Video Game / Cookie Run: Kingdom

When running is not always an option...

"No cookie left behind!"

Cookie Run: Kingdom (additionally known as Cookie Kingdom) is a non-runner spinoff of the Cookie Run series, released on January 20th, 2021 by the South Korean company Devsisters, after much promotion and fanfare, with over three million downloads preregistered. Not unlike its predecessor, players assume the role of various cute, sentient gingerbread-man-style Cookies, but this time they are also tasked with building a kingdom for their own ruling, adventuring in all sorts of different lands to fight off a wide assortment of Cake Monsters and other enemies, and unraveling the story which revolves around the great ancient kingdoms that once existed on this land. In other words, it’s a free-to-play RPG and City Simulation Game hybrid.

The colorful cast in the game include (but are by no means limited to) Gingerbrave, Strawberry Cookie, Wizard Cookie, The Five Ancient Heroes (Pure Vanilla Cookie, Hollyberry Cookie, Dark Cacao Cookie, Golden Cheese Cookie, & Lily White Cookie), and all sorts of familiar and new Cookies.

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Tropes found in Cookie Run Kingdom:

• Aborted Arc: The main adventure started when Gingerbrave and his friends chased after a Cake Hound that had stolen a magic crown. This plotline was tossed aside very early on and the story quickly became entirely focused on the battle against Dark Enchantress Cookie. This is lampshaded in a special anniversary cutscene where the main characters are reminiscing about there adventures, but none of them can quite remember how their adventure started in the first place (except Strawberry Cookie, but she keeps getting interrupted) and it's revealed that this one particular Cake Hound still has the crown.
• Achievement Mockery: There are rewards for failing to upgrade your toppings.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: When DJ Cookie was introduced in OvenBreak, their gender was unspecified. In Kingdom, they are explicitly referred to with they/them pronouns.
• Ad Reward: Starting in a late 2022 update, there are a handful of bonuses for watching ads:
  • Five times per day, you can knock 30 minutes off the remaining time on any timer.
  • Three times per day, you can receive a handful of Topping Pieces, Rainbow Cubes, and Crystals.
  • Once per day, you can get a second daily gift.
• After-Combat Recovery: Cookies always start a level with full HP, no matter how beat-up (or knocked-out) they might've been at the end of the previous level. The only exception is in the Tropical Soda Islands, where any player cookie that gets KO'd will need to spend some time (scaling with the level's difficulty) drying out in a sunbed (of which there are only five) before they can be used in battle again.
• After the End: The main story takes place a long time after the Final Battle between The Five Ancient Heroes and Dark Enchantress Cookie, which resulted in their disappearance. Without the heroes’ guidance, the ancient Cookie kingdoms crumbled and fell into ruin, and to restore them is the main objective of the game.
• All There in the Manual: Most of the information about the Five Ancient Heroes, and their ancient Cookie Kingdoms, and the worldbuilding are all in the Cookie Run: Kingdom official artbook.
• Always Female: Every cookie in the Legendary class is female.
• Ancient Egypt: The Golden Cheese Kingdom’s aesthetic, right down to their architecture and ruling system.
• Angelic Abomination: The Avatar of Destiny, a Guild Battle boss released in 2022, is a winged, haloed thing that summons pillars of light to attack your cookies and is all too happy to use cheap tactics and be near-impossible to beat even on the lowest level!
• Another Side, Another Story:
  • Dark Mode lets you play through more difficult versions of previously completed episodes. While netting additional rewards, players look into the perspective of Pomegranate Cookie's group up to Level 8-30. Said mode also requires that you get all stars from the main story's episodes to progress.
  • Master Mode adds a third, much harder tier of difficult replays, requiring all stars in the corresponding Dark Mode episodes, which itself requires beating them to obtain the respective quills necessary to unlock further chapters in The Cookie Odyssey's wraparound story. The Master episodes allow farming Soulcores for Ascension, which are otherwise somewhere between "unreliable" and "pure luck" to acquire.
