We’d like to make special mention of Joystiq’s sister site WoW Insider, for featuring Hello Kitty Online in their site for April Fools. They’ve converted it to Hello Kitty Insider for a day, and it came as a shock to many people, and that’s the stuff of great April Fools pranks!

Speaking of April Fools, hope you enjoyed our last post about the Island Adventure Expansion Pack. Just kidding people!

Technorati tags: april fools, hello kitty online, joystiq, wow insider, hko, mmorpg

Hello Kitty Online (HKO), produced by Sanrio Digital, is an upcoming Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) based on the famous Sanrio characters. Hello Kitty Online will allow players to explore and adventure in Sanrio’s fantasy world, a magical land bursting with cuteness but also fraught with many dangers. Hello Kitty Online will launch in the second half of 2008.

Work is also ongoing on the game’s first expansion pack, to be titled “Island Adventure” and scheduled for release in 2009.

Island Adventure will be the first expansion pack in gaming history that will reduce rather than expand an existing game world. The premise is the crash-landing (without casualties) on a mysterious island in the South Pacific of Hello Kitty Air flight 337, which had been carrying Hello Kitty and friends to the 5^th Cuteness World Symposium in Perth, Australia.

Our heroes – including Hello Kitty, Dear Daniel, Keroppi, Badtz-Maru and many others – find themselves marooned on the nameless island along with a couple hundred fellow passengers, whose roles will be filled by end-users. Soon the survivors discover that the island is inhabited by a community of squat, foul-mouthed, inferiorly-animated characters whose only intention is to send the newcomers packing by any means possible.

As tensions with the island’s original inhabitants rise to a boil, a crisis of leadership is brooding within the ranks of our cuddly friends. Will Hello Kitty manage to hold together the band of survivors using her trademark cuteness and amiability? Or will Badtz-Maru rise to power, arguing that survival on the island requires ruthlessly doing unto others before they do unto you? Who will you follow?

Players will embark on missions to explore the island, find out more about the natives, and gather resources necessary for the survival of the group. Can you save Hello Kitty and friends and help them get off the island and back to Sanrio Land?

Island Adventure will include many improvements, refinements, and additions to the basic game. Confirmed in the expansion are the following:

• Increased level and skill cap

• Raids

• PvP

• Hello Kitty and Badtz-Maru player sessions – take control of one of these powerful characters for up to one hour in times of crisis

• New skills and abilities: dessert-making, dual-wield (lollipops, wands), summon Twin Stars, and many more

• Cross-franchise mayhem

Hello everyone! We’d like to thank everyone for their feedback and for sharing their concerns regarding our Closed Beta email. So right now we’d like to make the following announcement:

1. DO NOT give your personal information to any email other than “onlinegame{at}hellokitty.com”. We will not use any other email to send the closed beta tester message for those chosen. Furthermore, do not reply to or accept any other email as valid unless announced here in the official HKO blog (e.g. mmorpg{at}hellokitty.com for the Dream Studio submissions).

2. For our chosen closed beta testers, please be assured that we will keep your information confidential, and will not share it with any other party. The information will be used for the sole purpose of sending you the Hello Kitty Online package.

3. Your emails are safe from spambots. Even though it is easy for people guess or figure out who those are, spambots will not be able to detect them, so rest assured that you will not be receiving spam as a result of posting your partially-masked email addresses here.

If you think you are on the list but have not received an email, you may email us at onlinegame{at}hellokitty.com to confirm. Feel free to email us if you have any more concerns. Thank you again!

Regards,

Abby
Sanrio Community Manager

It was a tough call to make, but after weeks of screening, we finally have our selected closed beta testers from the many many users who have submitted applications in Dream Studio.

And without further ado, here are the chosen ones for Hello Kitty Online Closed Beta!

To our chosen testers, we’ve censored part of your email addresses for your security. But you will be receiving an email very soon with instructions on how you can get the client, and more information on our fast-approaching closed beta period.

Thank you to everyone who participated, and once again, for your overwhelming response to Hello Kitty Online. Congratulations to our closed beta testers, and hope you enjoy!

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, mmorpg, closed beta, dream studio

Thank you for your enthusiasm for the Hello Kitty Online closed beta! We’ve received hundreds of applications on Dream Studio, and are currently in the process of selecting those who will be getting the closed beta accounts.

We will send an email soon regarding who got in, with more information and download instructions.

See you in Hello Kitty Online!

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, hko, dream studio, closed beta

We are proud to announce that Sanrio Digital will be working with our European partner Burda:IC to bring you HKO in 6 European Languages including German, French, Italian, Turkish and Spanish.

The current Asian Closed Beta is in English, but keep an eye out for the  European Closed Beta coming soon! Fans from Europe can already look out for news and announcements via SanrioTown.

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, hko, burda, closed beta, sanriotown, europe, sanrio digital

We have gotten applications of all sorts in Dream Studio. Our subscribers have used possibly every imaginable reason why they should be picked as beta testers, and so we’d like to feature that diversity a bit more.

Some of them appeal to our sense of humor, like Oats41’s video “My second HKO beta video”. Click here to go to the video page.

While some simply appeal to our logic, in a creative way, as Ohhsoalyse so diligently did in her video “My 2nd HKO MMORPG Application”. Click here to go to the video page.

And how timely that they have similar titles! The deadline for applications is drawing near, we will keep you posted.

As we all know, there’s been a lot of activity all around SanrioTown regarding the closed beta applications, especially on Dream Studio. But the buzz isn’t limited to SanrioTown, here’s a few more links to show what others have to say outside our community:

• Gadgets Page
• New Home Gadgets

We have people writing about their entries and the Dream Studio application process in general on their personal blogs:

• Toaster Labs
• IGN.com: Ottsel Zero
• West Karana
• MMORPG.com: Zergwatch
• Geekers
• Vickazoidd

There’s also a lot of discussion on forums and chatrooms regarding their applications. Aspiring closed beta testers sharing their videos:

• RPG.net forums 
• Gumininja HQ
• Suburban Senshi Backlog

As we go through your application videos, we are really entertained by what we see. Some of our aspiring testers have sent in some really complex videos, but we have to give special mention to some videos — some that are simple at first glance, but are really special in how they were made. We have two videos here that make use of very simple scribbles, but we’re sure you’ll enjoy them!

First off we have a video by Ashums, for all of you who love hats and cute bubbly music. Click here to go to the video page.

Next we have a fun video which also uses stick men to get his message across. Yes, you read right, Gz_strawberry is a guy. Without further ado, here’s the video that really amused us! Click here to go to the video page.

We’ll be featuring more interesting videos soon, stay tuned!

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, online game, applications, dream studio, mmorpg, hko

Today we have a treat for all of you, as we’ve added a new section to the official game site — a section full of HKO artwork! You can view that by going to the Download Area and clicking the “art work” link.

We’re sharing some original artwork straight from the talented minds and hands of those behind the concept art of Hello Kitty Online. We will be updating this section little by little, so be sure to check back often!

If you haven’t already visited the Download Area on the Hello Kitty Online game site, then you should definitely check it out to see these new artworks and also some game screenshots from the actual game!

Technorati tags: hello kitty online, screenshots, screencaps, artwork, mmorpg, hko, online game