnotic, especially if you have speakers all around you, or if you're wearing headphones. As with the other plankton, you can press Select to try different versions of Lumiloop. One version in particular reminds me of a 1980's science fiction movie, which is pretty interesting. Despite the apparent simplicity of this plankton, you will find that the constant circular motions make your hand tired after a short time. Still, if your hands need exercise, Lumiloop is for you. Alternatively, I'm quite sure that Lumiloop would go well with various...substances. Uh, you didn't read that here. Moving on!


Marine-Snow is one of the more directly-influenced plankton, although there's certainly a good amount of randomness associated with it. When you start with this plankton, you'll find all of the snowflake-like creatures sitting in a perfect grid formation on the touch screen. These plankton respond directly to touch; tap one of them and it will make a note. As with the various other plankton, their position on screen relates to the kind of pitch you'll hear.

There are a few interesting things about the Marine-Snow. First of all, when you touch a plankton it will move away from you. It's as if touching it also flicks it to the side a little. This means that while you'll start in a perfect grid formation, you'll end up with a very messy screen, with plankton sitting apart from each other or even overlapping. This adds a random element to the experience, but it also gives you great flexibility to experiment. For instance, you could tap each plankton individually to create a tune (each one represents a key on a piano). Alternatively, you could use your stylus to "draw" a path through the plankton so that different notes are produced as you hit each one. You'll find that if you touch each plankton individually, they will essentially trade places with one another - the next one you touch will float towards the last one that you touched and so on. When I played with this plankton I found that drawing made the nicest sounds. It also meant that the plankton were constantly shifting around, which in turn made the experience somewhat like a living, moving keyboard. You can even double-up and run your stylus across several plankton layered on top of each other, for a more varied effect.


In addition to the primary grid-like formation with the piano sounds, there are several other variations of Marine-Snow. The second variation places the plankton in two concentric circles. The outer circle includes notes that are richer and deeper, while the inner circle contains the higher notes. The third variation includes a large oval formation. Here, the sound is more like wind-chimes than piano keys. Pressing Select will allow you to change formats within the Marine-Snow plankton.


Beatnes was the downloadable demo that was featured at E3 this year, so it might be the version that you've read most about. I have to say though, it's probably my favorite out of the entire game. This is probably because it's possible to create very authentic-sounding pieces of music, with a great degree of control. Even though this plankton gives the player more direct control over the music, it isn't exactly a "music maker" type of experience.

This plankton starts with five seperate snake-like plankton on the touch screen. Each one can be described as having a head, body and tail. The heads and tails produce individual sampled sounds, which might include things like a 1-Up mushroom or a voice saying "Up" (you can have the voice say "Up", "Down", "Left" or "Right"). The body sections of each plankton are essentially the individual notes that you can activate by touching them. Each plankton represents a different kind of instrument, with there being several different styles of music (again, pressing Select will allow you to change the musical style). Although there are several different styles of music, Beatnes is all about replicating the kind of music you'd hear in an 8-bit NES game. So it has an old-school flavor to it, which works really well.

The back beat plays automatically and you can join in at any time. As you touch nodes on the planktons' bodies, you'll produce notes. The pitch changes depending on how high or low the node is on the plankton's body. As you activate nodes, Beatnes will essentially queue up your notes and play them back. However, it will only keep playing that note four times after you initially activated it. This means that the music in Beatnes has a very evolutionary aspect to it; you might start with something very simple, move to something more complex and then change back to something more simple. Or, mid-song, you might want to completely change the melody. In that sense, Beatnes is really not like any kind of traditional music creation program. It doesn't allow you to save your song and it doesn't remember the notes past four repeats. Instead - and much like the other plankton - Beatnes is primarily about the process of interacting with the plankton.

I have to say, when I saw Beatnes being demonstrated, I thought that the idea was somewhat boring. But having played it myself, I can tell you that it easily distracts you for several minutes at a time. It's quite easy to get lost in the music with this plankton, both because of its wonderful seamless quality (it's kind of impossible to make something that sounds like an incoherent mess with Beatnes), as well as the fact that it requires constant attention and player input. It's really a perfect little game to play while you're on the bus or train, for example.


Ahh, Volvoice. Sometimes I think that this plankton is pretty useless, but at other times I can't help but be amused by it. Despite this plankton's sheer cuteness, he's apparently the most controversial of the bunch.

Volvoice is the most simple of the plankton in the game. He sits in the center of the screen, with various plankton icons surrounding him. Each icon is a version of Volvoice in a different shape. To interact with him, you simply tap him with the stylus. At this point, he will flash and begin to breath in. As he breathes in, you can talk or make a noise or play a sound. Tap him again when you want to finish recording. Once this is done, Volvoice will faithfully repeat whatever sound you made.

The interesting thing about Volvoice is that he kind of lip-synchs to whatever was said to him. So if you say a sentence, he will faithfully repeat it and his mouth will move with surprising accuracy. Volvoice will continually repeat whatever he recorded, which gives you the opportunity to listen to the recording with a variety of filters. By clicking on one of the icons surrounding him, Volvoice will morph into that shape. Each version of Volvoice will apply a different filter to the recording. In one case, he'll speak your words backwards. In another, he'll say your words very slowly. And in yet another, your words will echo/stutter as he talks.

Pressing Select, or touching the little ball attached to his head will reset Volvoice and he'll be ready to record again.