“Beatnes” is probably the most fun and the most flexible in terms of creating actual music, and I’m guessing the section that people will want to spend the most time with. A loop of backing music plays while you improvise individual notes and sound effects over top. These are then repeated back at regular intervals so you can build on them… not unlike using a delay pedal on a guitar.
The problem with Electroplankton, I think, is not that it lacks the challenges or goals of a typical video game. Rather, the problem is that there is not enough structure to allow people to create real songs with it. The game will attract budding musicians who want to actually use the plankton to compose their own original pieces, but far too much of the end result is left up to randomness.
Something like “Luminaria” (a grid of arrows with plankton following the directions of the arrows to strike notes) could be really powerful if it wasn’t so unwieldy to control. “Beatnes” is the most structured of all the installments, but since you’re only provided with 4 options for backing music (most of which come from NES games like Super Mario Bros and Kid Icarus), your creativity is a severely limited (not to mention, slightly hampered by copyright issues).
You also can’t play with any of the modules simultaneously or combine their sounds in any way short of recording it on your computer and doing some mixing after the fact. I have to agree with all of the other reviews I’ve read that said a save feature would be helpful to the creative process. Considering how random some of the music is, it’s pretty damn tough to repeat something twice.
To top it off, the visuals just aren’t all that brilliant in my opinion. For a title that is supposed to be full-blown multimedia art experience, there really isn’t all that much to look at aside from your basic on-screen controls. I was thinking Electroplankton would have the equivalent of a Winamp or Windows Media Player visualization — some kind of psychedelic animated display that reacts to the sounds.
Article comments