On our trip to Korea, the first place we visited was the Nexon Computer Museum on Jeju Island! Rather than being focused on Nexon and its games, it’s actually a museum that documents and teaches about the history of computers and video games. It has a big collection of ‘artifacts’ and a lot of interactive exhibits that made it very fun to walk through. While not entirely MapleStory related, I thought it would be cool to share some of the things we saw (and there are some MapleStory things in the gift shop!). Currently, on the side of the main building, there is a giant piece of MapleStory artwork with a portal to Henesys, featuring some cute monsters. It’s an exhibit called Hello, REAL World! because you can actually scan a QR code with your phone to unlock a filter that when you point at the wall, the monsters pop out and start moving around! We were actually lucky with our timing as this was done to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Nexon Computer Museum as well as MapleStory’s 20th anniversary. Picture taken from the official Nexon Computer Museum website. They have free tour guides every hour that will take you through the museum, explaining each exhibit. You can also upgrade your ticket with various options and workshops. One of them is getting a Memex, which is a wrist device that reacts to different areas of the museum. It prompts you to answer questions based on what you see, and at the end, you get a special prize! The first floor is called the Welcome Stage, and is dedicated to the history of computers. You can see the progression over time of different parts of a computer, like input/output devices, memory, graphics, sound, networks, and CPUs. They even have an original Apple I! There’s a section where you can stand on 5 different spots to get information about 5 different parts of an operating system. If you’re ever there, you should try to find 5 people to stand on them all at the same time for an easter egg They even have a fully functioning backup of the earliest version of Nexon’s first MMORPG (and the longest-running graphical MMORPG in the world), The Kingdom of the Winds, from 1996! They show the Guiness World Record certificate as well. They have two different computers with it so you can play it with someone else! The second floor is called the Open Stage, and is dedicated to the history of video games. You can play a lot of retro video games like Pong and Space Invaders, as well as other fully functional arcade machines. A section of the floor is also about the evolution of shooting games, which they believe is one of the genres of games where you can clearly see innovation and improvements over time from things like Doom to Sudden Attack. The back part is the NCM Library, where they have a collection of video game consoles and publications from around the world. You can play a lot of old video games like Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64, and Pokemon Red. They even have a cute seating area with a giant Pink Bean bean bag! The third floor is called the Hidden Stage, and is dedicated to how computers have changed our daily life. There’s an area for the history of keyboards and mice, an area where you can learn basic programming languages based on binary code by guiding Pink Bean with simple instructions, and an area where they hold interactive workshops. Picture taken from the official Nexon Computer Museum website. There are currently three types of workshops: the binary keyring crafting (where you type in your name to convert it to binary code then use beads to make a keyring with that pattern), the mouse crafting (where you can make your own basic mouse), and the bug crafting (where you can make a toy that moves when you shine light on it using a solar cell). There’s also a section called the Open Area, where they show off different historical and modern devices. For April, they were having the MapleStory Arduino Arcade experience, where they made a MapleStory arcade game implemented on an Arduino! It was pretty basic, with two modes: PvE where you teamed up to fight monsters, and PvP where you fought each other. Pink Bean stands in the corner watching over you as you play lol. The basement is called the Special Stage, and has the Item Shop where you can buy merchandise, and the NEpository, where they showed off lots of concept art and videos from their old and cancelled games like Project NT (which some of you might remember as Peria Chronicles). In terms of merchandise, probably like >50% of it was MapleStory themed and other than that, there were various computer and video game related goods. A full set of Pink Bean themed set desk items, including a keyboard, mouse, desk mat, wrist cushion, and a monitor figure MapleStory body pillows MapleStory Mushroom House Mood Light Rock Spirit Wireless Charger and Mood Light MapleStory Figure Mood Light Rock Spirit Toothbrush Cleaner Pink Bean and Yeti gel pens Pink Bean and Yeti portable chargers Orange Mushroom USB Pink Bean and Yeti Phone Grip Pink Bean and Yeti Wireless Charging Pads Yeti sweater (I actually bought this and wore it to Maple Fest the next day lol) MapleStory Monster Water Ball Phone Grips MapleStory Monster Water Ball Key Rings MapleStory stickers MapleStory Monster Bag Tags They also had some leftover stock from the Nexon x Matte Black collaboration, with a couple of the t-shirts and hats. They also had a cute little photo booth area with a background where the MapleStory monsters were visiting Jeju Island! All in all, we had a really good time! Since we initially weren’t able to get tickets to the MapleStory Fan Fest, we thought this would be our main ‘MapleStory’ destination and while I was surprised that the museum was much less about MapleStory/Nexon games than I expected, it was still lots of fun. All of the different interactive experiences were interesting, informative and super engaging! While we were there, we saw a bunch of students on school trips and families, so the museum is definitely a great learning spot. I would totally recommend visiting it if you’re even remotely interested in computers or video games in general! Steve (x3TheAran59) also made a video about our trip, so you can check that out as well! Other than that, one of the things we tried was buying the GS25 x MapleStory collaboration Maple Bread and Snack goods. While the bread was pretty hard to find (only got a couple), a lot of places had the snacks (I guess since they’re newer). The bread came with random MapleStory stickers while the snacks came with random MapleStory ddakji (if you’ve seen Squid Game, it’s the game they play with the blue and red pieces of paper, it’s kind of like a Korean version of pogs). In addition, we found various MapleStory advertisements around Seoul! The biggest one we saw was on the stairs outside of I’Park Mall in Yongsan, but there was a lot of other ones in various subway stations and malls. It was cool seeing how much work they put into advertising the game in real life. Of course, like I mentioned in my last post (and if you watched Steve’s live stream), we actually did end up being able to go to MapleStory Fan Fest! My next blog post will be a big one about our experience, so everyone who couldn’t go can have a chance to see what was there! Source: Orange Mushroom's Blog