Hello

The keyword for this post is Squirrel Appreciation Day, so I wanted to take a look back at the cute, squirrel-like characters found in games. With that in mind, I rounded up the squirrels you can spot in MapleStory, along with the trail left by its signature mascot, Pink Bean

<Squirrel Appreciation Day> and MapleStory’s squirrels

<Squirrel Appreciation Day> is observed every year on January 21, and is described as “a day to learn about squirrels, hope for coexistence with them, and put out nuts and water in consideration of the winter food shortage”

Across Nexon games as a whole, the most famous squirrel is, of course, the squirrel from The Kingdom of the Winds. It debuted ages ago, but it still has real staying power, to the point that it was even used in official event copy relatively recently

This squirrel and its acorns also showed up as one of the game’s representative faces in the Nexon 30th anniversary collaboration event through the <Squirrel Extermination Mission> event. It was often described as a so-called Vampire Survivors-like game, and even as a mini-game, it was pretty well received for being fun

Squirrels themselves have never really been a major standout in MapleStory, but if we’re picking out a few smaller squirrel-related elements, here’s what comes to mind

• Fantastic Island NPCs: Dadamji and Daromi

• Daram Squirrel Pet Set: Squirrel Aaron, Squirrel Mint, Squirrel Pink

• [Golden Hands Awards] Acorn Guard Pet Set: Dorong, Tori, Riring

• [Wisp’s Wonderberry] Wonder Black Season 1: Forest Darong

• Mu Lung monster: Star Squirrel

• Fox Point Village monsters: Bbang Bbang Squirrel and Bbung Bbung Squirrel

• Yum Yum Island monster: Squirizard

The trail of the signature mascot, Pink Bean

If you were picking MapleStory’s representative mascot characters today, these five would be the obvious choices: Rock Spirit, Orange Mushroom, Pink Bean, Yeti, and Slime. All five are used in a wide variety of ways, and each one has strong name recognition in its own right

Among them, Pink Bean feels like the central figure even within that mascot lineup, and you can already see that in this image. It debuted as a boss monster, then steadily grew into one of the game’s signature mascots through sheer popularity. Since then, that popularity has carried Pink Bean into all kinds of in-game and out-of-game events, collaborations with other games, and especially broader public-facing appearances where it keeps showing up in new forms

I also think Pink Bean is a great character, so I tried to gather as many of its appearances over the years as possible

• MapleStory boss debut: July 17, 2008

• First clear: July 16, 2010

• Soul hidden illustration: “Boong Boong Gift Delivery!”

• Malang Pink Bean pet release: 2015

• First release of the Pink Bean event class: 2015

The starting point for event classes and permanent titles in the <Pink and One> line

• Maple 15th Street event: 2018

• Pink Bean’s surprise Christmas Live: 2020

• Star Bubble Pink Bean cover: 2021

• MapleStory2 Pink Bean Song: 2017

• MapleStory M Pink Bean Song: 2020

• Launch of Pingstagram: 2020 : https://www.instagram.com/pink_pinkbean/

• CGV collaboration: 2021

• CGV collaboration: 2021

• Ambassador charity event: 2021

• “Pink Bean Says It’s Lunar New Year Today Too!” event: 2022

• “Find Pink Bean One! Two! Three!” event: 2022

• The Venti collaboration: 2022

• KartRider collaboration: 2022

• Dungeon & Fighter Mobile collaboration: 2023

• Yongsan IPARK Mall promotion: 2024

• Space Star Pink Bean! event: 2024

• TalesWeaver collaboration: 2024

• KartRider: Drift collaboration: 2024

• Cafe MapleStory: 2024

• Pink Bean’s nationwide campus tour: 2025

• KT Wiz Park collaboration: 2025

• Christmas performance video: 2025

Hopefully we’ll keep getting to see more of busy Pink Bean in the future. Thanks for reading