Hyper! Danganronpa H20: Abandon All Hope, more simply known as Hyper! Danganronpa H20 and HDRH20, is an English fangame created by American developer Milkpunches. The game is the first complete, playable English fan game ever released by any developer.
The game is segmented into episodes, with each episode covering approximately half of a chapter, and released between October 10th, 2018 and August 16th, 2019. On October 10th, 2019, the one year anniversary of the game's release, a "Complete Edition" was released with several pieces of new bonus content such as an art book, a text-only extended epilogue, and a bonus dating sim mode.
On October 20th, 2020, around the two year anniversary of the game's release, Milkpunches released the prologue of H2O: Abandon All Hope, which he calls "a reimagining of a game I made in high school with a different story and scenario, but with similar characters and setting"[1]. He does not consider this version of the story a Fangan[2].
Gallery
- 📷 For more images from the game, see Hyper! Danganronpa H20/Image Gallery.
Cast
 |
 |
|||
| Kerokuma Headmaster |
Maya Canzanilla SHSL Barista |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Ash Sivale SHSL Hypnotist |
August Clarke SHSL Model |
Caesar SHSL ??? |
Chet Perez SHSL Astronomer |
Four Kaiden SHSL Biochemist |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Hunter Rosenhall SHSL Dancer |
Kami Kanako SHSL Lawyer |
Kokona Tamashiro SHSL DJ |
Kouji Ito SHSL Apothecary |
Leona Vasquez SHSL Mangaka |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Marie Filliet SHSL Volunteer |
Oliver Feng SHSL Florist |
Ricardio Montague SHSL SFX Artist |
Tamako Fujiwara SHSL Supernaturalist |
Victoria Hester SHSL Sailor |
Plot Synopsis
- "16 teenagers find themselves trapped in the underwater basement of Freedom Academy, a school for Super High School Level Students that excel in their individual fields. They are told that the only way to escape is to participate in a deadly game where the victor is set free, and the losers face fatal defeat." - Official Synopsis[3]
Plot Summary
Killing Game
Rules
| Killing Game Rules |
|---|
|
Death Order
| Chapter | Killed | Executed |
|---|---|---|
| Chapter 1 |  Fell from a height pushed by August Clarke |
 Executed Cut in half |
| Chapter 2 |  Neck slashed with knife by Kami Kanako |
 Executed Shot multiple times |
| Chapter 3 |  Stabbed in back by Tamako Fujiwara
 Stabbed by Tamako Fujiwara |
 Executed Burned alive |
| Chapter 4 |  Shot in neck with crossbow by Caesar |
 Executed Impaled by deer antlers |
| Chapter 5 |  Committed suicide by fall |
None |
| Survivors | ||
     
| ||
Gameplay
The game runs on the OHRRPGCE game engine and uses a 2D sidescrolling pixel art style alongside visual novel elements for all dialogue text. As in most Danganronpa fangames, chapters follows the general Daily Life → Deadly Life → Class Trial plot format, with Free Time Events featuring in the Daily Life segments. Free Time Events in Chapter 1 initially had events written for each individual character, but the format was changed to group events featuring multiple characters at once in future chapters.
As in Danganronpa, mini-games feature in the Class Trial segments. They include a simplistic, linear version of Non-Stop Debates, a variation of Hangman's Gambit called Hangman's Labyrinth which essentially a re-skinned Pacman, and a variation of Rapid Fire Argument where players have to rapidly dispute statements from the main suspect one after the other.
Creation and Development
In August 2017, Milkpunches was involved with a Danganronpa roleplay called Hyper Danganronpa 4: Abandon All Hope, for which he devised the main plot - "an underwater facility in the basement of Hope's Peak Academy", run by a corporation called NHC which "would raise children in training facilities to give them talents, wipe their minds and give them fake backstories, then force them to battle it out in killing games to raise them as child soldiers to fight against the other corporations that ruled the world".[4]
Around the same time, Milkpunches became familiar with the OHRRPGCE engine, a basic and easy to learn game engine which allowed him to make simple games "without writing a single line of code". After making a few incomplete games to get a grasp on the engine, Milkpunches became confident he could create his own Fangan with it. He took several ideas he had developed for the roleplay he had been involved in and began creating character designs: some taken from the original RP, some which had been Milkpunches' longtime original characters, and some entirely new. [4] When he was younger, Milkpunches struggled to find positive representation for the LGBT community in the media, finding that most LGBT characters were either cast to the side, vague, or "just a corpse". In adding a lot of LGBT characters to his cast, he wanted to create positive representation that "middle school me could've enjoyed". He felt it important that many people could see themselves represented but that his characters identities weren't only subtextual, while also balancing making sure that their personalities that weren't only limited to having a specific identity, and instead that they feel human and complex.[5]
Danganronpa H20 was drawn in a pixelated style based on Milkpunches' own art style rather than the Danganronpa character designer Rui Komatsuzaki. He decided to go in this direction because "I feel that the typical Danganronpa style makes facial diversity really difficult and I won't be able to get as expressive". He also settled on creating a 2D side-scrolling environment instead of a rendered 3D environment because it would be less complicated and take less development time. He decided to work on the project alone instead of in a team environment because he recognized that he worked better without having to deal with other peoples' input and could work on his own schedule.[4]
The game was first announced on September 22nd, 2018 on Milkpunches' personal Tumblr blog @milkpunches. [6] with a preliminary planned duration of 13 episodes, and he began releasing character previews over the following days, beginning with August and Kami[7]. This continued throughout September, along with posting other preview art, until the release of the game's prologue episode on October 10th, 2018, followed by Episodes 1 and 2 on October 21st[8]. and November 15th, 2018 respectively[9].
