Chulip
Encyclopedia
, stylized as Chu♥lip, is an adventure
/simulation
video game developed by Punchline
and released on October 3, 2002 in Japan
by Victor Interactive Software
for the PlayStation 2
(PS2) video game console
. After numerous delays, the game was released in North America by Natsume on February 13, 2007 as a GameStop
-exclusive title.
Chulip puts the player in the role of a young man who has just moved to a new town and next door to the girl of his dreams. Although she wants nothing to do with him due to his family's poor economic status, he decides to write her a heartfelt love letter
. When the letter is stolen, it is up to the protagonist to travel around the village and retrieve all of its pieces. The gameplay of Chulip revolves around improving the player's reputation with the citizens in order to access all parts of the town. To do this, the player must impress each member of the community and then kiss them.
Chulip was directed by Yoshirou Kimura, a former employee of Love-de-Lic
. Kimura wanted the game's focus to be on kissing in public, a more Western-accepted custom, within a Japanese setting. Chulip suffered dismal sales, while its overall critical reception has been negative to average. Most reviews cited the game's quirkiness and charm as its strong points yet criticized its tedious gameplay mechanics.
, and acting as a defense lawyer in court. Once the three pieces of the love letter (the ink, paper, and pen) are collected, he writes and mails it to the girl. The game's ending shows the two meeting and kissing beneath the Lover's Tree, as the protagonist had dreamed.
/simulation
game in which the player must improve the hero's reputation in the community of Long Life Town by kissing its various citizens. The player's health
is represented by a number of hearts. To gain more hearts the player has to find and kiss other characters in the game. Finding out how and when to kiss other characters is a puzzle in of itself. The game and each of its non-player character
s (NPCs) follow a 24-hour day schedule. In the daytime, many of the NPCs of the game are walking around the streets. To succeed in kissing an NPC, the player is required to wait for the correct time where they will be happy and press the corresponding button. The player must sometimes complete a certain task for that NPC. Choosing the wrong time to kiss will often result in the player getting hit and losing health. Exploring Long Life Town presents the player with numerous environmental hazards discovered by trial and error
. For instance, attempting to use the town's playground equipment or being suddenly shot at by the night-patrolling policeman will cause instant death. One mission ends in the player being struck by lightning, removing more than ten hearts and resulting in a game over
if the player does not have sufficient health.
Some denizens of Chulip only come out of their underground, living apartments through holes in the ground at certain times of the day. If the player looks through these holes, clues are given in regard to when they come out or when to kiss them. After an NPC comes out of the ground, the player has a very limited opportunity to give them a kiss. If the player successfully kisses enough NPCs and returns home to sleep, the hero's father will recite his progress and the Lover's Tree will give the player more hearts and an improved reputation if he advances. Secondary to improving his reputation, the player must track down all the pieces to the "Love Letter Set" by traveling throughout Long Life Town. As the story progresses, the player gains access to new areas of the game world via train, which include many more underground residents and hazards. Saving takes place in various bathrooms.
. The game took two and a half years to complete after its initial planning; one year and three months were devoted to programming
. Director Yoshirou Kimura started work on the project as he helped his colleagues at Love-de-Lic
finish that company's final game, L.O.L.: Lack of Love
. Production of Chulip began in the earliest days of the PS2
, making it a challenge for the development team who only had experience with the original PlayStation. Kimura valued his team members opinions and ideas while working on it. "It was challenging and interesting at the same time to program a game for a new console," he stated. "We were definitely eager to see what we could do with it." The original idea for Chulip came when Kimura visited Western countries
and saw couples kissing in public
, a custom not often performed among Japanese people. Kimura came up with game's title after attending a party in Tokyo. As the intoxicated partygoers talked about video games, they began to humorously say "chu-shite" (lit. "kiss me"). The title Chulip is a play on words: a cross between chu (the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of a kiss) and the English word lip
.
