Introduction
Lack of Love was released November of 2000 by Love-De-Lic for the Sega Dreamcast console. Directed by Kenichi Nishi, it was a joint project with his friend, Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Ryuichi Sakamoto is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, and actor, who played keyboards for the influential Yellow Magic Orchestra, among many other projects. He composed and performed a 13-song soundtrack for Lack of Love, with instruments ranging from a real music box, to a foot-pump organ. I'll be providing links to the individual tracks as the game progresses, as well - it's really quite atmospheric.
One of the neatest things about this game is the fact that there's no dialogue. None. The only text is in the pause menu, and it's just listing the commands you can do, and the names of certain creatures in the area. That's it!
Here we see the L.O.L. Rocket finding a new world, the robot Halumi bringing it in for a landing, and beginning the terraforming process.
We start off as a tiny, 4-limbed bug-like creature.
Our initial set of abilities are:
A) Attack/Eat/Shout
B) Sleep
X) Greet
Y) Urinate
Yes, that's right. The game has a dedicated button for pissing on things.
--Creatures--
The three named creatures in this area are:
Bibirikaranozoki - Blue shelled, two-legged creature. Hides in its shell when threatened.
Amekirai - Tiny green caterpillar. Gets upset when rained upon.
Mukadekowai - Two-legged green insect. Constantly attacked by a larger insect.
There's also three more creatures in this area- a large red insect that looks like a weevil, the stick-like insect that beats up the Mukadekowai, and some large, centipede-looking creatures that hatch after evolving.
--Music in this area--
01 - Opening Theme
Ryuichi Sakamoto posted:
This was done very quickly. The sadness that comes from a "lack of love". It's intended to include the sadness of losing the environment as well. It's a very sentimental piece, but I expected that since it would be combined with a computer game, it would evoke some strangeness as well.
Ryuichi Sakamoto posted:
This was also done very quickly. I had the image of life starting from a fertilized egg. But I also wanted to evoke the coldness of artificial life.
Ryuichi Sakamoto posted:
Yearning. Sadness. I wrote a new piece, and then had that made to be played on a music box. That's the first time I ever did that. Music boxes are great, aren't they?