• Anthropomorphic Food: It is a Cookie Run game, after all. Aside from the humanoid Cookies we are all familiar with, there are also the living Bear Jellies, and the Sugar Gnomes, and the Cake Monsters.
• Anti-Frustration Features: The Bear Jelly Trains, which are the only item-request feature that can never be reset if you don't like what they're asking for, won't request a newly-unlocked item until you've crafted at least 10 of them. Before this feature was added, it was easy to lock the trains up indefinitely by building higher-level upgrades too early and getting requests for items you technically had the ability to make but couldn't actually pull it off.
• Arc Number: In the leadup to the BTS x Cookie Run Kingdom crossover, 7 was prominent. The game had 7 purple balloons flying off, the schedule had 7 sets of teasers in preparation for the event, and of course, all 7 boys were in the game.
• Art Shift: During World 17, GingerBrave, Wizard Cookie, and Black Raisin Cookie somehow enter a virtual space and their avatars become pixellated.
• Ascended Meme: One of the loading screen tips mentions that Angel Cookie is known for "the stare," referencing the hilariously weird face that they made during the detective events in Cookie Run: Ovenbreak. They can even be seen doing it sometimes in one of their idle animations in the town! Lampshaded in the Holiday Express storyline when Macaroni Cookie references their strange face.
• Backstory Horror: The Dark Flour War is more-or-less Cookie Run Kingdom's Unexpectedly Dark Episode, with the burnt flour being Cookies’ corpses crushed into dust and the fall of the kingdoms after their rulers’ disappearance (who were presumably dead) and with what's left of the latter now being empty ruins plagued with hordes of monsters. Strawberry Cookie also mentioned seeing another sentient gingerbread man get eaten while she was escaping the Witch’s house.
• Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic:
  • The standard and featured cookie gachas guarantee one cookie (10% Epic, 90% Rare) every 10 draws, and one Epic cookie every 100 draws.
  • The Nether Gacha (for Ancients and Legendaries) hands out the banner Cookie for free after 250 draws.
  • While Super Epic cookie gachas do contain the actual featured cookie, they also contain a set of special items that can be traded in for them, one of which is guaranteed every so many draws.^note The exact numbers have been slightly different every time, but they always work out to getting the cookie within 200 draws or fewer.
  • The Disney event gacha guaranteed a cookie every 20 draws.
  • The BTS event gacha guaranteed a cookie every 50 draws.
• Battle of the Bands: The "Braver Together" event also featured the B.A.D 4 (Schwarzwalder, Red Velvet, Licorice and Poison Mushroom) wanting to rule the world by upstaging BTS, who were mind their own business making a concert.
• Beef Gate: In the second half of the Red Dragon Hunt event, the titular dragon is fought deceptively early in the act, and he is far stronger than anything you've faced beforehand with a plethora of hard hitting and relentless attacks. It is recommended that you have a specially prepared team with specific Toppings and Treasures if you want to have any hope of beating it.
• Big Damn Reunion: The final scene in the Stories of the Fireplace wraparound story has the elderly Cotton Cookie finally reuniting with Sherbet Cookie.
• Bland-Name Product: Bassist Cookie mentions that Black Lemonade Cookie follows Shining Glitter on Coogle.
• Bookends: A meta example. The first and last events for 2023 involved a train.
• Bowdlerise: Not applied to the base game released worldwide, but in regards to the Chinese version that goes through this and gets approved there. Some cookie appearances have been changed, like the buttons on Gingerbrave's body now being round instead of skull-shaped, and Licorice Cookie's summons not looking like skulls at all.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: The effect of Licorice Cookie's punch in World 12, with GingerBrave having to fight off a brainwashed Wizard Cookie and Strawberry Cookie and (later) Raspberry Cookie.
