Series
Yoshi puzzle series
2 games, 1991–1992.
Games
Interactive: timeline (needs JavaScript)
The series by yearMechanics
A marked cell changed from the game before. “Uses” means the game has the mechanic, with no variant recorded yet.
Every claim, by mechanic and game
| Concept | Yoshi
1991 | Yoshi's Cookie
1992 |
|---|
| Chain | | uses |
| Clearing | | - On the first stages of Round 1, a shift slides the cursor's row or column one cell, wrapping around. A row or column that is all one kind then clears, the rows above drop, the columns to its right close up, and any line that forms clears in turn. The stage ends when the board is empty. Verified
- Each pass of the line check tests the rows first, and the columns only if no row matched. Rows are tested only on a board at least two cookies wide, columns only on one at least two tall, and both scans pass over tile
$1A, kind 5, so a cookie of that kind counts as any kind; the atlas takes it to be the Yoshi cookie. Only whole rows and whole columns clear, so the board stays a rectangle. Code - A board that holds a single cookie of some kind and no cookie of kind 5 (tile
$1A, which counts as any kind) can't be emptied by shifts, since every line that clears is two or more cookies of one kind. Only incoming cookies can rescue it. Code
|
| Demo playback | | |
| Random number generator | | - Yoshi's Cookie keeps its random number generator in one byte,
$0424, and steps it as , written out in place at each call site, so the sequence runs through all 256 values before it repeats. Verified - The power-on code sets the generator to
$C3. Verified - Each stage's board comes from the generator: it picks the stage's kinds of cookie, then fills the board from the bottom left, row by row, redrawing any cookie that matches the one to its left or the one below. Verified
- A cookie kind is a generator step mod 5, drawn again while it equals the previous pick; the previous pick is reset to 0 at each stage's start, so the first kind picked is never kind 0. Verified
- With n kinds in play, a cookie's kind is the list entry at the count of generator steps with bit 7 set among n − 1 steps, so the middle kinds of the list come up more often than the ends. Verified
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| RNG manipulation | | |