HoloCure: Save the Fans!
In the year 20XX, an unexpected online takeover began. A new group of idols surfaced on the internet, known as virtual idols. People were skeptical at first, but over time, these virtual idols gathered many fans. However, one day an evil force came in and took advantage of the fans and their love. The evil force brainwashed the fans, turning them into mindless minions blinded by their own love. The vtubers knew they had to help their fans come back to their senses. And thus began their quest... ...to save the fans!
Intro sequence
HoloCure: Save the Fans! (shortened to HoloCure) is a completely free unofficial fan game featuring hololive VTuber talents, chiefly developed by Kay Yu. It draws heavy inspiration from existing 2D pixel-style roguelite games, Vampire Survivors and Magic Survival.
The game was first released as a demo on itch.io on 24th June 2022, and was released on Steam on 16th August 2023. The game is currently still in development.
Gameplay
The player controls a character based on one of dozens of hololive talents to fend off waves of various hololive fan mascots and characters, who were turned into their enemies by an unknown evil force.
Defeating enemies grants EXP, allowing the character to obtain and upgrade a wide variety of different hololive-themed weapons and items to aid them in their mission. Enemies also occasionally drop HoloCoins, which can be used to obtain new characters via Character Gacha or buy Upgrades for future attempts.
History
Inception
On 11th March 2022, Kay Yu posted a tweet mentioning the game for the first time, then known as Holo Fan Love!.[1] The teaser video attached to the tweet showed all 5 hololive English -Myth- members as playable characters, with enemies ranging from certain holoEN fan mascots to Fubuzilla, as well as showcases of some weapons themed after hololive talents.
Kay Yu revealed in a Tweet thread about long-term plans to implement every talent in hololive Productions,[2] on top of an envisioned demo release consisting of completed main game features, the 5 talents of holoMyth and a few bosses, slated to release in roughly two to three weeks as of posting.[3]
Release and Public Reception
On 24th June 2022, the first official build of the game was released with several bug fix patches uploaded a few hours later.
On 25th June 2022, Kay Yu reported on Twitter that the game has officially reached 50,000 downloads.[4] In the same Twitter thread, Kay Yu also stated that the official leaderboards will be indefinitely turned off due to the sheer volume of users.[5] Kay Yu reported that, within 24 hours of the game's release, the leaderboards were already consuming 20GB worth of data.[4] On the same day, hololive talent Usada Pekora streamed the game which reportedly caused the download count to increase to 130,000 downloads.[6]
On 29th June 2022, Kay Yu commented on Reddit that the game has almost hit 500,000 downloads.[7]
On 16th August 2023, HoloCure was officially released on Steam, and currently holds a top 5 spot on Steam releases for 2023, with a 97% overall rating, and a peak of over 46,000+ concurrent players.[8]
On 8th December 2023, HoloCure won the title of "Best Indie Rogue-like" in the 2023 OTK Video Game Awards.[9][10]
Development Team
The development team is spearheaded by Kay Yu, with help with Seirai for programming and Jeremy Hobbs for the user interface. Kay Yu also credited DuduL for visual effects help and eufrik for the composition of hololive song remixes specially for the game.
The following are the people involved with the development of the game as they appear in the Credits screen:
- Programmers: Seirai, nullrefrepro
- Animators: DuDuL, Smpletan, Caliyaki, Kaitsu
- Illustrators: Potato7192
- UI: Jeremy Hobbs (Ribbon Black)
- Music: Eufrik, Patterns, Raining Marbles
- Translators:
- Japanese: ハイテンションガイジン(HaiGai), Miss Wendi Gogh
- Indonesian: Minyak Sayur, D.D. Investigator, Pincen
- QA: Avi 'Sinful' Mishra, Scorchedwing, Erg, Katomon, Carmatime, Kaitsu, Cremepuff, Tsubi, Zenora, Caliyaki
- Special Thanks: Walfie, 2Snacks, Dex, Furaisen, SeafoamBoi, Sausage Legend (Milk Co)
Original Soundtrack
- Main article: Soundtrack
On 27th June 2022, Eufrik posted on Twitter that the HoloCure original soundtrack (OST) is available on to listen to on YouTube.[11] The playlist originally contained three tracks - Intro (Save the Fans), Shiny Smily Story, and Suspect - and continues to be updated with the soundtracks from the newest updates.[12]
| Intro (Save the Fans) | Shiny Smily Story | Suspect |
|---|---|---|
| hololive IDOL PROJECT | hololive IDOL PROJECT | hololive IDOL PROJECT |
Gallery
Intro Sequence 1
Intro Sequence 2
Intro Sequence 3
Intro Sequence 4
Intro Sequence 5
Intro Sequence 6
References
- ↑ Kay Yu [@kaynimatic] (2022-03-11). @kaynimatic on Twitter. “decided to take a break from animating and got super inspired by Vampire Survivors and accidentally made a Hololive fangame ...”
- ↑ @kaynimatic on Twitter (2022-03-11). “for now, we just have the 5 Myth girls, but... [image]”
- ↑ Kay Yu [@kaynimatic] (2022-03-11). @kaynimatic on Twitter. “Btw, our current plan is to complete all the game's main features and the 5 myth girls + a few bosses...”
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Kay Yu [@kaynimatic] (2022-06-25). @kaynimatic on Twitter. “We anticipated maybe a few thousand people to play, which seemed reasonable, but it turns out there are almost 50,000...”
- ↑ Kay Yu [@kaynimatic] (2022-06-25). @kaynimatic on Twitter. “Thank you everyone that's been enjoying HoloCure! It's been an absolute blast watching you all having fun and sharing your...”
- ↑ Kay Yu [@kaynimatic] (2022-06-26). @kaynimatic on Twitter. “Ever since Pekora played it this morning it is now at 130k. I imagine it will only keep climbing if...”
- ↑ Kay Yu [/u/kaynimatic] (2022-06-28). u/kaynimatic on Reddit. “We are now almost at about 500k downloads. For perspective, this is still only the 4th day after the demo...”
- ↑ Top Steam Releases of 2023. Retrieved on March 21, 2024.
- ↑ HoloCureGame [@HoloCureGame] (2023-12-09). @HoloCureGame on Twitter. “Whaaaa thank you very much, OTK Game awards!! As a simple fan game, we don't know if we really deserve an honor like this, but we are truly grateful...”
- ↑ OTK Viedo Game Awards [@OTKGameAwards] (2023-12-08). @OTKGameAwards on Twitter. “The vtubers are always there when you need them 😌 The winner for Best Indie Rogue-like goes to @HoloCureGame! #OTKVGAs”
- ↑ eufrik [@eufrik] (2022-06-27). @eufrik on Twitter. “HoloCure OST is now up on my youtube channel! ! (Looping versions for now) Playlist link is in reply to this...”
- ↑ eufrik [@eufrik]. HoloCure OST on YouTube. Retrieved on March 21, 2024.