Yoshi’s first appearance on the Nintendo DS, and he even found himself a part of the launch titles! But many might be surprised to find out that Touch & Go was developed to be a benchmark for the unique features of the DS and was never intended to be converted into a game that was to be sold.

After creating the Nintendo DS, the game known as Touch & Go was developed as a means to showcase the features of the DS: the touch screen; microphone; dual screen capabilities; and the wifi download play. It was only after the game was given much praise that Nintendo decided to give it a go and develop it into a game which they could launch with the console back in 2005.

Yoshi, the lovable character from the mushroom kingdom, was the star that would be thrown into the spotlight. He would have the tedious task of having to catch a falling baby Mario and then lead him through miles and miles of treacherous territory which will almost always end in the both of them dying or, in the more politically correct Nintendo version, Yoshi passing out and baby Mario being captured by Kamek riding on a broomstick.

As the player you do not directly control Yoshi but rather create paths of clouds by drawing them onto the screen with the stylus. If you find that you have drawn the clouds incorrectly, you simply blow them away by blowing towards the microphone! Yoshi will continue to move forward no matter what is in his path, so you must urgently create bridges over holes in the ground as well as kill off any enemies who are in the way. There are two ways to kill off enemies. You can either circle them with clouds which capture them in a bubble and convert them into a coin (which must then be dragged into Yoshi to be scored) or you can launch an egg in the direction of the enemy to try and knock them out. You will often have to aim the eggs so that they knock out enemies on the top screen or try to get your egg to hit more than one enemy at a time which will result in a score multiplier.

The game consists of two parts, the falling baby Mario and the traveling Yoshi. As baby Mario is falling from the sky you will have to guide him to avoid obstacles and score as many points as possible. The amount of points that are accumulated in this stage determine which colour Yoshi you receive for the traveling part. Basically the more points you score, the faster your Yoshi will run and the more eggs he can carry behind him.