When I say that the most important skill in Yoshi's Cookie is counting to five, what I mean is this: you need to be able to quickly and accurately assess whether or not you have at least five of a given type of cookie. Nothing starts without a match of at least five. And, it may not always be obvious whether or not you have that sufficient quantity of a given cookie. It is possible to arrive at a board in a situation where there are five cookies of one type, and only four cookies of the other five types. In this case, it may be difficult to determine which cookie type is the correct type to use.
This is a skill that will improve through regular practice. My suggestions for practicing this skill, based on my personal experience, are:
So once you've determined which cookie types you can use, the next step is to decide which to use. Since moving quickly in Yoshi's Cookie is important, the best choice is the one that will take the fewest moves. Which one will take the fewest moves? A good rule of thumb is that whichever type already has the most pieces in the same row or column will take the fewest moves (and therefore the least time) to clear. This may not always, strictly speaking, be true, but thinking about which cookie type is optimal also takes time. For example, a difference of two moves is about one-fifth of a second, so it is not advisable to spend time agonizing over this kind of optimization. Doing something will nearly always prevail over doing nothing.
Let's look at a few sample boards, and I will guide you through my thought process for making single row or column clears on each board. We'll start with a board at the beginning of a game and proceed from there.
Here's our starting board. Looking at it quickly, what type of cookie do you want to first use?
On this board, there are two hearts, four greens, four checks, six circles, and nine flowers. Therefore, you have two choices: circles and flowers. Although there are many more flowers than circles, either choice is about equally good. Let's take a look at how these two different choices could play out.
If you decide to go with circles, you then have to decide what row or column to assemble the circles in. The second row from the top and the central column both have two circles in them already. All other rows and columns only have one circle in them, so they would probably take more effort to use. If you decide to use the second row from the top, a good way to complete the row would be:
Success! At this point, you have five circles in the second row from the top, and they will clear away. The above video clip shows this process in motion.
You probably noticed that some flowers were also cleared away at the same time in the bottom row. This was pretty lucky! It earned an extra point, and caused more Yoshi cookies to appear. This will sometimes happen when making single matches, so don't be taken off guard when it does. Enjoy your good fortune.
If instead, you wanted to put the circles in the middle column, a good way to complete the column would be:
Again, success! At this point, you have five circles in the middle column, and they will clear away. The above video clip shows this process in motion.
Much like in the previous case, some flowers were cleared away at the same time. Again, don't worry about it too much right now.
Now, it's also possible that you noticed the abundance of flowers on the board and decided to pursue that type of cookie for your first match. With flowers, there are a lot of good choices you can make on this board. Although no row or column has three or more flowers in it already, there are two flowers in four of the rows and four of the columns! No matter which one you pick, you will be able to make your match quickly. It would take a long time to go through all eight of these choices, so let's just pick one and then move on with whatever board we get after that.
Arbitrarily, I choose the top row as the location to assemble a full row of flowers. A good way to complete the row would be:
Success! At this point, you have five flowers in the top row, and they will clear away. The above video clip shows this process in motion.
Before we keep working on making single matches on this board, I want to mention a few things.
I have been using a vital feature of the Yoshi's Cookie board in all three of these examples. That feature is the "wrapping around" of the board. This "wrapping around" applies to both the cookies on the board and the cursor itself. By remembering that you can move the cursor off the edge and have it reappear on the opposite side of the board, you can get the cursor to where you want it to be with fewer movements. You can keep the following general principle in mind: since the Yoshi's Cookie board is five cookies wide and five cookies tall, moving the cursor or a cookie from one position to another within the same row or column can always be done in less than three moves. Any distance of three spaces can be traveled by going two spaces in the opposite direction, and any distance of four spaces can be traveled by going one space in the opposite direction. While going three spaces instead of two isn't a huge mistake, it can add up over the course of a game to slow you down a lot. In all of the examples, I avoided having to move the cursor or a cookie more than two spaces to get it where I needed it to be.
"Always be counting to five."
As cookies are clearing away, it is a good idea to already be thinking about what your next move might be. Since the board started with enough flowers and circles to clear either of those, there's a good chance that whichever cookie type you didn't pick for your first match will be a good choice for your second match. In addition, you can be counting other cookie types as you move cookies into position to determine likely candidates for your next match. By having a good guess of what to do before the game finishes clearing one set of cookies, you will be able to start your next set sooner. Even if it isn't the most efficient move on the board you end up with, the fact that you are able to start it sooner can make up for a difference of a few movements. Doing something will nearly always prevail over waiting before doing something that is only slightly better. Always be counting to five.
As an exercise on your own, take another look at the initial board you started with. Work out movements for the other ways you could clear five flowers from the board. Here is the initial board again:
As you figure out how to clear flowers in the middle, second from the bottom, and bottom rows, as well as the leftmost, second from the left, second from the right, and rightmost columns, write down how you would have to move the cursor and slide cookies. Then, compare for each row and column the number of times you had to move the cursor and slide cookies. See if any useful facts or patterns emerge. Some of the ways of clearing flowers will also result in clearing circles. Study the board and try to see if the flowers and circles are in some kind of pattern that would indicate this kind of result ahead of time.