• Busman's Holiday: Cheddar Cheese Cookie and Macaroni Cookie are CBI agents who end up having to solve a murder in the Holiday Express storyline. Macaroni Cookie can't help but lampshade this.
  Macarone Cookie: Is it just me, or does crime follow wherever we go?
• Cartoon Meat: Stamina Jellies and Juicy Stamina Jellies may not actually be meat, but their design of a delicious red blob with a Stock Femur Bone sticking out both ends is clearly intended to be evocative of meat on the bone.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: Per Cookie Run tradition, events can go from silly and light-hearted to dark and foreboding and then back to laughter and sunshine. For example, the grim Duskgloom Sea story (which details Black Pearl Cookie's tragic Start of Darkness) is immediately segued to...GingerBrave attending a BTS concert about to be taken over by the Cookies of Darkness with their own evil music group.
• Character Class System: While every Cookie has their own unique skill and stats, they're organized into distinct classes, which serve as a broad description of what they do in battle (and determine what kind of powder you need to level up their skill). These include:
  • Charge characters for damage-focused or all-round frontline fighters.
  • Defense characters for more defense-oriented frontline fighters.
  • Ambush characters, who deal heavy damage and specialize in attacking the enemy's back row.
  • Bombers, who focus on powerful attacks that often deal area-of-effect damage.
  • Ranged characters, single-target attackers stationed in the rear.
  • Healers, who are usually in the rear, and Support characters, who can be in the rear or in the middle — both of these focus on healing and buffing their allies.
  • Magic characters, who are mostly notable for their skill rather than their stats — usually an area-of-effect attack that hits multiple times, or something that allows them to summon minions.
• Competitive Balance:
  • You can only have up to three Ancient or Legendary rarity cookies at a time in the Arena.
  • You can only put one Cookie with the Safeguarded ability in your party.
• Cooldown: As per the RPG element, each Cookie has a fixed waiting time before they can use their skill again. Wise usage of time is the key to victory. There are also toppings and treasures that can be used to help reduce the cooldown as well, while some Cookies have abilities that quicken their own cooldowns.
• Crossover:
  • In mid-September 2021, Kingdom crossed over with Sonic the Hedgehog having a Sonic and Tails Cookie as playable characters.
  • In late-July 2022, the game crosses over with several Disney properties; having Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Alice, Lilo, Stitch, Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Aladdin, Jasmine, Belle, the Beast, Cinderella, Mulan, Pocahontas, Aurora, Snow White, and Ariel Cookies show up in the kingdom. Unlike the Sonic Cookies, they're considered Guests, meaning they can't be used for battle or gaining resources.
  • On September 21st, 2022, Devsisters had another crossover with BTS for the "Braver Together" event in October, in which cookies based on all seven members of the boy band were playable.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Unlike the main franchise, which has an Excuse Plot most of the time, the plot of Kingdom is more thematically complex and includes heavier subjects. By heavier, we mean a literal war, the collapse of an entire Cookie civilization following their leaders’ assuming death, and a literal Cookie holocaust with the Dark Flour War in the backstory.
  • The appropriately-named Dark Mode is moreso compared to how the story played out up to 8-30, particularly since it focused on how Dark Choco Cookie fell from grace.
  • And then there's the Tower of Chaos, in which Pastry Cookie gets to see traumatized cookies with empty smiles on their faces (which is the image for the game's Nightmare Fuel page).
  • Related to the Tower of Chaos above, the original lore of the game, in that the living cookies were made by a witch who deliberately brought them to life while intending to eat them, is heavily expanded upon and examined in a more serious light than it was in previous games. Now there's an entire coven of witches instead of just one and the original cookie inhabitants of Earthbread escaped from them 1000s of years ago, only for this knowledge to be forgotten due to a religion springing up around those witches and worshipping them like gods (while hiding from the truth from ordinary cookies of why the witches created them). A devote follower of this faith learning the Awful Truth is the Start of Darkness of the game's main antagonist Dark Enchantress Cookie. Pastry Cookie learns most of this during her trip to the Tower, which greatly shakes her faith too.
