I know it sounds strange, but I seriously fell in love with Hello Kitty Online when I was in the beta. Now they’re getting ready to launch and are offering up 20,000 special accounts:

Sanrio Digital (www.sanriodigital.com) announced today that Hello Kitty Online will begin an exclusive Founders’ Beta on October 8, 2008. The Founders’ Beta will allow a limited number of users to play the official Hello Kitty MMORPG ahead of launch while receiving Founder benefits and participating in special in-game events.

Hello Kitty Online (www.hellokittyonline.com) is a free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) based on Sanrio’s famous characters. The game transports players into the cute and cuddly world of Sanrio Land, where players will meet and interact with over a hundred Sanrio characters, including Hello Kitty, Badtz-Maru, Keroppi, Dear Daniel, My Melody, Pochacco, Cinnamoroll, and many others.

Hello Kitty Online boasts several new additions and improvements since the Closed Beta version, and the Founder’s Beta will feature a new game client with an improved interface, improved graphics and special effects, new monsters, new maps, new items, and the opening of London and Paris. The Founders’ Beta will also introduce gameplay changes such as new skills, new pet systems and team-play oriented enhancements.

20,000 Founder accounts will be issued on a first-come first-served basis. Players who wish to become Hello Kitty Online Founders are required to sign up on SanrioTown (www.SanrioTown.com) and use the SanrioTown email system to send a blank message to hkofounder@hellokitty.com. Only emails originating from SanrioTown will qualify.

Hello Kitty Online is fully integrated with SanrioTown (www.sanriotown.com) and offers several features of the popular community site, including:

• Fully developed email system available in-game
• Players can create, post and view blogs from inside the game
• Upload, share and view videos in-game
• Social networking options
• Multiplayer mini games with ranking system

You needn’t worry. I sent my Founder account request some time ago already, so go get yours and good luck!

Badtz Maru says "Killing stuff in this game gets you no XP. So don’t waste your time doing that."