Well, I realise this one’s been reported pretty much everywhere else by now, but it’s still Goddamn exciting for anyone into gaming and music. Toshio Iwai is a Japanese multimedia artist. He’s always focused on the idea that people without musical training should be able to make music. He’s also worked on a number of videogames, the first of which was Otocky, a…musical shoot ‘em up, I guess, for the Nintendo Famicom Disk System. Otocky is, seriously, one of the best shmups I’ve ever played, and definitely my favourite NES shmup. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing in it, but it looks great, and sounds amazing. It is absolutely mesmerising. Good luck finding a copy of it, or even a ROM, though. You could try peer to peer, but I’ve never known of a copy to be on any ROM sites. I’m holding out for a Virtual Console release on the Wii (hopefully translated too!), but I don’t think it’s that likely.
Next up was Sound Fantasy, which was intended to be the release game for the SNES mouse, but Nintendo pulled out at the last minute, and put Mario Paint on the shelves instead. The game was, by all reports, completely finished - box art, instruction manual, the whole deal. Unfortunately, it never saw the light of day, and a neither a prototype nor a ROM of the game has turned up either, though elements of Sound Fantasy did turn up in Iwai’s Maxis project, SimTunes. Reportedly, the box and manual were displayed at a Nintendo event celebrating Iwai, but the game has been officially classed as “lost”. Another candidate for Virtual Console resurection?
His latest release was the critically acclaimed Electroplankton, for the DS. Not strictly a videogame, the title allows players to interact with animated plankton to create music and…well, that’s about it. Electroplankton was released in April 2005 in Japan, and has seen a PAL release as of this month, but I’m struggling to find a copy here in Adelaide. Not that it’s really surprising, given the state of DS game availability here…
And now Iwai has released news of the Tenori-On, an instrument created with the aid of Yamaha. It’s a 16×16 matrix of LEDs that are strummed, poked and prodded by the user, creating ripples of light, and loops of sound. It’s pretty much the epitome of Iwai’s philosophies. Says the man himself:
I want to handle both light and sound simultaneously and pleasantly, as we play music or draw pictures.
He’s described it as “a music instrument for the future”, citing the fact that the design and interface are as important as the ease of use, and the production of sound. It’s a cool set of ideals, and what’s more, it sounds great too, albeit very similar to Electroplankton. You can hear some samples from it at the official site. Iwai has even been touring Europe over the past month, playing concerts using both the Tenori-On and multiple copies of Electroplankton, finishing up in Manchester last Friday. Unfortunately, the Tenori-On is still under development, and there’s no word of a release date.
Incidentally, I’ll try and put up some tracks from Otocky in the next few days, for anyone who’s interested.