  • The Frost Queen and the Lantern in the Snow is one of the saddest events that Devsisters has written and it ends on a more bittersweet note.
• Embarrassing First Name: The Choco Werehound Brute's real name is Schwarzwälder^note The German name for the Black Forest gateau!. He gets embarrassed when Licorice Cookie calls him by it.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Living Abyss, first released in early 2022 as the boss of Episode 13, then ascended to a Guild Battle boss a few months later, is a terrifying Blob Monster made of licorice-dark goo which first crawled out of the Licorice Sea and will attempt to devour your cookies and spit them out when you fight it.
• Fairytale Motif: The Frost Queen Cookie storyline is similar to the classic Snow Queen fairy tale.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Similar to Ovenbreak, the animation that plays when you use the gacha is affected by what you're going to get. If only Gingerbrave opens the oven door and the witch doesn’t return to look at you, don’t have your hopes high — you’ll get Soulstones. On the other hand, if Gingerbrave, Clover Cookie and Custard Cookie III open the door and the witch looks at you with laughably cutesy eyes, an Epic is guaranteed.
  • The costume animation gacha depends on what costumes are on display in Montblanc Cookie's shop. If you have Cheesecake and Sparkling Cookie's OvenBreak epic costumes on display, then celebrate cause you're getting something good.
• Framing Device: "The Frost Queen and the Lantern in the Snow" event is the tale of a villager telling his daughter of two friends (Cotton Cookie and Sherbet Cookie) the story as to why there are lanterns being hung during the winter.
• Gameplay Automation:
  • In combat, there's an "Auto" option, which automatically uses skills and treasures as soon as their cooldowns expire.
  • In the kingdom, a line of special shop-exclusive buildings will automatically produce bundles of basic materials every several hours. Roll Cake Wood, Jellybeans, Sugar Cubes, Biscuit Flour, Jellyberries — any item produced directly from Coins has a corresponding building.
• Grim Up North: Dark Cacao Kingdom, which was founded on the edge of the Giant Icing Ridge, is a land of perpetual snowfall which beckons a life of austerity and perseverance. The climate is very harsh and the lands are stalked by dire beasts of all kinds, causing their Cookies to live a life of combat and constant reminder of perils and death.
• Guide Dang It!: Three examples from the Holiday Cake Shop minigame:
  • An unusual example: some characters, such as Snow Sugar Cookie, Poison Mushroom Cookie, and Raspberry Cookie, give you the option to ask for further clarification on their cake orders, since their prompts are pretty vague. Doing this will get you a lower rating. That's right: if you wanted to get a perfect score on the first try without a guide, you'd have to guess based on their prompts alone. However, you can reinvite them if you don't get five hearts on the first try and make another cake.
  • Sometimes, a character will request "at least" a certain number of layers on their cake. Despite this, you have to give them exactly that number. No more, no fewer.
  • Figuring out the cake orders of nonverbal characters can be tricky. For example, you have to infer Candy Diver Cookie's request based on the unicode symbols in their dialogue.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The fight against Dark Enchantress Cookie and the Cake Witch at the end of Map 8. "Victory" advances the story, but does nothing to stop Dark Enchantress's plans.
• Healing Boss: Some of the bosses (such as the Tainted Ent of Season 10 of Cookie Alliance) have a nasty habit of recovering all their HP in a few seconds if they aren't dealt with effectively and quickly.
• Hidden Purpose Test: The test to deem those worthy to access the lost Vanilla Kingdom is revealed to be a farce in hopes of preventing anyone from restoring it, as doing so is said to bring back Dark Enchantress Cookie.
• Humanity Ensues: Parodied in the "Shroomie Shenanigans!" event from April Fool's Day 2022. Funny rainbow mushrooms given to the cookies to eat give a "joke filter" design for them. A majority of them turn into Animesque humans.
