L.O.L.: Lack of Love
Encyclopedia
L.O.L.: Lack of Love, or simply Lack of Love, is an evolution
ary adventure game
developed by Love-de-Lic
and published by ASCII Entertainment
for the Sega
Dreamcast. The game was released exclusively in Japan on November 2, 2000.
ic terraforming
. The player must cause the creature to evolve into a new form by communicating with other living creatures, establishing symbiotic relationships
with them, and thus helping them. The game is non-linear, lacking a HUD
almost entirely and requiring the player to simply remain alive. This can be done by helping, or eating other creatures, as well as performing various bodily functions including sleeping
and urinating
.
. It was directed by Kenichi Nishi
and produced by Hiroshi Suzuki. The game was designed by Keita Eto and Yoshiro Kimura, the latter of whom had already left Love-de-Lic and began working on other projects with his company Punchline
. The musical score for L.O.L.: Lack of Love was created by film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
, who was also the game's scenario writer. Nishi and Sakamoto met at Club Eden
via a mutual friend and, through a series of e-mails, began discussing James Lovelock
’s Gaia hypothesis
. This theory states that the earth's living organisms function in harmony and respond to ecological changes in order for the planet to sustain life. “We should care for other people, life, the environment and nature,” Nishi explained about the game's message. “Sakamoto came up with the title. We wanted to question the way in which our lifestyle lacks love.”
The team first considered developing the game for the PlayStation, but Nishi was convinced by Sega's president to develop it for the Dreamcast beginning in 1998. Nishi intended to communicate the game's themes without text or voices. This was done by setting the scene with a long opening sequence and utilizing various puzzles akin to a point-and-click adventure game
. A communication system between the organisms consisting of sound and movement was used due to the Dreamcast's inability to perform graphical facial expressions. It was Nishi's idea to implement a cycle of eating and excreting. One of the player character's evolutionary forms resembles a black-and-white puppy, which is based on Nishi's real-life dog Tao. Sakamoto's 13-track score is made up of only abstract, synthesized electronic music with most of the songs composed to evoke a sense of a sadness or loneliness in the listener. The soundtrack was released on a single disc in Japan by Warner Music Japan
on November 8, 2000.
gave L.O.L.: Lack of Love scores of 9, 6, 6, and 8 for a total of 29 out of 40. Robert Florence
of the Scottish web series Consolevania
described the game was "effortlessly one of the best games on the Dreamcast" due to the number of ambitious ideas present and the unique concept that binds these ideas together. The staff at Computer and Video Games
was also impressed by its originality and described the soundtrack as "one of videogaming's finest audio moments". Despite having no language barrier, Anoop Gantayat of IGN
was unsure of the game's overall message. Gantayat questioned, "Your long-term goal in the game? To live, apparently - at least that's what the instruction manual says. Your short term goal? To advance to the next field of play, I presume."
L.O.L.: Lack of Love sold poorly at Japanese retail. GamesTM
suggests that it was not picked up for either North America or European release because its “theme and setting certainly separate it from the bankable generic titles that clog up most of the top ten in any given year.” The magazine considered L.O.L.: Lack of Love as "one of the Dreamcast's best-kept secrets" and a collector's item that currently fetches high prices on auction websites. Nishi has expressed interest in remaking the game. “If I have a chance, I would like to remake LOL for another console and release it again," the director elaborated. “I believe Lack of Love would be accepted more widely now because we are more seriously dealing with climate change and global warming
.”
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary adventure game
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,...
developed by 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...
and published by ASCII Entertainment
ASCII (company)
was a publishing company based in Tokyo, Japan. It became a subsidiary of Kadokawa Group Holdings in 2004, and merged with another Kadokawa subsidiary MediaWorks on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works. The company published Monthly ASCII as the main publication...
for the Sega
Sega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
Dreamcast. The game was released exclusively in Japan on November 2, 2000.
Gameplay
The gameplay of L.O.L.: Lack of Love revolves around the player's control of a single creature placed on an alien planet during robotRobot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
ic terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
. The player must cause the creature to evolve into a new form by communicating with other living creatures, establishing symbiotic relationships
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
with them, and thus helping them. The game is non-linear, lacking a HUD
HUD (video gaming)
In video gaming, the HUD is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player as part of a game's user interface...
almost entirely and requiring the player to simply remain alive. This can be done by helping, or eating other creatures, as well as performing various bodily functions including sleeping
Sleep
Sleep is a naturally recurring state characterized by reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity, and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscles. It is distinguished from quiet wakefulness by a decreased ability to react to stimuli, and is more easily reversible than...
and urinating
Urination
Urination, also known as micturition, voiding, peeing, weeing, pissing, and more rarely, emiction, is the ejection of urine from the urinary bladder through the urethra to the outside of the body. In healthy humans the process of urination is under voluntary control...
