Hi all,

I acquired this one about a month ago, and although I noticed a minor difference right away, I just recently had the chance to take a close look.  I'm trying to remember all the differences I found last night, so bear with me please.

First up, the title screen:



A few things to note here.  The background is black rather than a lilac, and the word puzzle is spelled "pazzle".

Next, the "pazzle" mode's opening screen:



Where did Mario go?

Stage one of "pazzle" mode:



This is when we start to see some serious stuff.  Mario is now nowhere to be found.  There are three pipes missing from the bottom of the "moves remaining" indicator, and there is a score tally in the top right corner completely missing from the final version.

Moving further into "pazzle" mode:



What the?  Are those Metroids instead of cookies?!?!

Speaking of misshapen cookies:



Look at the green cookie.  Yup, totally different shape.

Some other fun items to note:

- In "action" mode, pressing the "R" trigger advances you a stage, pressing the "L" trigger advances you a round.
- The cut scenes between each round lack the opening animation where the cookie falls off of Yoshi's house, as well as the "zoomed in" view of the interaction between Mario and the cookie.
- After you beat the game in action mode, you're treated to an alternate title screen and animation that as far as I know is not in the retail version:







Notice "Puzzle" mode is spelled correctly now?  The whole scene plays out with Mario attempting to open a jar with a cookie in it, Yoshi eats the jar, Mario pursues Yoshi to retrieve it.

I'm sure there are more things to find, I haven't had a chance to play through Pazzle and VS modes just yet, so I'll update with anything new I find.

To answer some quick (inevitable) questions:

Do I plan on releasing the ROM?
No, I have no plans to release it.

Is it or will it be for sale?
Yup, it sure is.

Will it be cheap?
Not even remotely.

Hope you all enjoy!

Nice work Mark!

Nice!

Hahaha...easily one of my favorite quotes!

very cool proto there buddy! Yoshi's cookie is by far one of my favorite games.

Thanks Mark for sharing. Always nice to see proto differences.

Thanks guys, glad you like it!

Link: I thought people would get a kick out of that. I've had a shitload of tire kickers recently, so I figure if anyone wanted to make an offer on this one, I'd let them know ahead of time that they'll have to dig into their wallets a bit

I was always partial to Pokemon Puzzle League....er I mean Tetris Attack....um I mean Panel de Pon.....Nintendo was bein lazy....

wow... epic find... Im sure it will fetch a lot of money. Advertise it on some hardcore metroid forum also...lol...

Too bad it wasn't a prototype of Hermetica (which was the title before BPS threw the Yoshi/Mario license on it).

Also, I'm betting the corrupt graphics there is an indication of bitrot.

Nice find, though.

I don't see any corrupt graphics at all, which are you referring to?

Edit:  The only thing I can even begin to think you were talking about are the Metroid-y type blobs.  I can assure you, they're very much deliberate, though it's tough to tell in the picture.  Here is another that may show it a bit better:



Of the roughly 100 protos I currently own, I only have like 2 or 3 that show signs of corruption.  This one not included

mark you are my hero!!! now gimme all your protos lol .

In this particular prototype that I recently released, only the king graphics there are corrupt.  It was tough to find and not immediately obvious.  Even a single byte wrong in a pointer (which could be the case in this Yoshi's Cookie prototype) could mess up things.  In the prototype of Battle Blaze (above), it was only a section of 5 tiles that were corrupt, and it would have probably went unnoticed if it weren't for the fact that the uncorrupt prototype ROM image was leaked years ago.

Yeah, I've read about that proto on your site before. This isn't bit rot though, this thing is deliberate for sure. The image isn't garbled in the least, it's just an entirely different cookie.

A wizardry shirt, awesome.

Heh, if only I had money. Would you be interested in trading for non-prototype items? Check out my TZ collection, if so. I have some rare shit. http://gametz.com/user/nensondubo...

Very nice work! Yet another proto to add to the list!

It's strange that the SNES proto of this game had the same animation the NES version does (I remember how plenty hours I played this game in my NES long ago).

Shame it won't be released. If there where the chance of making a fundraiser just for it's ROM release I would try to promote it everywhere (I would donate, but it will be a tiny amount since I am at college and don't have a job yet).

Community dumps are horse shit, I won't be charging people money to play a ROM of a game I don't own the rights to.

It won't be released by me because I'm looking to sell it, the new owner can do as they wish with it. I dump and release stuff I plan on keeping in my collection, this just isn't one of those games. I'd much prefer selling it and using the money to fund another prototype purchase that would likely get released.

I now understand.

Good luck!

Sorry, just re-read what I posted and it came off well different than I had planned.  Seemed rude, totally didn't mean it that way.

First off, the fact that your willing to front even a small bit of cash to preserve protos rocks, wish more people were willing to go that far for preservation.  I get fired up at the community dump idea as it seems an easy way for a prototype owner to recoup their costs associated with buying the proto without having to give anything up.  They should either release it or not, but not expect cash in exchange.

Matt and I have at least 2 protos we were planning on releasing this weekend, but our retrode is being super temperamental, so it may have to wait.  I'm a huge supporter of releasing ROMs and hope that i can continue to do so.

As for not releasing this ROM, it's not entirely impossible.  If I don't find a buyer who is willing to buy it at a fair price, I'd more than likely release the ROM and move onto the next game.

Anyway, sorry for coming off horribly rude in my last post.  Welcome to NA and hope we see you more in this sub-forum!

Don't worry.
You guys are doing a great job!

I like NA a lot so, when I find something interesting I will post it here.