• Is It Something You Eat?: Random chatter with Crunchy Chip Cookie can have him ask about "Delega-tion?" and wondering if it's something to eat.
• Item Crafting: A massive part of the game. You can create everything from food to tools (except for the buildings because the Sugar Gnomes will help you outwith that). Tools are also essential to progress through some parts of the Story Mode maps.
• Large Ham: Wizard Cookie is easily, if not, THE hammiest cookie in the entire series. Almost everything he says is what sells it.
• Lighter and Softer: As there are the more serious and dark stories in the game, there are also lots of stories that, while still having a mature running or some thematic elements in some of them, are nevertheless optimistic and even heartwarming to balance things out and remind us that it is still a Cookie Run game. For example, in comparison to "The Frost Queen and the Lantern in the Snow" arguably being the most dramatic and bittersweet winter event in the game, 2023 has Icicle Yeti's Winter Song, which is about the titular character becoming friends with Snow Sugar Cookie (with the only real sadness coming from Frost Queen Cookie's origins).
• Medium Awareness:
  • In World 17, the speech bubbles for the citizens of the Golden Cheese Kingdom are patterned differently than normal speech bubbles, which is something GingerBrave notes. And it's not just for show; it's also to highlight how the kingdom is a virtual world.
  • In the Virtual Mine Expedition story, Mozzerella Cookie decides to switch the nametags of High Priest Cheesenbird and Smoked Cheese Cookie when they accidentally switch bodies.
    Cheesenbird in Smoked Cheese Cookie's body: What's a nameztag?
    Mozzerella Cookie: A unique identifier existing behind the textures, so to speak. Nametags show who's talking!
• Mirror Character: GingerBrave and his crew are mirrors to the Five Ancient Heroes.
  • Custard Cookie III is to Pure Vanilla Cookie: Custard Cookie III proclaims himself as a future king while Pure Vanilla never saw himself as a ruler. Custard Cookie III is boisterous (like any child their age would be) but his heart is in the heart place, whereas Pure Vanilla Cookie is completely altruistic. Their healing abilities are also a mirror to one another: Custard Cookie III can only heal and give only two cookies barriers, while Pure Vanilla Cookie's healing and barrier abilities easily outshine Custard Cookie III's and allow him to reduce injury debuffs.
  • Strawberry Cookie is to Hollyberry Cookie: Both of them wear bright pink, but Strawberry Cookie is a Shrinking Violet (who shouts "Go Away!") while Hollyberry Cookie is a Boisterous Bruiser (who shouts "Outta my way!"). In addition, Strawberry Cookie uses a lollipop stick to push others away by spinning around, whereas Hollyberry Cookie has a shield that she uses to charge into battle.
  • Wizard Cookie is to Dark Cacao Cookie: They both use lightning in their attacks, with Wizard Cookie's being blue and Dark Cacao's being purple. But whereas Wizard Cookie is a magic wand-wielding cookie who can get excitable and wants to pursue magical knowledge, Dark Cacao Cookie is a grim and stoic sword-wielding cookie who tends to be isolated.
  • Chili Pepper Cookie is to Golden Cheese Cookie: They are both greedy cookies who love to accumulate riches, but Chili Pepper Cookie loves to steal from others while Golden Cheese Cookie shares her wealth with her subjects. Chili Pepper Cookie's only motivation for joining the group is solely for a crown, to the point that she doesn't play a part in the Cookie Odyssey and the World Exploration worlds post 14, while Golden Cheese Cookie allies with Ancient Heroes to protect Earthbread and mostly stayed away to rule over her Kingdom before she being coerced to return. In addition, Chili Pepper Cookie is an Assault Cookie who uses daggers, while Golden Cheese Cookie is a Ranged Cookie.
