, titled ''Sound Factory'' during development, is an unreleased

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...

for the Super NES/Super Famicom. Designer

Toshio Iwai is a Japanese interactive media and installation artist who has also created a number of commercial video games. In addition he has worked in television, music performance, museum design and digital musical instrument design. Education and earl ...

was inspired by his earlier interactive installation art piece titled ''Music Insects'', to develop a video game at Nintendo between 1993 and late 1994. The completed product was never released by Nintendo, and the game's key elements were later developed into Maxis's 1996 PC game ''

SimTunes ''SimTunes'' is a children's software toy designed by Toshio Iwai and released by Maxis in 1996. It involves painting a picture using large pixels, where each color represents a musical note. The player places up to four different-colored Bugz, w ...

''.

History

Interactive media artist

had built the

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

piece ''Music Insects'', which he created during his time as an Artist in Residence at the San Francisco

Exploratorium The Exploratorium is a museum of science, technology, and arts in San Francisco, California. Characterized as "a mad scientist's penny arcade, a scientific funhouse, and an experimental laboratory all rolled into one", the participatory natu ...

. Iwai's friend at Nintendo approached him, to convert his ''Music Insects'' concept into a video game in 1993. There, it was expanded into a four-piece product: one game and three creative titles. During its development from 1993 to 1994, it was previewed in several trade magazines with the name ''Sound Factory''. A trademark for the name "Sound Fantasy" was filed by

Nintendo of America is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing card ...

on January 13, 1994 and abandoned on January 24, 1999. The resulting Super NES game ''Sound Fantasy'' was completed in 1994 and Iwai left his work at Nintendo in favor of another art residency. The September 1994 issue of ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' expected the game's release in September. It was intended to be bundled with the SNES Mouse and mouse pad (or for ¥6,800 alone) and would be packaged in a large box similar to Super NES games like ''

Mario Paint is a video game developed by Nintendo and Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1992. It is packaged with the Super NES Mouse peripheral. Gameplay According to the manual, two parts of ...

'' and ''

EarthBound ''EarthBound'', released in Japan as is a role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The second entry in the ''Mother'' series, it was first releas ...

''. Though planned for worldwide release, the release of the finished product was canceled by

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

for unknown reasons. In April 2005, to celebrate the Japanese launch of Toshio Iwai's latest work, ''

Electroplankton is an interactive music video game developed by indieszero and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan in 2005, and was later released in North America and Europe in 2006. This game ...

'' for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo opened an exhibit at

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

Harajuku Station is a railway station in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The station takes its name from the area on its eastern side, Harajuku. Lines This station is served by the circular Yamanote Line. It is also adj ...

to focus on the new game and on Iwai himself. Nintendo made available for perusal the box art and manual for ''Sound Fantasy'', but the game was not present. In August 2010, an exhibit titled ''The Man Called 'The God of Games was shown in

Harajuku is a district in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Harajuku is the common name given to a geographic area spreading from Harajuku Station to Omotesando, corresponding on official maps of Shibuya ward as Jingūmae 1 chōme to 4 chōme. In popular refere ...

in honor of

Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese video game designer. He was a long-time Nintendo employee, best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the original designer of the ...

(producer of ''Sound Fantasy''). As part of this exhibit, Toshio Iwai hosted his own presentation called "The Genes of Gunpei Yokoi Inside of Me" where he displayed his works that had been inspired by Gunpei Yokoi: the

Tenori-on The Yamaha Tenori-on is an electronic musical instrument designed and created by the Japanese artist Toshio Iwai and Yu Nishibori of the Music and Human Interface Group at the Yamaha Center for Advanced Sound Technology. Description The Tenor ...

musical instrument and the ''Sound Fantasy'' music game. Iwai brought the game cartridge and played it. A prototype version of the game was leaked online in April 2015.

Gameplay

''Sound Fantasy'' contains eccentric concepts and untested game mechanics. Music games, especially on

home consoles A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...

, were not popular in the early 1990s, and it wouldn't be until much later in the decade that they gained mainstream attention. The ''Sound Fantasy'' prototype contains four different games in one cartridge. ''Pix Quartet'' was inspired by Toshio Iwai's ''Music Insects''. There are four insects of different colors, where the player can select different insect to each represent a different instrument. They crawl all over the screen, where the player can draw. Insects that crawl over a colored pixel make a note. Each color represents a different note for each insects. Sample Demos can be loaded to demonstrate the capabilities of this game. ''Beat Hopper'' contains three different modes: A-type, B-type and Training. A-type is a rhythm game in the style of ''

Q-bert ''Q*bert'' (also known as ''Qbert'') is an arcade video game developed and published for the North American market by Gottlieb in 1982. It is a Video game graphics, 2D action game with Puzzle video game, puzzle elements that uses Isometric video ...

'', where an insect on a pogo must make every block disappear after stepping on it as many times needed. Each block makes its own sound and the order does not matter. The player can improvise a song with each block. B-type requires the player to follow a path of blocks that appears every time the player touches one. The player must make as many steps as possible without losing three lives. ''Ice Sweeper'' indicates two modes: A-type and B-type. This game is a ''Breakout'' clone with a few new twists added after a few stages, such as four bats controlled by a single player. ''Star Fly'' is inspired by

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'' ...

es, where the player can set a sequence of stars in the sky, to compose a song. A higher star corresponds to a higher musical note. The player may set the speed and the tone.

Reception

''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' said in 1993 that the prototype of ''Sound Factory'' is an " teresting edutainment game .. similar to ''

''". ''GamePro'' said in 1994, "What ''Mario Paint'' did for video, ''Sound Fantasy'' should do for audio." ''1up'' said that "''Sound Fantasy'' made creative use of the mouse that was eventually released with ''Mario Paint'' ... nd isessentially, a music-focused version of ''Mario Paint''."

Legacy

Having been inspired by their own independent discovery of the ''Music Insects'' art installation exhibit, Maxis eventually approached Toshio Iwai, and his gameplay elements seen in ''Pix Quartet'' were finally published in the form of the 1996 PC game ''

''.

References

External links