Kimura eventually spoke with Marvelous Entertainment's Yoshiro Wada about creating a game mixing a "flare of Moon
and Japan a little while ago (say about 40 years ago
)". Kimura wanted Chulip to be localized to show the world certain aspects of Japanese culture and "all the kind of interesting stuff that you can see every day". He also wanted to display a real, modern truancy
problem for Japanese students with the game's cast of underground dwellers. Norikazu Yasunaga designed many of the game's mechanics. According to Kimura, "for efficient procedure,[Yasunaga] set it up so that the personality and the characteristics for each NPC had to be one-by-one". The character designs were done by Ryuji Nouguchi, who used items from Kimura's personal scrapbook and "made them funny". The musical score to Chulip was composed by Hirofumi Taniguchi, another former member of Love-de-Lic. The soundtrack was released by King Records in Japan on a single disc on November 22, 2002. Songs 35 through 44 represent the "Tsurukame Movie Soundtrack", consisting of music for each of the game's short films, while songs 45 and 46 are bonus tracks.
Publisher Natsume licensed the game for a projected North American release in early 2004. The game was then shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that year. Natsume realized early on that it would be an extremely obscure title and thus planned on releasing it at a low retail price. The game was delayed, and Natsume assured that it would be released sometime in 2005. After more delays, Chulip was ultimately released in North America on February 13, 2007, the day before Valentine's Day
, exclusively to GameStop
stores. The North American version was supposed to feature updated graphics and an "accurately meticulous" translation of Japanese text. Natsume claimed that Punchline's busy schedule resulted in such a long delay for the localization and that it also prevented them from making any graphical changes.
. The ambitious gameplay of Chulip has been almost universally criticized. Ray Barnholt of 1UP.com
, Ryan Davis of GameStop
, Micah Seff of IGN
, and Gus Mastrapa of X-Play
all labeled the often-unclear progression presented to the player as "frustrating" and "tedious", requiring an excessive amount of patience. Mustrapa summarized, "Since the game is on 24-hour clock a missed opportunity means having to wait until the next day to take another crack. Add the fact that your inexperienced, young avatar can die from heartbreak, resulting in a 'game over' screen and the loss of unsaved progress and you've got a recipe for annoyance." Barnholt, Davis, and Seff did positively credit Natsume for the inclusion of the mini-strategy guide. Despite faulting the "indistinct objectives", Davis found gratification in successful kisses. "The whole kissing thing is absolutely fantastic in concept," Davis stated, "And there's something unsettling about your character's encouraged promiscuity." However, Game Informer
writer Ben Reeves described the game as one of the most poorly designed games he has ever played due to its lack of in-game direction and frequency of game overs. In January 2008, Game Informer listed Chulip one of the worst games of 2007.
Reviewers have praised Chulip for a charming presentation, quirky characters, and absurd, Japanese humor. Admitting that the game had some blurry or pixelated textures and cramped environments, both Seff and Davis noted the peculiar art style of Chulip to be asethetically pleasing. Seff specifically found the game "surprisingly easy on the eyes" and to feature unique character designs, "wacky" dialogue, and an art style comparable to other titles like the Mother
series and Katamari Damacy
. Davis was amused by the script and the townsfolk's gibberish
speech, and was satisfied with largely a cappella
soundtrack. Seff was unimpressed by the game's audio, remarking the music as "entirely boring".
According to Media Create
information, Chulip sold only 6,645 units during its first week of release in Japan. Despite such low sales, Chulip was re-released in Japan two separate times, first as part of the "Victor the Best" selection on April 24, 2003 and second as part of the "Super Best Collection" on July 6, 2006. Many of Chulips key development members and their design philosophies were carried over to the 2009 Wii
game Little King's Story
. That year, Kimura stated that he would like to make a sequel to Chulip. He was also contemplating creating a version set in an American
location such as The Bronx
with a protagonist that is African-American, Caucasian, or other ethnicity.