  • GingerBrave is to White Lily Cookie: They are the central character to their group of five, with GingerBrave being the hero who guides his team through countless trials whereas White Lily Cookie is the source of the many mysteries associated with Dark Enchantress Cookie. White Lily Cookie sought out the answers as to why Cookies existed and the truth broke her, whereas GingerBrave also has pondered over the horrible truths of other cookies who never escaped the oven like he did, but ultimately states that what matters the most is him being free and with his friends.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Not all of the Cake Hounds are evil by nature; Some of them are shown to be perfectly friendly and docile in spite of their origins◊ and don't pose a threat to the good and innocent cookies.◊
• Mythology Gag:
  • In World 8, one of the obstacles blocking the path is the Strange Flask, a large flask of spilling pink liquid next to some yellow jellybeans. When interacting with the flask Custard Cookie III worries that touching it would transform them into Jelly-eyed mindless monsters◊, referencing the Jelly Walkers, the main antagonists of Cookie Wars.
  • One of Twizzly Gummy Cookie's companions is Wild Strawberry Cookie, an alternate timeline/dimension version of Strawberry Cookie; Wild Strawberry Cookie's design is taken heavily from a Cookie Wars character of the same name, a Mythic variant of Strawberry Cookie.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When White Lily Cookie seems to be trapped within a moonstone, Gingerbrave smashes it to bits...only for it to be a trick as he unwittingly unseals Dark Enchantress Cookie in the process.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Cookies defeated in battle, in terms of them being playable or as enemies, will be flung offscreen and removed from the battle without appearing to suffer any actual harm from it.
• Not Completely Useless:
  • Common cookies are typically totally outclassed once you've pulled some Rares and Epics to replace them, and Rares in turn are useless once you've gotten more Epics. However, two of the Black Pearl Islands altar blessings provide a boost of 800+% to the stats of Common cookies or 300+% to Rares, boosting Commons to the most powerful cookies available and making Rares second only to boosted Commons.
  • GingerBrave, despite being a Common cookie and thus quickly outclassed, is a key part of the appropriately-named "GingerScam" Arena team build, as his skill's knockback can get the opposing team grouped together for a burst of heavy damage from the other four cookies. While it's possible to pull off the same strategy with Kumiho Cookie instead, it's much trickier.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: There are ten types of toppings that each boost a different stat, but nearly every cookie wants either ATK (Raspberry), Cooldown (Chocolate), or DMG Resist (Almond). Tanks want the almonds, and everyone else wants either the raspberries or the chocolates depending on how their skill works. Cookies with unusual skills that run off a different stat have been added, but they all still want one very specific stat instead of either of the three most common.
• Play Every Day: Daily log-in bonuses are commonly granted. The player also needs to maintain their abode manually and keep their production houses running so that their kingdom develops efficiently.
• Power Equals Rarity:
  • Zigzagged for cookies: Common cookies are okay enough to get you through the early chapters of Story Mode, but Rare cookies usually completely outclass them, and Epic cookies in turn usually completely outclass Rares. It gets a little more complicated after that; Super Epic, Dragon, Legendary, and Ancient cookies are indeed very good, but there's also only a handful of them and most newly-released cookies are Epic, so it's quite common for the best cookie in a particular role not to be one of the highest rarities. There are also a handful of overly-specific situations where a Common or Rare cookie is really useful.
  • Completely averted for treasures — almost every treasure has its niche, and which ones are good seems to be completely orthogonal to its rarity. The Old Pilgrim's Scroll (boosts attack) is one of the best, and it's Epic, but the Squishy Jelly Watch (reduces cooldowns) and the Gatekeeper Ghost's Horn (boosts defense) are generally considered to be in the same league, and they're Common.
• Putting the Band Back Together: After the Flour War, the Five Ancient Heroes went their separate ways with their own Soul Jam pieces. Most of the main story revolves around getting them back together for the war against Dark Enchantress Cookie (AKA: White Lily Cookie).
