Yoshi's Cookie

Yoshi's Cookie is a video game published by Nintendo and BPS

platforms: NES, Super NES, GameCube (NTSC J)

Game play
The screen in single-player consists of a grid of between 2x2 and 7x7 tiles that are replenished over time. The player can move the cursor freely about the grid. By holding the shift key and pressing move buttons, the player can shift a column of tiles up or down, or shift a row of tiles up or down. An entire row or column of identical tiles disappears and scores points. Clearing the screen causes it to be filled with a predetermined pattern of tiles; clearing the screen ten times results in a cut scene. In this mode, there are three to five normal tile types; clearing three to five rows of the same type causes a wildcard tile with Yoshi's face to appear.

The 2-player mode has 5x5 grids on both sides that are fully replenished after the cascade completes. Each side has a fuse that burns down over time; it fills up fully after every line clear. Clearing a single row adds one Yoshi cookie in the replenished row; clearing two or more rows adds five. In this mode, Yoshi cookie tiles are not wildcards; they act as a sixth color. Fortunately, in a 5x5 grid with these six colors, it is always possible to make at least one row. An effect window changes randomly, and clearing a row of Yoshi cookies triggers an effect for a short time.
 * Blind:Hide the center 3x3 of one playfield.
 * Slave:Control other player's cursor.
 * Panic:Continuously shuffle tiles. Control is disabled and the fuse stops while the effect continues.
 * +3: Add 3 lines to the player's score.
 * -3: Subtract 3 lines from the player's score.
 * -7: Subtract 7 lines from the player's score.

A player wins once his score reaches 25 or the other player's fuse burns out.

BPS involvement
BPS was developing a puzzle game for Super NES called Hermetica. Nintendo licensed the game, called it Yoshi's Cookie, and published it on NES and Game Boy, while BPS published it (also as Yoshi's Cookie) on the Super NES.

BPS had developed a game called Inaro with nearly identical gameplay, but removed it from its web site when focusing entirely on Tetris.

Yoshi's Cookie is one of the few games released through Virtual Console on Wii that has since been removed.