Every Sunday, I'll try to post a new game that has been overlooked in the shuffle.
Turning The Spigot: The Obscure Game Awareness Column - Week 13
Posted 10-05-2008 at 08:33 PM by Spigot
Grab your dream girl (or guy) and pucker up. It's time for Turning The Spigot: The Obscure Game Awareness thread.
This week, we're falling in love all over again with
Chulip
Platform: PS2
Year: 2007
Rating: Lovable
Ah, Chulip. The inspiration for this entire thread series and a game that sets the bar for random insanity in a videogame. Where to begin?
Ok. Here's the premise of Chulip in a nutshell. You're this kid who dreams that he is kissing the girl of his dreams under Lover's Tree at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, you wake up and realize that you're just moving into town and when you meet the girl of your dreams, she puts the brakes on your romantic moves before you can say, "Pucker up!"
It turns out that you're not only the newest resident of town, but also the poorest. The majority of the game involves you doing tasks for the variety of oddball characters who populate the town and ultimately writing the ultimate love letter for your main squeeze. You'll solve mysteries, do odd jobs and kiss everyone in town.
Yes, I said kiss. Chulip eschews the standard attacks of most adventure/RPGs in favour of a strange kissing 'attack'. A large part of the game's strategy involves figuring out the schedules of the residents and what goals need to be fulfilled in order to lull them into a state where they will allow you to kiss them. Kissing the wrong person at the wrong time will usually involve you getting a smack or worse.
Despite its innocuous mechanics (what could be less dangerous than kissing everyone in town?) Chulip has a punishing learning curve, at least near the beginning of the game when you only have a few hearts on your health bar and haven't grasped the surreal workings of the town. Once the player has invested a bit of time, however, the game allows for a bit more experimentation for how you can pull off each kiss and more environments open up outside of town.
If this seems strange, it is... but the kissing is probably the most normal aspect of the game. Chulip exudes that wonderful kind of random wierdness that only Japanese game developers seem to be able to pull off. Everything from the art style to the bizarre behaviours of the people in town vibrates at a frequency between creepy and hilarious, and that's not even mentioning the second set of residents who live underground in their own little caves.
Here's a kind of a greatest hits of kissing:
Chulip is a delightful break from the 'Me Too!' school of game design that pervades the industry. It is also unlike any other game I've ever played... in a good way!
You can find Chulip at Amazon for about $10. And yeah, the NA box art isn't anywhere near as awesome as the Japanese stuff.
This week, we're falling in love all over again with
Chulip
Platform: PS2
Year: 2007
Rating: Lovable
Ah, Chulip. The inspiration for this entire thread series and a game that sets the bar for random insanity in a videogame. Where to begin?
Ok. Here's the premise of Chulip in a nutshell. You're this kid who dreams that he is kissing the girl of his dreams under Lover's Tree at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, you wake up and realize that you're just moving into town and when you meet the girl of your dreams, she puts the brakes on your romantic moves before you can say, "Pucker up!"
It turns out that you're not only the newest resident of town, but also the poorest. The majority of the game involves you doing tasks for the variety of oddball characters who populate the town and ultimately writing the ultimate love letter for your main squeeze. You'll solve mysteries, do odd jobs and kiss everyone in town.
Yes, I said kiss. Chulip eschews the standard attacks of most adventure/RPGs in favour of a strange kissing 'attack'. A large part of the game's strategy involves figuring out the schedules of the residents and what goals need to be fulfilled in order to lull them into a state where they will allow you to kiss them. Kissing the wrong person at the wrong time will usually involve you getting a smack or worse.
Despite its innocuous mechanics (what could be less dangerous than kissing everyone in town?) Chulip has a punishing learning curve, at least near the beginning of the game when you only have a few hearts on your health bar and haven't grasped the surreal workings of the town. Once the player has invested a bit of time, however, the game allows for a bit more experimentation for how you can pull off each kiss and more environments open up outside of town.
If this seems strange, it is... but the kissing is probably the most normal aspect of the game. Chulip exudes that wonderful kind of random wierdness that only Japanese game developers seem to be able to pull off. Everything from the art style to the bizarre behaviours of the people in town vibrates at a frequency between creepy and hilarious, and that's not even mentioning the second set of residents who live underground in their own little caves.
Here's a kind of a greatest hits of kissing:
Chulip is a delightful break from the 'Me Too!' school of game design that pervades the industry. It is also unlike any other game I've ever played... in a good way!
You can find Chulip at Amazon for about $10. And yeah, the NA box art isn't anywhere near as awesome as the Japanese stuff.
Total Comments 2
Comments
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3.5 years later, I add a comment. This is one of my all time favorites, even though I will readily admit it is a pretty bad "game" (some puzzles are so arbitrary they are really impossible to solve without a walkthrough), and the save system is terrible. But the style -- the game oozes with style and bizarre wtf humor. It is unforgettable.
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Posted 04-21-2012 at 09:20 PM by danhoo
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Yay. Someone still reads these!
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Posted 04-22-2012 at 04:55 PM by Spigot
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