Cookie Mania

About Cookie Mania

Cookie Mania is a browser puzzle game played on a board of cookie-shaped tiles, in a portrait window. It opens on a tutorial board: a tan panel holding glossy sandwich-cookie tiles in teal, dark blue, green, chocolate brown, pale beige, orange and pink, over a dark teal sky with drifting sparkles, soft clouds and green hills in the corners. The screen dims, a cartoon girl in a strawberry hat appears with a speech bubble reading "Follow the prompts to complete the elimination!", a "SKIP >>" link sits top right, and a white pointing hand moves between two tiles of the same colour to mark the pair. Clearing that board moves you into scored play, which is where the game actually lives: a second board of star-shaped and square cookies under a header reading LEVEL 2, a countdown clock starting at 02:30, a running SCORE, a COMBO multiplier, a green progress bar, and three booster bubbles along the bottom edge. On our run the score reached 2700 with the combo multiplier at seven, so points come from clearing in quick succession rather than from tile count alone.

How to play Cookie Mania

1. The game opens on a tutorial. The screen dims and a character prompts you to "Follow the prompts to complete the elimination!"
2. Watch the white hand pointer -- it moves between two cookies of the same colour to show you the pair it wants cleared.
3. Clear that pair, then work the rest of the tutorial board down until it is empty.
4. Use the "SKIP >>" link in the top-right corner if you would rather pass the tutorial than follow it.
5. Scored levels then add a clock, a score and a combo multiplier. The clock starts at 02:30 and counts down while you play.
6. Keep clears back to back to drive the COMBO multiplier up -- we got it to seven, which is where the points come from.
7. Three booster bubbles sit along the bottom edge of a scored level for when the board stops offering pairs.

Controls

• Desktop: Pointer only. The white hand cursor indicates cookies on the board, and the underlined "SKIP >>" text in the top-right corner is a link. No keyboard input, on-screen buttons or menus appear anywhere.
• Mobile / tablet: Touch. The only input is a pointer indicating tiles on the board, plus the "SKIP >>" link, both of which a finger can reach. The layout is portrait -- the board sits in the middle of a tall screen -- so it fits a phone without rotating. We have not confirmed whether a pair is taken by touching each tile in turn or by dragging one onto the other.

Cookie Mania tips & strategy

• Match on colour, not shape. On the tutorial board every tile is the same rounded sandwich-cookie shape; only the colour differs, so colour is the only thing separating one tile from another.
• Count the colours. The tutorial board carries seven colours and exactly two tiles of each, so every tile on it has one partner somewhere on the board.
• The pair the tutorial points at is not adjacent -- the two green cookies sit in the same row with an empty cell between them.
• The "SKIP >>" link sits top-right throughout the tutorial, if you would rather start playing than sit through the guided opening.
• No timer, score or move counter is displayed during the tutorial, so there is nothing on screen pressuring you while you read the board.

What makes Cookie Mania fun

Plays in the browser, with no sign-in, download or payment screen. A single portrait board four cells across and four down, holding fourteen glossy cookie tiles with two cells empty. Exactly seven tile colours -- teal, dark blue, green, chocolate brown, pale beige, orange and pink -- with two tiles of each. A guided opening tutorial with a cartoon character, a speech-bubble prompt and a looping hand-pointer animation that indicates a matching pair. A "SKIP >>" link in the top-right corner to pass that tutorial. An illustrated backdrop of a dark teal sky with drifting sparkle particles, soft clouds and green hill shapes in the bottom corners. The tutorial board itself carries no timer, score or progress bar; the scored levels that follow add a LEVEL header, a countdown starting at 02:30, a running SCORE, a COMBO multiplier, a green progress bar and three booster bubbles along the bottom edge.