[Game Travels] The “Eggerland” Series

A few days ago on Twitter, someone sent me a message regarding the Eggerland series of video games. It has been a very long time since I have done much with these games, even just thinking about them, but the truth is that there was a time in my life about a decade ago when I was really big into them. I did a lot of documentation and research about the series, even creating a site (now mostly link-dead and which I cannot even log into anymore) which helped inspire a really awesome Hardcore Gaming 101 article about the series. It’s too bad that site is now functionally dead and unable to be updated because I had even created a remake of “The Adventures of Lolo 2” and a totally unique fan-game that you could download there, but when I upgraded my PC I failed to back-up the source files and now those games are lost to the ether.

The Eggerland games are probably better known as The Adventures of Lolo in North America and in a lot of countries throughout the world. As a kid, I remember playing the NES entries into this series, mainly the first two games, and I always enjoyed their whimsical nature, yet the fact that they could be quite deviously challenging. The third game was one I had only played, but I did not own until much later, and while it captured the feel of its predecessors, it added an overworld and some interesting boss fights that I thought elevated things to a new level.

To be honest, until probably around 2003 or so, I did not realize just how complex this series of games was. For some reason, I had always assumed that what we got in the U.S. pretty much constituted the series, and thus there had not been any entries since the early-to-mid-1990s. However, this was grossly incorrect. As I discovered through the magic of the internet, the series had made its debut with Eggerland Mystery back in 1985 for the MSX computer system, spawning a sequel and then evolving into a brand-new series on the Famicom. Both the Famicom and the Famicom Disk System had entries that never made it to the U.S., the Gameboy version in Japan was significantly different from the one released in Europe, and then in 1996 there were two PC games (“Eggerland 0: Quest of Lala” and “Eggerland for Windows 95”) that were released exclusively in Japan, with the latter game being remade in 2000 as “Revival! Eggerland.”

So, what I once thought was a rather simplistic series is actually quite complicated. For those interested, let me give you a quick breakdown of the games by region of release.

JAPANESE TITLES:

• Eggerland Mystery (1985) – MSX Home Computer
• Eggerland 2 (1986) – MSX and MSX 2
• Eggerland (1987) – Famicom Disk System
• Eggerland: Revival of the Labyrinth (1988) – Famicom
• Eggerland: Departure to Creation (1988) – Famicom Disk System
• Adventures of Lolo (1990) – Famicom
• Adventures of Lolo 2 (1991) – Famicom
• Lolo’s Great Adventure (1994) – Gameboy
• Eggerland 0: Quest of Lala (1996) – Windows
• Eggerland for Windows 95 (1996) – Windows
• Revival! Eggerland (2000) – Windows

WESTERN TITLES:

• Eggerland Mystery (1987, Europe) – MSX Home Computer
• Eggerland 2 (1988, Europe) – MSX and MSX 2
• Adventures of Lolo (1989) – NES
• Adventures of Lolo 2 (1990) – NES
• Adventures of Lolo 3 (1991) – NES
• Adventures of Lolo (1995, Europe) – Gameboy

So, despite my little website that has been used as a Wikipedia reference and a recommended site on Hardcore Gaming 101 being functionally dead now, I thought perhaps I would write a series of articles or even make some videos showcasing these awesome little puzzle games. And, who knows, maybe someone that has never heard of them before will learn something new and find a new love for some older puzzlers!