Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS
Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS is my 8-year-old daughter's current favorite obsession. It's not a game. I would describe it as a music synthesizer with cool animation. It will record your voice or accept input from your stylus to produce wonderfully weird music.
Even though it's hard to explain exactly what Electroplankton is, the interface is so easy to use, and the results so immediate and pleasing, everyone I show it to becomes instantly charmed by it.
The one sad thing is that you can't save your favorite creations. That's too bad, because I think this could become a legitimate musical instrument. $34.99 on Amazon
Comments
I imported this a few months ago, and while I still bust it out every couple of weeks my four year old sister is in love with it. She's always bugging me to let her play the "Fishy Game," and is currently playing around with the two that let you record sounds. I think that this is something that everyone should play with, even if they don't buy it.
Posted by: Dylan Moeller | January 23, 2006 6:03 PM
Via wikipedia, this chap makes music composed by using Electroplankton as the primary instrument: http://www.funender.com/music/bands/4866/music.php
:-)
P
Posted by: Pierre Nel | January 27, 2006 5:31 AM
I read somewhere that the guy who designed Electroplanktan also designed this musical instrument as well. Toshio Iwai, along with Yamaha has created something unique called Tenori-On. It is a square with different lights and each light acts as button to produce sound. I can't wait to get one!
Check it - http://www.global.yamaha.com/design/tenori-on/swf/index.html
:) T
Posted by: todd | February 1, 2006 12:41 PM
I too love this musical toy, as do all my kids 16, 11, 5 years old. If you want something similar (musical toy) that you can save go to
http://www.h-lounge.com/index.php
this is Hyperscore which I saw on Scientific American on PBS created by some students at MIT. Try it out it free and fun, and you can get scores to load and play.
Posted by: Chris Heinzmann | February 6, 2006 3:03 PM
Actually, I'm a musician who has written a number of tutorials for using EP as an instrument.
www.milezero.org/index.cgi/gaming/society/art/composing_with_electroplankton_toc.html
Posted by: Thomas | February 7, 2006 2:12 PM
And since when have guitars or flutes had a "save" button? The fact that you can't save makes this even more interesting and abstract.
Posted by: Jimbob | July 24, 2006 5:04 PM
Well... the M3 ( http://www.m3adapter.com/ ) lets you take a snapshot of any DS game in real time; there's no reason it wouldn't work with this title.
Posted by: Jack | July 24, 2006 6:37 PM
Based on your review, I bought this, and really love it. Thanks Mark.
Posted by: Chippy | July 26, 2006 7:02 AM