Wario's Woods (ワリオの森, Wario no Mori) is a puzzle game, developed and published by Nintendo, for both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES version was released in Japan on February 19, 1994, and both versions were released simultaneously in North America on December 10, 1994. Because of the increasing popularity of the Super NES, Wario's Woods was the last official licenced game released for the NES, and is also the only game in its library to have an official rating by the ESRB.

Wario's Woods is a falling block game where the objective is to clear the playing field of monsters by using bombs, arranging them into rows of matching colors. Unlike other puzzle games such as Tetris, where the player directly manipulates the game pieces, the player controls Toad, who moves around the playing field and arranges them after they have fallen.

The game was re-released in various forms, first available as a broadcast on the Satellaview from April 1995 to June 2000; as a collectable, playable item in the 2001 Nintendo GameCube game Animal Crossing; and for purchase as a Virtual Console title for the Wii in 2006.

The objective of Wario's Woods is to clear the playing field of monsters of varying colors by using bombs of matching color, which are dropped into the field from the top of the screen. In order to do so, the monsters and bombs must be rearranged by the player such that three or more objects of the same color are placed adjacent to one another in horizontal, vertical, or diagonal rows, with at least one object being a bomb (such rows are called a match). For example, a match may consist of two red monsters and one red bomb, but may also consist of two red bombs and one red monster. When the play field is cleared of all the monsters, the player progresses to the next round, where the initial number of monsters increases. The monsters themselves also begin to vary, ranging from requiring two matches to completely destroy them or can only be cleared in diagonal rows.

Unlike other action puzzle games such as Tetris or Puzzle League where the player directly manipulates the game pieces, either as they fall or via a cursor, the player directly controls the character Toad, who moves around inside the playing field atop the fallen objects. Toad primarily can pick up individual objects or lift entire stacks and place them elsewhere in the playing field, but is unable to manipulate objects he cannot immediately reach. However, Toad can perform a variety of additional tricks, such as scurrying up stacks to retrieve specific objects or kicking them across the play field. If the player cannot clear the playing field of its objects quickly enough, the play field will eventually fill to the brim and trap Toad, resulting in a Game Over.

The player is also given a pseudo time limit called the "Time Gauge," which switches between Bomb Time and Enemy Time each time it expires, causing the game rules to change. During Bomb Time, Birdo drops bombs into the playing field. During Enemy Time, Wario drops monsters into the playing field and lowers the ceiling, shrinking the available space and making it both harder to arrange objects and easier for the playing field to quickly fill up.

Techniques and Bonuses

The player is awarded special advantages for performing various techniques. A chain reaction, which occurs when one match triggers another match, extends Bomb Time and shortens Enemy Time. If the player clears a row that contains five or more objects, a Diamond appears, which when used in a match, automatically removes all monsters that match its color from the playing field. Upon completion of a level, the player is awarded a certain number of coins that decreases each time the Time Gauge expires, for which a continue is awarded each time the player accumulates 30 coins in the NES version, and 50 for the SNES version.

Additional Modes

In addition to the main single-player mode, Wario's Woods offers two play modes: a time attack mode, where single-players complete a number of levels as fast as possible; and a competitive two-player versus mode, where each player races to clear all the monsters from his playing field before the other one does. The players can spawn monsters in their opponent's screen via the techniques mentioned above. The Super NES version gives players the option to play this multiplayer mode against computer-controlled players of increasing difficulty, while the NES version supplies unique boss battles, which are fought in a special variation of its main single-player mode.