.
Development
L.O.L.: Lack of Love is the last in a trio of games developed by Love-de-LicLove-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...
. It was directed by Kenichi Nishi
Kenichi Nishi
is a Japanese video game designer. He was born June 20, 1967 in Tokyo, Japan. Over the years, he has helped found a number of notable video game companies and currently develops games at Route24, his own private limited company...
and produced by Hiroshi Suzuki. The game was designed by Keita Eto and Yoshiro Kimura, the latter of whom had already left Love-de-Lic and began working on other projects with his company 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 -...
. The musical score for L.O.L.: Lack of Love was created by film composer Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto
After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as...
, who was also the game's scenario writer. Nishi and Sakamoto met at Club Eden
Club Eden
Club Eden was the first electronic dance music club in Africa. Located at 54 Waterkant street in Cape Town, South Africa.Eden opened 1990 on Friday 29th of November and ran for only one successful season, introducing a new era in nightlife for South Africa...
via a mutual friend and, through a series of e-mails, began discussing James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
’s Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
. This theory states that the earth's living organisms function in harmony and respond to ecological changes in order for the planet to sustain life. “We should care for other people, life, the environment and nature,” Nishi explained about the game's message. “Sakamoto came up with the title. We wanted to question the way in which our lifestyle lacks love.”
The team first considered developing the game for the PlayStation, but Nishi was convinced by Sega's president to develop it for the Dreamcast beginning in 1998. Nishi intended to communicate the game's themes without text or voices. This was done by setting the scene with a long opening sequence and utilizing various puzzles akin to a point-and-click adventure game
Graphic adventure game
A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
. A communication system between the organisms consisting of sound and movement was used due to the Dreamcast's inability to perform graphical facial expressions. It was Nishi's idea to implement a cycle of eating and excreting. One of the player character's evolutionary forms resembles a black-and-white puppy, which is based on Nishi's real-life dog Tao. Sakamoto's 13-track score is made up of only abstract, synthesized electronic music with most of the songs composed to evoke a sense of a sadness or loneliness in the listener. The soundtrack was released on a single disc in Japan by Warner Music Japan
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
on November 8, 2000.
Reception and legacy
The four reviewer panel of the Japanese magazine FamitsuFamitsu
is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Enterbrain, Inc. and Tokuma. Currently, there are five Famitsū magazines: Shūkan Famitsū, Famitsū PS3 + PSP, Famitsū Xbox 360, Famitsū Wii+DS, and Famitsū Wave DVD...
gave L.O.L.: Lack of Love scores of 9, 6, 6, and 8 for a total of 29 out of 40. Robert Florence
Robert Florence
Robert Florence is a Scottish presenter, comedian and writer from Glasgow, Scotland, best known for starring in the popular BBC comedy sketch show Burnistoun, and the video-game review shows Consolevania and Videogaiden. He was a core writer of Chewin' the Fat and with Iain Connell wrote the...
of the Scottish web series Consolevania
Consolevania
Consolevania is a video games TV show filmed in and around Glasgow, Scotland. It is notable as one of very few online TV shows to make the leap onto broadcast TV as the show videoGaiden, which has had three series shown on BBC Scotland....
described the game was "effortlessly one of the best games on the Dreamcast" due to the number of ambitious ideas present and the unique concept that binds these ideas together. The staff at Computer and Video Games
Computer and video games
A video game is an electronic game that involves human interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. The word video in video game traditionally referred to a raster display device, but following popularization of the term "video game", it now implies any type of...
was also impressed by its originality and described the soundtrack as "one of videogaming's finest audio moments". Despite having no language barrier, Anoop Gantayat 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...
was unsure of the game's overall message. Gantayat questioned, "Your long-term goal in the game? To live, apparently - at least that's what the instruction manual says. Your short term goal? To advance to the next field of play, I presume."
L.O.L.: Lack of Love sold poorly at Japanese retail. GamesTM
GamesTM
GamesTM is a UK-based, multi-format video games magazine, covering many video game platforms including PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation 2, PC games, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Arcade machines...
suggests that it was not picked up for either North America or European release because its “theme and setting certainly separate it from the bankable generic titles that clog up most of the top ten in any given year.” The magazine considered L.O.L.: Lack of Love as "one of the Dreamcast's best-kept secrets" and a collector's item that currently fetches high prices on auction websites. Nishi has expressed interest in remaking the game. “If I have a chance, I would like to remake LOL for another console and release it again," the director elaborated. “I believe Lack of Love would be accepted more widely now because we are more seriously dealing with climate change and global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
.”