Originally released in 1999, the ultra-obscure Japanese point-and-click adventure game Cookie’s Bustle, developed by Keisuke Harigai and published by Rodik, celebrates the 25th anniversary of its release this year. At the same time, the game has officially been liberated from the hands of an unknown, mysterious patent troll. Not only that, but several devoted Cookie’s Bustle fans who had sent “member registration cards” back to the game’s team that year also received an invitation to a mysterious party.
According to this invitation letter sent by the official Cookie’s Bustle team, the developers thanked these fans for their support of the game 25 years ago, and noted that the title had been dormant since 2001 for certain reasons, but now its lockdown has finally been officially lifted; therefore, they wanted to take this opportunity to be the first to inform fans of this good news.
一昨日ゲーム「Cookie’s Bustle」のタイムカプセルイベントでギターを弾かせていただきました🐻🎸 Ayasaさんとも一緒で心強く楽しかったです💜 25年の時を経て開催されたこのイベント、出演させていただき光栄でした✨ありがとうございました！ お土産もいただいちゃったし、最後クッキーさんと一緒にチェキ撮ってもらった✌クッキーさん可愛い🐻❤ うちの娘もクッキーさんのクッキー見て、まだ食べれないけど気に入った様子でした🥰👶
— Yuki -D_Drive / East Of Eden- (@D_Drive_Yuki) October 4, 2026
Just last weekend, Japanese tech company Quality Time Consulting held an event in Tokyo. Although the company was not founded until 2006, the event was a “secret event” held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Cookie’s Bustle, which was released in 1999. As a result, many fans also call it a “time capsule event.”
The event not only invited a band to perform music from Cookie’s Bustle, but also offered limited-edition merchandise for purchase and specially themed snacks, and quite a few fans attended dressed as the game’s character Cookie. Unfortunately, attendees were not allowed to take photos of the event, and news about it only spread through other means after it had ended.
Released in 1999, Cookie’s Bustle: Mysterious Bombo World is a surreal PC point-and-click adventure game. The story follows Cookie, a girl from New Jersey who believes she is actually a bear, as she travels to an island ruled by aliens, takes part in various sports competitions, but is then also drawn into an unexpected revolution.
Although Japan did develop a PC game market in the 1990s, it was not particularly popular in scale compared with the more popular console games. For this reason, many obscure PC games were released in Japan during that period. While most PC games eventually faded away amid the tides of the game industry, works like Cookie’s Bustle still built up a large fanbase; moreover, in recent years this title has attracted even more attention due to a copyright dispute.
Back in 2023, players began to notice that a large number of videos about Cookie’s Bustle on the classic games YouTube channel Classics of Game were being systematically taken down one after another by unknown parties, and after investigating, players found that a person named Brandon White had, during that period, exploited a loophole in copyright law to issue DMCA takedown requests targeting Cookie’s Bustle.
After that, players also began trying to contact Hidenori Hariya, the producer in charge of developing Cookie’s Bustle back then, but they never received any response. It was not until the Video Game History Foundation intervened and took legal action against Brandon White that the incident was finally settled in March 2026, and the videos that had been taken down all returned to the Classics of Game channel.
As for what connection Quality Time Consulting, the organizer of this mysterious Cookie’s Bustle class reunion, actually has to the original development team, it remains unknown. What is certain is that they somehow obtained the membership registration cards players sent in back then and began organizing this event. Unfortunately, they also did not mention any news of a re-release, remake, or sequel.
Source: KOCPC Chinese