On December 14th, 2018, an official Casting Call Club listing was posted, after Milkpunches faced significant pressure to include voice acting from people who had played the game. The listing stated the voice actors would be patched in to dub already released episodes. However on January 4th, 2019 the Casting Call Club listing was amended to state that the game would not be proceeding with casting voice actors, due to Milkpunches realizing that he would not be able to work well with 16 other people involved in his project because it would be "too stressful".[10]. Milkpunches later recalled that: "I don't think I actually wanted to find voice actors, but everyone kept asking me about it, and I felt like if I didn't have voice acting, I wouldn't be taken seriously."[4]
By August 5th, 2019, a few weeks after the release of Episode 10, Milkpunches had reached a total of 10,000 cumulative downloads on itch.io [11] between DRH20 and their previous game Take Me Home, of which over 9,000 were downloads of DRH20. Two weeks later, after the release of Episode 11 and in the lead up to the game's 1st anniversary, Milkpunches launched a downloads campaign, pledging to release bonus content each time an individual episode reached 1,000 unique downloads. [12]
In the lead up to the release of the final episode, Milkpunches released a teaser image each day counting down to August 16th. On August 14th, Milkpunches "revealed" that the countdown was leading up to a bullet-hell DRH20 spin-off game called "Caesar Shoot Em’ Up", sharing 3 teaser images of the game.[13] The next day, Milkpunches revealed that the post had been a prank, and that August 16th was actually going to be the release date for DRH20's final episode.[14]
After the release of the final episode, Milkpunches participated in an interview with Fanganronpa Wiki and Danganronpa Wiki, where he revealed that although he had initially toyed with creating a second Danganronpa fangame after DRH20, he had decided that one was enough and has no plans to release a sequel or follow up to DRH20. He does, however, have more DRH20 content to be revealed in the lead up to the game's 1st Anniversary on October 10th. He is also working on a new game project which he began developing in the hiatus between Episodes 5 and 6 of DRH20. The new project will be more horror focused, "a weird hybrid between Danganronpa, Zero Escape, and Silent Hill, along with a bunch of those old RPG Maker horror games like Ib and The Witch's House". He hopes to release his new game by January 2020.[4]
On October 1st [15] a Complete Edition for DRH20 was announced. Up until the 10th of October, the year anniversary of the game's release, a bonus mode - with over 100 new Free Time Event's as well as new art and CG's[16] - was revealed to be included in the Complete Edition. On the 3rd of October[16], an extended epilogue taking place five years after the end of the Killing Game was announced on the 5th of October [17]. Lastly, on the 6th of October, an artbook containing all of the Main Games CG's, multiple character sprites, and concept sheets of multiple characters, was announced on Twitter alongside the release of the Complete Edition's cover art. [18]. Two days before the release of the Complete Edition it was announced on Twitter that, in order to save space for Milkpunches next project, each of the separate episode downloads would be taken down on the next day, with no changes made to them[19]. On August 5th, 2020, all downloads of the game were made private for undisclosed reasons.[20]. However, a month later, on September 27th, the complete edition of H20 was put back up on itch.io for a limited time `[21].
On October 10th, 2020, a new teaser (tilted #H20AAH) was uploaded on Milkpunches's twitter and instagram. It showed a picture saying "New Game", along with the reveal of new silhouettes. The next day, what seems to be a redesign of Kami and August was also uploaded. Over the next few days Milkpunch continued to upload redesigns of the characters, as well as an update of the character silhouettes.