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
/simulation
Simulation video game
A simulation video game describes a diverse super-category of computer and video games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.-Sub-genres:-Construction and management simulation:...
video game developed by Punchline
Punchline (company)
Punchline is a Japanese company that develops video games. It was founded by former Love-de-Lic employee Yoshiro Kimura. The company currently has around 25 employees. Kimura currently works for Marvelous Interactive, leaving Punchline's current status in question.-Games:*Chulip - *Rule of Rose -...
and released on October 3, 2002 in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by Victor Interactive Software
Victor Interactive Software
Victor Interactive Software, Inc. was a Japanese video game software publisher and developer, established in 1970-08-03 as a division of Victor Entertainment.In 1996-10-01, Victor Entertainment Inc. merged with Pack-In-Video Co., Ltd...
for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
(PS2) video game console
Video game console
A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or customized computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. After numerous delays, the game was released in North America by Natsume on February 13, 2007 as a GameStop
GameStop
GameStop Corporation is an American video game and entertainment software retailer. The company, whose headquarters is in Grapevine, Texas, United States, operates 6,500 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New...
-exclusive title.
Chulip puts the player in the role of a young man who has just moved to a new town and next door to the girl of his dreams. Although she wants nothing to do with him due to his family's poor economic status, he decides to write her a heartfelt love letter
Love letter
A love letter is a romantic way to express feelings of love in written form. Delivered by hand, by mail or romantically left in a secret location, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation of feelings...
. When the letter is stolen, it is up to the protagonist to travel around the village and retrieve all of its pieces. The gameplay of Chulip revolves around improving the player's reputation with the citizens in order to access all parts of the town. To do this, the player must impress each member of the community and then kiss them.
Chulip was directed by Yoshirou Kimura, a former employee of Love-de-Lic
Love-de-Lic
was a Japanese company that developed video games. It was founded by Kenichi Nishi in 1995. Its staff included many former employees of Square. After producing three adventure games, the company disbanded in 2000, going their separate ways to other small and independent game companies such as skip...
. Kimura wanted the game's focus to be on kissing in public, a more Western-accepted custom, within a Japanese setting. Chulip suffered dismal sales, while its overall critical reception has been negative to average. Most reviews cited the game's quirkiness and charm as its strong points yet criticized its tedious gameplay mechanics.
Plot
Chulip opens with a dream sequence in which the unnamed, male protagonist kisses the girl he loves under the talking "Lover's Tree" on a green hill. The dream takes its course, the tree ends the sequence saying they lived happily ever after. However, once the protagonist wakes up, he and his father are just moving into Long Life Town, which appears very much like a small, Japanese village. Coincidentally, the girl of his dreams lives in this town, but she flatly rejects him due to his status as coming from a very poor family. Taking his father's advice, the hero decides to kiss the odd citizens of the town in order to strengthen his heart and improve his reputation. En route to doing so, he also resolves to write a love letter to his crush. When this treasured set of papers is stolen, he must search Long Life Town for the missing pieces. The hero's journey involves numerous bizarre incidents that lead him to cheating his way to the top of a major corporation, making contact with aliensExtraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
, and acting as a defense lawyer in court. Once the three pieces of the love letter (the ink, paper, and pen) are collected, he writes and mails it to the girl. The game's ending shows the two meeting and kissing beneath the Lover's Tree, as the protagonist had dreamed.
Gameplay
Chulip is an adventureAdventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
/simulation
Simulation video game
A simulation video game describes a diverse super-category of computer and video games, generally designed to closely simulate aspects of a real or fictional reality.-Sub-genres:-Construction and management simulation:...
game in which the player must improve the hero's reputation in the community of Long Life Town by kissing its various citizens. The player's health
Health (gaming)
Health is a game mechanic used in role-playing, computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar....
is represented by a number of hearts. To gain more hearts the player has to find and kiss other characters in the game. Finding out how and when to kiss other characters is a puzzle in of itself. The game and each of its non-player character
Non-player character
A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
s (NPCs) follow a 24-hour day schedule. In the daytime, many of the NPCs of the game are walking around the streets. To succeed in kissing an NPC, the player is required to wait for the correct time where they will be happy and press the corresponding button. The player must sometimes complete a certain task for that NPC. Choosing the wrong time to kiss will often result in the player getting hit and losing health. Exploring Long Life Town presents the player with numerous environmental hazards discovered by trial and error
Trial and error
Trial and error, or trial by error, is a general method of problem solving, fixing things, or for obtaining knowledge."Learning doesn't happen from failure itself but rather from analyzing the failure, making a change, and then trying again."...
