Yoshi's Cookie
It's a Snack Attack!
Developer: Bullet-Proof Software, Tose, Home Data (early development)
Platforms: FC / NES, Game Boy, SFC / SNES
First Release Date: November 21, 1992 (FC and Game Boy, JP), June 1993 (SNES, NA)
Before I became more interested in puzzle games, Yoshi's Cookie slid off me a bit- I never really quite got it. I’ve definitely got a lot more appreciation for it now, especially the nonsense of versus mode. To make matches on your board of cookies, you move a whole line at a time, horizontally or vertically. Match up a full line, and you’ll clear it. If another line is present after it clears, you’ll make a combo. Trying to make combos in this game is reminiscent of solving a Rubik's Cube, as shuffling the rest of the board without messing up other parts of it can be challenging. The game varies pretty drastically between its single player and versus mode.
Single player is simple enough, you have to clear all the cookies on the board. More will fly in from the sides, and if it fills up on either side you’ll lose. You’ll often get down to just a couple cookies, and end up having to wait for one to appear to match with it. You can hold B to make them appear faster, but even then you can end up shuffling through your cookies for quite a while. Each type of cookie will fill up a meter that gives you a Yoshi cookie when full. It acts as a wild card, so it’ll help you get out of that shuffling state (unless it unhelpfully matches against another cookie coming in). This mode is probably more fun if you're great at clearing the board out efficiently, but it's still fun enough. You get some cute little cutscenes between every round of 10 levels- All of them show Mario chasing after a rolling cookie. One of them has a giant cookie appear to angrily chase Mario, one has the cookie fall off the cliff and ascend to heaven, etc. It's cute. Clearing the regular rounds will give you a code for secret extra rounds- these replace the cookies with various Mario enemies, which function identically to the cookies, with the exception of Koopa shells. They can only be removed with a Yoshi Cookie. Honestly, these extra levels don’t seem particularly fun to me, but I bet the real cookie heads out there like it.
Versus mode throws any of the blossoming genre conventions out the window. Making matches will give you Yoshi Cookies, and they don't work as wild cards here. Instead, clearing them will activate whatever cycling effect is listed under your character. That effect can either hit your opponent, or yourself. Make a match while it says your name and BLIND, and you’ll cover up your own board for a while. Make a match while it says your opponent’s name and +3, and you’ll kindly give your opponent three points. Win by collecting enough points, or if your opponent can’t match fast enough, win by having their timer run out. There are three statuses: BLIND, as mentioned, which covers the middle of the board; PANIC, which leaves you helpless as the board shuffles, and the “perhaps poorly named for the tone of Mario cookie game” SLAVE, which lets you control your opponent’s board (it does nothing if it hits yourself). The point bonuses and subtractions are very important as well. I’m not very good at this mode yet, to be honest! It’s a bloodbath in there! The best advice I can give is that making combos will give you many more Yoshi Cookies, and that you can tell at a glance if your current effect is positive or negative for you based on your character’s sprite. Even understanding how to play this mode, it remains very chaotic and unpredictable. You have to respect it for how off the wall it is, right? The Game Boy version has support for 4 players, which sounds terrifying.
In the SNES version (and probably on Game Boy too, but I haven’t verified that) there’s an additional wrinkle of characters having unique stats. Mario is the all-rounder, as usual. Yoshi has high defense, meaning status effects affect him for a much shorter time, but his queue of moves cycles much slower, making it easy to get stuck on one you don't want. Peach has low defense, getting an annoying amount of time taken away from her by status effects, but her queue cycles quickly, ideally giving you a better choice of what you want to use. Bowser's attacks last for about twice as long as other character’s moves- but his timer goes down much faster, making it more likely for him to instantly lose from not making a match fast enough. I can’t tell if there’s a clear winner here or not, but if you get an attack from Bowser as Peach, it takes enough time that you could probably get up and get a snack. The SNES version contains four harder recolor computer opponents as well, unlocked with a code given after beating each of the regular characters. The final struggle against Green Mario awaits...
Intellectual Connie Consultants: Yoshi's Cookie’s development passed between many different hands. It started as an alchemy themed arcade game, Hermetica, by Home Data. Poor location tests led them to sell the title to BPS, who started developing an SNES version, but then went for a brand deal with Nintendo. Nintendo outsourced development of the NES and GB versions to Tose, and those versions ended up coming out before BPS’s original version. There’s also a version of the game (or maybe just what they named the gameplay concept?) called Inaro, copyrighted to Intellectual Property Consultants, which was likely a shell of BPS…? Information is sparse for all of these many versions of the game, and I’d love to see more of any of them surface one day. Hermetica’s name remains as the password for the Game Boy version’s debug mode, and at least one picture of it exists, from an issue of Micom Basic Magazine.
The SNES version has a funny mix of existing and new character sprites. I find it cute in how mismatched it is. This version also has an exclusive puzzle mode, and limited turn puzzles are really good for this gameplay. It helps towards seeing the patterns that will make the other two modes much easier. Welltris mascot Alexey Pajitnov worked on the puzzles for this release of the game, although I’m not sure exactly what that means. Did he make the layouts for this mode? Probably? I'm really glad that I came away from this game more positively than I used to. I've always wanted to really like this game, mostly because I've always thought the cookie sprites looked delicious. You might find a particularly tasty looking cookie on this page if you look closely...
Thank you for reading!
