Interview: Developing Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Hello Kitty Island Adventure constantly appears among the top Apple Arcade games, and the Switch and PC versions invited new players to the island resort alongside iconic mascots in 2025. Not to mention PlayStation versions are on the horizon. To find out more about what went into making the game and what’s next, Siliconera spoke with Sunblink Chief Product Officer Chelsea Howe about the title.

Jenni Lada, Siliconera: When did work on the other versions of Hello Kitty Island Adventure begin?

Chelsea Howe, Sunblink: We knew we wanted to cover a broad range of form factors from the start, so multiplatform was always present in the back of our minds. Plus, many aspects of our Apple Arcade development, like optimizing for lower-spec devices, translated across all platforms. We worked with other teams with more specific platform knowledge to do the final development, which started in early 2024.

What sorts of challenges did the team face when preparing the Hello Kitty Island Adventure Switch, PlayStation, and PC ports while also adding new content to the Apple Arcade version of the game?

Howe: The biggest challenge had definitely been keeping timelines organized. Each platform has its own process for approvals, certifications, verifications, patches, and so on. The whole team has gone a bit cross-eyed back-tracking all of the dates based on each platform’s estimated times.

Besides that, it was a matter of nailing the platform’s unique qualities: like getting controller input feeling rock solid for Nintendo Switch or getting Steam Deck Verified for PC.

How will future development and updates for Hello Kitty Island Adventure work, considering there are seasonal events and you added additional characters and regions in the past?

Howe: All platforms should get the same event content at the same time. We’ll be releasing free content updates prior to upcoming events to ensure that everyone is experiencing the story and rewards together. Characters and regions require more QA, and while we release storylines bit by bit on Apple Arcade, we’re cognizant of the difference in Nintendo Switch and PC audiences and would like to release things more holistically there. That, in addition to the aforementioned timeline differences, means the update cadence outside of events is likely to be staggered between platforms.

When adding additional Hello Kitty Island Adventure characters, how did you pick which ones would be represented and how they will appear?

Howe: There are two main sources of priority: Sanrio and Sanrio fans! Sanrio has characters they love to spotlight, but we also want to enable fans to befriend their favorite characters in the game.

The latter means paying a lot of attention to the annual Sanrio rankings. It’s also a great excuse to peruse official merchandise and see what folks are most excited about. My Cinnamoroll plushie collection speaks for itself.

What led to Usahana being picked as the City Town representative in Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

Howe: As more of City Town’s story comes out, the big reason will be revealed. For now, let’s just say that she was designed to bring joy, color, and happiness to office workers, so we took that to an even bigger extreme and made a whole city based around her vibrant look and feel. 

The whole design of City Town was based on flipping the usual grungy, dirty, busy city trope on its head and having something colorful, clean, optimistic and reflective of Usahana’s heart and spirit.

Big Challenges is the most obscure Hello Kitty Island Adventure character so far. Who else would you also like to add to the game? Do characters like Spottie Dottie or Kirimichan have a chance of appearing?

Howe: They suuuuuuuuuuure do!

We have such a special place in our hearts for the expectation-defying characters like Kirimichan, Fresh Punch, or Nisetama-san. Nisetama-san is a friend of gudetama – a man literally dressed up as an egg yolk who dances around the world. We were able to spotlight him during Month of Meh last year and look forward to bringing other more niche characters to the game in similar ways that show off their uniqueness.

Could we also see more unorthodox or crossover characters break in as Hello Kitty Island Adventure visitors? For example, perhaps someone like Yoshikitty or members from Show by Rock?

Howe: At the moment, the red tape and licensing complexity mean we’re unable to add “collab” characters, as we call them. We have a ton of folks at our office who love Yoshikitty, or Adorozatorumary. My favorite is Gaopoweroo! But alas, it’s simply not to be. 

Perhaps if we’re successful enough, the collab partners will come to us asking for inclusion. We can dream, right?

What did you learn as a developer by working on Hello Kitty Island Adventure over the past few years?

Howe: We all learned way, way more about the world of Hello Kitty than we ever knew existed. Most of us were familiar with Hello Kitty, it’s hard not to be, but the quantity of Sanrio characters and decades of lore was unbelievable. Whether it was those niche characters like Big Challenges or the fact that Hello Kitty is not a cat, there was always something to surprise us.

From a game perspective, we’ve learned a lot about mixing the cozy genre with the open world adventure genre. They have a huge overlap in audience, but some things rub the wrong way. Some cozy players want nothing to do with multiplayer, while some open-world players recoil whenever we have customization-based questing. Overall, we think we brought something new to both groups.

In an ideal situation with no restrictions, what sort of biome or additional feature would you like to add to Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

Howe: HOW CAN I PICK JUST ONE?! I’d love a rainforest or jungle area that leaned more heavily into the puzzle caves – or a far future world that did similar. I’ve also always wanted an aspen forest, just because Sunblink is headquartered in Boulder, CO, and those forests—especially with their yellow leaves—are iconic. We also created a character named TOPHAT for the game, and I’ve always wondered what a world in his image would be like.

How long do you think you’ll keep updating and adding new content to Hello Kitty Island Adventure?

Howe: While we have a roadmap that extends years ahead, it really depends on if folks are continuing to play the game! As long as we have an audience, it just makes sense for us to continue building out the world and enriching the mechanics.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is available on the Nintendo Switch, PC, and Apple Arcade. It will also come to the PS4 and PS5. 

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