. For instance, attempting to use the town's playground equipment or being suddenly shot at by the night-patrolling policeman will cause instant death. One mission ends in the player being struck by lightning, removing more than ten hearts and resulting in a game over
Game over
Game Over is a message in video games which signals that the game has ended, often due to a negative outcome - although the phrase sometimes follows the end credits after successful completion of a game...
if the player does not have sufficient health.
Some denizens of Chulip only come out of their underground, living apartments through holes in the ground at certain times of the day. If the player looks through these holes, clues are given in regard to when they come out or when to kiss them. After an NPC comes out of the ground, the player has a very limited opportunity to give them a kiss. If the player successfully kisses enough NPCs and returns home to sleep, the hero's father will recite his progress and the Lover's Tree will give the player more hearts and an improved reputation if he advances. Secondary to improving his reputation, the player must track down all the pieces to the "Love Letter Set" by traveling throughout Long Life Town. As the story progresses, the player gains access to new areas of the game world via train, which include many more underground residents and hazards. Saving takes place in various bathrooms.
Development
Chulip was developed by a team of 12 to 14 people at PunchlinePunchline (company)
Punchline is a Japanese company that develops video games. It was founded by former Love-de-Lic employee Yoshiro Kimura. The company currently has around 25 employees. Kimura currently works for Marvelous Interactive, leaving Punchline's current status in question.-Games:*Chulip - *Rule of Rose -...
. The game took two and a half years to complete after its initial planning; one year and three months were devoted to programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
. Director Yoshirou Kimura started work on the project as he helped his colleagues at Love-de-Lic
Love-de-Lic
was a Japanese company that developed video games. It was founded by Kenichi Nishi in 1995. Its staff included many former employees of Square. After producing three adventure games, the company disbanded in 2000, going their separate ways to other small and independent game companies such as skip...
finish that company's final game, L.O.L.: Lack of Love
L.O.L.: Lack of Love
L.O.L.: Lack of Love, or simply Lack of Love, is an evolutionary adventure game developed by Love-de-Lic and published by ASCII Entertainment for the Sega Dreamcast...
. Production of Chulip began in the earliest days of the PS2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, making it a challenge for the development team who only had experience with the original PlayStation. Kimura valued his team members opinions and ideas while working on it. "It was challenging and interesting at the same time to program a game for a new console," he stated. "We were definitely eager to see what we could do with it." The original idea for Chulip came when Kimura visited Western countries
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
and saw couples kissing in public
Public display of affection
Public displays of affection are acts of physical intimacy in the view of others. What are acceptable displays of affection vary between cultures as well as to time and context. Which acts are acceptable have also varied over time...
, a custom not often performed among Japanese people. Kimura came up with game's title after attending a party in Tokyo. As the intoxicated partygoers talked about video games, they began to humorously say "chu-shite" (lit. "kiss me"). The title Chulip is a play on words: a cross between chu (the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of a kiss) and the English word lip
Lip
Lips are a visible body part at the mouth of humans and many animals. Lips are soft, movable, and serve as the opening for food intake and in the articulation of sound and speech...
.
Kimura eventually spoke with Marvelous Entertainment's Yoshiro Wada about creating a game mixing a "flare of Moon
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure
, usually referred to simply as Moon, is a 1997 role-playing game developed by Love-de-Lic and published by ASCII Entertainment. The game was first released on October 16, 1997, and was re-released as part of the PlayStation the Best line on November 5, 1998...
and Japan a little while ago (say about 40 years ago
Showa period
The , or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of the Shōwa Emperor, Hirohito, from December 25, 1926 through January 7, 1989.The Shōwa period was longer than the reign of any previous Japanese emperor...