• Precious Puppy: The Cake Hounds act like adorable puppies to the point that Red Velvet Cookie has one as a pet and names him Chiffon. And while a lot of them are enemies, some of them are friendly NPCs.
• Recurring Element: Super Epic Cookies are categorized as either having elemental powers (Stardust Cookie, Sherbet Cookie, & Capsaicin Cookie, Elder Faerie Cookie) or alluded to being rich (Clotted Cream Cookie, Oyster Cookie, & Shining Glitter Cookie).
• Recursive Acronym: In the BTS crossover event, the Cookies of Darkness (Licorice Cookie, Poison Mushroom Cookie, Red Velvet Cookie, & the Choco Werehound Brute) form a competing evil band called "B.A.D. 4", in which "B.A.D." stands for "Bad And Dark" and the "4" refers to these four particular cookies.
• Replay Mode: Early into the game, Wizard Cookie will request the rebuilding of a tower close to the kingdom so he can store a lot of archives; the tower acts a cutscene viewer, and contains all of the cutscenes that the player has unlocked so far.
• Rhythm Game: The October 2022 BTS event "Braver Together" and July 2023 "Summer Soda Rock Fest" events have rhythm games consisting of cookies running to gather notes and jellies a la OvenBreak and where tapping or dragging parts of the screen in time with the music a la Guitar Hero.
• Riddle of the Sphinx: A sphinx is found in World 17 and asks them the traditional riddle. In a unique subversion, the answer is not a human because none of the cookies know what a human is...which is really weird considering that the witches who bake cookies for a living could either be humanoid or completely human.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of Latte Cookie's lines go like this "Turn to page 394. Oh, did we already cover this?".
  • In one boat when you clear our a clouded region, you will be treated with a cutscene of "Coco Jack" holding the Durianian's arms in front of the boat soaring their arms, stating that they're "flying... Coco Jack!".◊ Now, where have we seen that one before?
• Simulation Game: Half of the game consists of developing a new kingdom. This requires setting up new buildings and gathering ingredients and tools for them.
• Skill Gate Characters: Most of the Common Rank units are qualified as this, since their skill sets gives novice players the baseline understanding as to what their classes are like and they're easily obtainable from the gacha (meaning they can get promoted up to 5 stars very easily). They fall off very quickly in the early-game, though, since they don't provide any useful status buffs nor debuffs to help the team, and are easily benched when players start getting better ranked Cookies.
• Starter Mon: Of both introducing Ranks and the Roles each starter units play as.
  • Gingerbrave, Strawberry Cookie, and Wizard Cookie are the first three Common units players get for free, as well as introducing their roles of Charge, Defense, and Magic respectively.
  • Chili Pepper Cookie is the first Epic Cookie to get for free in a gacha tutorial (in-turn, introducing how gacha mechanics work in-game), along with introducing the Ambush role to the players.
  • Custard Cookie III and Clover Cookie^noteIf players pre-registered for the game are free Rare units that introduce the Support Party Member role in a form of Healing and Support roles, respectively.
• Suddenly Voiced: Cookies gain voice lines in the game (though initially only in Korean, Japanese and English voice packs were released on September 2nd and October 8th in the same year of 2021, as well as the Thai, Taiwanese, German, and French voice packs being released later in 2022).
• Sugar Apocalypse: The Dark Flour War that almost destroyed the whole Cookie civilization had the Five Ancient Heroes not risen. Following the Five Ancient Heroes' disappearance, their subjects could not handle the overwhelming Darkness and the aforementioned civilization collapsed.
• Squishy Wizard: Most of the Magic Class units are qualified as this (with some of them being Glass Cannons) since they are great damage dealers for any team but also need front line units to defend them against enemies that can easily take them out. Other mid-lane units, such as Bombs and Ambush, also qualify but don't have pure magic at their disposal.
• A Taste of Power: The game's tutorial opens up with you playing as The Five Ancient Heroes, who are extremely powerful. Then you get to play with Gingerbrave and friends, who have three Common cookies on the team.
