[3] The game tells the story of a hero (the player) helping Hello Kitty and her friends wake up from eternal slumber and defeat a "mysterious and malevolent power".

[19] The public stress test was extended until February 22, during which a new charity event was announced,[20] allowing players to craft in-game items.

Similar to the previous Food for Friends event, the actual in-game items were used as a conversion rate to real-world goods which were donated to the Po Leung Kuk residential child care unit.

[32] The game ceased operation in December 2010. gloot.net is the publisher for HKO in Singapore and Malaysia,[33] with a Founders Beta running from June 22 - July 22, 2009.

Hello Kitty Online was originally published by Burda:ic in Europe, with the game commercially launching on September 25, 2009.

[43] Aeria Games was chosen as the publisher for the North American release,[44] with a transition back to Sanrio Digital occurring on June 1, 2010.

[45] On January 16, 2010, Sanrio Digital announced Food For Friends 2, the charity-driven in-game event to raise donations for charitable causes.

The mechanics were similar to the previous Food For Friends, with players from North America, Singapore, Malaysia and Europe invited to participate.

During the event, players accumulate points which were used to calculate a charitable contribution as follows: Combat is secondary in HKO with focus on resource collecting and crafting.

Available options during character creation include gender, hairstyle, eyes, skin tone, face and blood type.

Monsters don't die in HKO, but when their health bar is fully depleted they become dizzy, pass out and are defeated, allowing players to loot them.

[52] Collecting resources is an important aspect of HKO because many items found in the game are obtained by crafting or purchasing from NPC vendors.

[2] Item crafting is a key feature of Hello Kitty Online and, like resource collection, is divided into four skill subtypes: Cooking (food items that replenish health, energy or both[51]); Tools/Weapons, Clothes (like weapons, clothes need to be created by the players themselves but can be traded to other players) and Furniture.

[51] Successful farming requires players to take into consideration variables such as land fertility, pests and growth factors.

In order to build a house, players require a land certificate, which can be bought from an NPC or received as a quest reward.

[52] The design of Hello Kitty Online emphasizes the use of the game and SanrioTown web site as a social community platform.

[57] Hello Kitty Online contains no direct player-versus-player conflict, though players may choose to compete amongst themselves in a number of available minigames.

[59] The game's sprite-based and isometric perspective 2.5D graphics were criticized as 10-year-old technology, and the lack of customization options for each character (e.g. dye kits or ways to change the color of the home items) was noted.

[59] IGN's hands-on review of the Closed Beta was largely favorable, concluding: After going through most everything the beta had to offer, including making stylish blue jeans, purchasing a Japanese garden, and getting a freaking T-rex as a pet, I can say that Hello Kitty Online is shaping up to be a pretty fun MMO for the younger, less battle hungry crowd.

It's certainly not as in-depth as a major MMO is, but it provides a stylish environment with colorful characters and music that seems oddly epic for a game about cats and bunnies.

[63] WoW Insider's April 1 content consisted exclusively of satirical articles (at least 26 of them) based on Hello Kitty Online.

The plot revealed by the announcement sounds strikingly similar to the hit television series "Lost", involving survivors of a plane crash that had been traveling to Australia, their struggle to survive in a hostile environment while dealing with the island's natives, and the danger that the survivors will split up and follow two leaders rather than remain together.The fake news was used as material for a humorous article on WoW Insider.

[69] In 2015, the HKO database from the SanrioTown website was leaked online, exposing the private information from 3.3 million accounts, including first and last names, birthdays, gender, country of origin, passwords, and email addresses.

Sometime after, the original site, hellokittyonline.com, redirected to the SanrioTown website, which blocked users from making new accounts (although some found ways around it).

The servers remained active with minimal amounts of players until around 2017, when the game was taken offline permanently, unbeknownst to many people outside of the loyal fandom.

[72][73] The exact shutdown date is unknown, but a fan blog claims the last time they were able to log in was in August 2017.