)". Kimura wanted Chulip to be localized to show the world certain aspects of Japanese culture and "all the kind of interesting stuff that you can see every day". He also wanted to display a real, modern truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...
problem for Japanese students with the game's cast of underground dwellers. Norikazu Yasunaga designed many of the game's mechanics. According to Kimura, "for efficient procedure,
Publisher Natsume licensed the game for a projected North American release in early 2004. The game was then shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo that year. Natsume realized early on that it would be an extremely obscure title and thus planned on releasing it at a low retail price. The game was delayed, and Natsume assured that it would be released sometime in 2005. After more delays, Chulip was ultimately released in North America on February 13, 2007, the day before Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day
Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
, exclusively to GameStop
GameStop
GameStop Corporation is an American video game and entertainment software retailer. The company, whose headquarters is in Grapevine, Texas, United States, operates 6,500 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New...
stores. The North American version was supposed to feature updated graphics and an "accurately meticulous" translation of Japanese text. Natsume claimed that Punchline's busy schedule resulted in such a long delay for the localization and that it also prevented them from making any graphical changes.
Reception and legacy
Chulip received mostly poor to average critical scores upon its release in North America. The game currently holds a 57% on the aggregate websites GameRankings and MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. The ambitious gameplay of Chulip has been almost universally criticized. Ray Barnholt of 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
, Ryan Davis of GameStop
GameStop
GameStop Corporation is an American video game and entertainment software retailer. The company, whose headquarters is in Grapevine, Texas, United States, operates 6,500 retail stores throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New...
, Micah Seff of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, and Gus Mastrapa of X-Play
X-Play
X-Play is a TV program about video games, known for its reviews and comedy skits...
all labeled the often-unclear progression presented to the player as "frustrating" and "tedious", requiring an excessive amount of patience. Mustrapa summarized, "Since the game is on 24-hour clock a missed opportunity means having to wait until the next day to take another crack. Add the fact that your inexperienced, young avatar can die from heartbreak, resulting in a 'game over' screen and the loss of unsaved progress and you've got a recipe for annoyance." Barnholt, Davis, and Seff did positively credit Natsume for the inclusion of the mini-strategy guide. Despite faulting the "indistinct objectives", Davis found gratification in successful kisses. "The whole kissing thing is absolutely fantastic in concept," Davis stated, "And there's something unsettling about your character's encouraged promiscuity." However, Game Informer
Game Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
writer Ben Reeves described the game as one of the most poorly designed games he has ever played due to its lack of in-game direction and frequency of game overs. In January 2008, Game Informer listed Chulip one of the worst games of 2007.
Reviewers have praised Chulip for a charming presentation, quirky characters, and absurd, Japanese humor. Admitting that the game had some blurry or pixelated textures and cramped environments, both Seff and Davis noted the peculiar art style of Chulip to be asethetically pleasing. Seff specifically found the game "surprisingly easy on the eyes" and to feature unique character designs, "wacky" dialogue, and an art style comparable to other titles like the Mother
EarthBound (series)
EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother, is a role-playing game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother for the Famicom, and was then followed up by a sequel, released in North America as EarthBound for the Super NES in 1995, and...
series and Katamari Damacy
Katamari Damacy
Katamari Damacy is a third-person puzzle-action video game that is published and developed by Namco for the PlayStation 2 video game console. It was first released in Japan, and then later in South Korea and North America...
. Davis was amused by the script and the townsfolk's gibberish
Gibberish
Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
speech, and was satisfied with largely a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
soundtrack. Seff was unimpressed by the game's audio, remarking the music as "entirely boring".
According to Media Create
Media Create
is a Japanese company that "gathers and analyzes data from the digital entertainment industry, specifically focusing on the Japanese console gaming market...
information, Chulip sold only 6,645 units during its first week of release in Japan. Despite such low sales, Chulip was re-released in Japan two separate times, first as part of the "Victor the Best" selection on April 24, 2003 and second as part of the "Super Best Collection" on July 6, 2006. Many of Chulips key development members and their design philosophies were carried over to the 2009 Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
game Little King's Story
Little King's Story
is a life simulation/role-playing video game co-developed by Cing and Town Factory for the Wii. The game was published by Rising Star Games in PAL regions on April 24, 2009, by Xseed Games in North America on July 21, 2009, and by Marvelous Entertainment in Japan on September 3, 2009.The player...
. That year, Kimura stated that he would like to make a sequel to Chulip. He was also contemplating creating a version set in an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
location such as The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
with a protagonist that is African-American, Caucasian, or other ethnicity.