• Thriller on the Express: The Holiday Express event is a textbook one: A group of Cookies are enjoying their time on a holiday train when suddenly Old Jolly (a Santa-esque Sugar Gnome) is found unconscious and face down in a pile of strawberry jam. An investigation ensues, and its up to famed mystery novelist Linzer Cookie to use her skills in writing mysteries to solve a case for real. Bonus points for Linzer Cookie being a walking Agatha Christie reference, making the Murder on the Orient Express parallels even more obvious.
• Token Evil Teammate: Some of the bad guys such as Licorice Cookie, Poison Mushroom Cookie, Dark Choco Cookie, Pomegranate Cookie, Red Velvet Cookie, and Choco Werehound Brute are playable characters that you can pull from the gacha.
• Two Girls to a Team: Strawberry Cookie and Chili Pepper Cookie are the only two female Cookies in Gingerbrave's main group. But this is Inverted with the Five Ancient Heroes, thanks to Pure Vanilla Cookie and Dark Cacao Cookie being the two sole males of the group.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Highlighted in Lord Oyster's bio in "A Mermaid's Tale". If he refused Abalone Cookie's offer, then Black Pearl Cookie would never have been born because he wouldn't have sold her pearl for House Oyster's fortune.
  "When House Abalone offered their hand, Lord Oyster couldn't help but feel uneasy to take it. If he refused, this story may have had a different ending."
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can make Herb Cookie chop down trees (which gives him a sad expression) or have Red Velvet Cookie fight his Cake Hounds. And thanks to Gameplay and Story Segregation, production values or stats won't be affected.
• Villains Out Shopping: The existence of B.A.D 4 as a representative of the Cookies of Darkness appears to have shades of this, with Licorice Cookie, Red Velvet Cookie, Poison Mushroom Cookie, and Choco Werehound Brute competing for first place in the music competition business. While a bit problematic, this plan is considered by many to be outright timid compared to the tactics Dark Enchantress Cookie is willing to pull.
• War Is Hell: Those who came out from the Dark Flour War carry visible mental and emotional burdens on their shoulders, showing that PTSD is no joke. Not even the saintly Pure Vanilla Cookie and jolly Hollyberry Cookie - two of the ancient heroes and great monarchs - are immune from the feeling of guilt and being a "failure". It got so bad that Pure Vanilla Cookie had a mental breakdown while trying to face his past, and Hollyberry Cookie left everything behind to go into hiding, believing that she didn’t deserve either the throne or the sacred shield anymore.
• Weird Crossover:
  • September 2021 had Cookie Run Kingdom crossover with Sonic the Hedgehog, with the only thing in common being that there is a lot of running involved.
  • October 2022 is when Cookie Run Kingdom had a crossover...with BTS. You read that right; the number one Korean boy band crossed over as adorable cookies.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The anniversary events typically act like epilogues to the storylines that happened throughout the year.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The second half of World 17 is essentially a Cookie version of the Black Mirror episode "San Junipero", which involves souls being uploaded into a virtual reality where there's nothing but partying all day and night.
• Wizarding School: The Parfaedia Institute that comes in the same update with Guild feature is the heart of Dessert Magic — a field of magic in Cookie Run: Kingdom’s world. Cream Puff Cookie studied there, and it is also where Latte Cookie, Espresso Cookie, and Eclair Cookie teach.
• Writing Around Trademarks: The second year anniversary sidestories never directly mention either the Disney or BTS cookies when recapping their respective storylines for copyright reasons.
• Wutai: The Dark Cacao Kingdom; It is based on ancient Korea and is the main base of operations of Dark Cacao Cookie.
• You Didn't Ask: When Custard Cookie III mentions that he's a descendant of the Vanilla, Chili Pepper Cookie demands to know why he didn't mention that earlier. His flustered response is to point out that nobody ever asked.

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