Episode Release Dates
| Episode | Chapter | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Prologue | Prologue | October 10th, 2018 |
| Episode 1 | Chapter 1 - Daily Life | October 21st, 2018 |
| Episode 2 | Chapter 1 - Deadly Life | November 15th, 2018 |
| Episode 3 | Chapter 2 - Daily Life | February 1st, 2019 |
| Episode 4 | Chapter 2 - Deadly Life | February 19th, 2019 |
| Episode 5 | Chapter 3 - Daily Life | April 19th, 2019 |
| Episode 6 | Chapter 3 - Deadly Life | April 26th, 2019 |
| Episode 7 | Chapter 4 - Daily Life | June 1st, 2019 |
| Episode 8 | Chapter 4 - Deadly Life | June 7th, 2019 |
| Episode 9 | Chapter 5 - Daily Life | June 15th, 2019 |
| Episode 10 | Chapter 5 - Deadly Life | June 21st, 2019 |
| Episode 11 | Chapter 6 | August 16th, 2019 |
| Complete Edition | Full Game + Bonus Content | October 10th, 2019 |
Trivia
- Though never shown in-game, Milkpunches' original title for the Prologue was It Came From The Deep, a reference to the 1955 science fiction movie It Came from Beneath the Sea. The Episode 11 title Into The Deep was a callback to this title.[5]
- The Title for Episode 1, I Have No Mouth, And I Must Croak, is a reference to the Harlan Ellison short story I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.
- The Title for Episode 3, Et tu? is a reference to the famous line "Et tu, Brute?" from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
- The Episode 8 cover is a reference to the Cyndi Lauper album She's So Unusual [22]
External Links
- Official Developer Website: milkpunches
- Official Twitter: @milkpunchart
References
- ↑ Milkpunches on Itch.io: H2O: Abandon All Hope
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter: Some questions I answered on my ig story
- ↑ Taken from the description of the Hyper Danganronpa H2O: Complete Edition release listing.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Fanganronpa Wiki & Danganronpa Wiki interview: Interview with Milkpunches, creator of fangame Hyper! Danganronpa H20
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 HDRH20 Artbook: HDRH20 Complete Edition
- ↑ @milkpunches on Tumblr: "I can now properly announce Hyper Danganronpa H2O: Abandon All Hope, a Danganronpa fangame with it’s own cast and story, separate from the official Danganronpa universe."
- ↑ @milkpunch-art on Tumblr: "The first two HDRH2O characters to be revealed are August Clarke (left) and Kami Kanako (right)!"
- ↑ @milkpunches on itch.io: Danganronpa H20: Episode 2
- ↑ @milkpunches on itch.io: Danganronpa H20: Episode 2
- ↑ Casting Call Club: Casting Call for Hyper! Danganronpa H20: Abandon All Hope
- ↑ @milkpunches on Twitter: Reaching 10k downloads on Twitter
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter: "You know how mobile gacha games have those celebrations for download counts? Yeah we’re doing that. Get each episode to 1,000 downloads and cool stuff will happen!"
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter: On August 16th, I’ll be releasing the first H2O spin off, Caesar Shoot Em’ Up, a bullet hell game featuring the H2O cast with Caesar as protagonist. And as for ch6, H2O will finally be completed on October 10th, the anniversary of the prologue’s release.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter: So Caesar’s shoot Em Up is fake as shit. Episode 11, covering Chapter 6 and the end of Hyper Danganronpa H2O: Abandon All Hope, will be coming out tomorrow at 8 PM EST.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter:#HDRH2O #hyperdanganronpah2o.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 @milkpunchart on Twitter:Now that I’m home I can give some more details. Bonus Mode takes place in an alternate universe where the cast of HDRH2O is able to go to Freedom Academy regularly, and playing as Maya, you can talk to your classmates, and watch them interact.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter:The Extended Epilogue takes place 5 years after the game ends, and is written entirely in prose, with no art accompanying it.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter:The Art of HDRH2O is 114 pages and will contain every cg and piece of official art in the game, along with art I’ve never posted anywhere else, and commentary on the development of the game and what the experience was like.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter:Tomorrow I’m going to be deleting every episode of HDRH2O off of itchio to replace them with the Complete Edition. There are no changes from those versions to the new ones, but if you want to download the originals before they go down permanently, feel free.
- ↑ @milkpunchart on Twitter:It’s kind of comforting that nobody’s pointed out to me that h2o is gone
- ↑ Twitter: Complete Edition of H20 republished for a limited time (SEP 27 2020)
- ↑ Twitter: Since nobody got it, here’s what the ep8 cover is a reference to