Nululu Online (partially found Thai massively multiplayer online role-playing game; 2005-2007)

Nululu Logo

Status: Partially Found

Nululu Online (นูลูลู่) was a fantasy MMORPG for PCs and Symbian mobile phones from Thailand. It was published by the game company Secondsoft (เซคเคิ้ลซอฟ์ต) and internet service provider Ji-NET. The game was noted for being the first cross-play online game from the country.^[1] It was launched in April 2005 and shutdown approximately two years later. Its mascots originally appeared in the 2003 mobile game Nululu Dice and its 2004 sequel.^[2]

Summary

Incorporating JRPG and virtual pet elements, the game features playable ghost-like creatures, with the males called nu and the females called lulu. There were eight different types to choose from: Jinny (cyan), Speedo (yellow), Kiku (Blue), Ula (red), Zaa (purple), Mikan (orange), Alibaba (green), and Mohalk (pink).

Players could nurture their character and give it a customizable home. Some furnishings added by the player enhance the character's stats. There was a job system where the player assigns their character to certain tasks depending on its stats and could work while the player is away.^[3] The initial setting is a world under a giant tree named Daronpyra. Other inhabitants include bearded humanoid NPCs as well as enemy monsters.

The game had websites in Thai and English; it's unlikely the game was released in English. It had four members on its development team.^[4]

Nululu Online won the Best Symbian Game award at Thailand Animation and Multimedia 2006.^[5]

Closure and legacy

While it's unknown when precisely the game had shut down, the game's homepage last received an update on January 25, 2007. This came six months after a hard drive accident that wiped out most of the players' data.^[6] The Nululu website was shut down by the early 2010s, with the Secondsoft website vanishing during or after 2015 following years of dormancy. Downloads for both mobile and PC versions have been preserved on the Internet Archive; the PC client (albeit at the login screen) can be launched on a modern Windows PC.^[7] There have been few surviving video clips and GIFs that depict gameplay.

Despite the game's termination, its characters continued to appear in several mobile games, including those for smartphones down the road, and Nululu and Secondsoft pages were established on Facebook. In 2012, the Nululu Facebook page unveiled a group of Nululu characters with a new art style. These characters were featured in a new animated clip and the 2013 mobile game Nululu Dash, which was apparently only released to give prizes for players with the highest scores.^[8]

In addition, during Nululu Online's tenure, Secondsoft had sold Symbian mobile wallpapers with countless character artworks related to the game; hundreds of these wallpapers were available and previewed at a low resolution with a "SAMPLE" watermark. Since the closure of Secondsoft's website, the full-sized wallpapers have no longer been purchasable or accessible to the public.

In the summer of 2024, a previously unreleased Nululu animated series, sporting the same artstyle as the 2012 revival, was posted on YouTube.

Gallery

Video

Promotion clip

Soundtrack composition by Niwat Armsang

Images

Promotional image
Artwork from the Facebook page. Although it's unclear if it was used to promote Nululu Online, it has the exact art style as that game's promotional artwork and wallpapers.
All the playable races and their nu (male) and lulu (female) variants
The playable world map (from Facebook)
A wallpaper displaying a bigger extent of the game's world
Minigame select window
Minigame (from Facebook)
Fight scene (from Facebook)
An image of a Nululu website (there's currently no evidence it's been utilized)
Additional screenshots (from Facebook)
Animation showing the house feature
Design for a Nululu themed phone card.
Screenshot from a spinoff mobile Nululu game, with a humanoid character to the left
A collage of mobile wallpaper thumbnails