A downloadable game

Big2Small is a new puzzle adventure game where you try and guide the animals to their corresponding food of choice, releasing soon on physical carts for Game Boy, Dreamcast, and N64. Preorder here!

Travel through forests, farmland, sewers, and more to help Elle the elephant, Gisele the goat, and Melanie the mouse find delicious food in 40 unique puzzles.  Use each animal's different abilities together to manipulate and maneuver past rivers, mouse holes, giant pipes, shrubs, mousetraps, and other obstacles.

The Big2Small ROM for Game Boy is free, and should work in any Game Boy or Game Boy Color emulator (or even on real hardware, if you have a flash cart).  SameBoy is a great emulator option.

Some of the art/music assets in Big2Small were derived from CC0 or public domain sources.  A special thanks to ArMM1998 and Pixel Pete in particular for sharing some of their great work for free use!

StatusReleased
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(2 total ratings)
Authormdsteele
GenrePuzzle
TagsGame Boy
Code licenseGNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL)
Asset licenseCreative Commons Attribution v4.0 International
Average sessionA few minutes
LanguagesEnglish
LinksHomepage, Source code

Download

Download
big2small.gb 64 kB

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Absolutely incredible puzzle game here. Up there with the likes of Miyamoto's work, which is about as high praise as I can give. Move over Mole Mania, these 3 animals mean business.

Thank you!

I'm back and this time I'm even morer stuckerer!!!!! Any tips on the last Neutrino Station level would be veeeeeery much appreciated! My brain is frazzled! 

Some high-level hints for Final Countdown:

  • The center pipe is the key to this puzzle.  Solving the puzzle will require changing this pipe's position four times.
  • You'll need to get all three animals in the lower-right section, and work together to get the goat on the apple.  Then you'll need to get the elephant and mouse back to the upper-left section while carefully setting up the center pipe, and work together to get the mouse on the cheese.  Lastly, with the center pipe positioned correctly, the elephant can tour through her teleporter and back again to land on the peanut.

For a more detailed outline, here are the steps you'll need:

  1. Bring the elephant through her teleporter to join up with the mouse in the upper-left section.  Together, they can work their way down to the lower-left section, moving the center pipe to the right and sending the mouse through her teleporter to the upper-right section.
  2. With the mouse's help, jump the goat down into the lower-right section.  Then use the mouse hole and the E teleporter to bring the other two animals to that section.
  3. Have the three animals work together to eat the bush and push both pipes to the left.  Then have the goat go through her teleporter, eat the other bush, and then return to the lower-right section.
  4. Have all three animals work together to put the goat on the apple.
  5. Send the elephant through her teleporter from the north (via the arrow), allowing her to work her way to the left side of the center pipe.  With the mouse *above* the mouse hole, push the center pipe back to the right.
  6. Teleport the elephant back to the lower-right section.  With the mouse's help, put the elephant to the right of the center pipe, but don't push it yet.  Send the mouse back through her teleporter to the bottom-left section, then send her up to the upper-left section before closing off the route by pushing the center pipe back to the left.
  7. Teleport the elephant back to the upper-left section, and with her help, put the mouse on the cheese.  Finally, send the elephant through her telporter from the left (via the arrow), and walk her in a circle around the lower-right section, re-entering the other teleporter from the left to put her on the peanut.

Good luck!

Many many thanks for a fabulous game Matt and all the help you've given. Top man!!

Hi there, 

Heeeeeeellllp!!!! I've managed to plough through this fab puzzler on the Evercade. I've got to Neutrino Station : Vacuum Pressure. I'm totally stumped......any assistance greatly appreciated!! 

Thanks in advance for any tips.

Yeah, Neutrino Station pulls no punches.  (-:  Here's a rough outline of what you need to do on Vacuum Pressure:

  1. Have the elephant help the goat reach the top-left corner.  Then have them work together to get one of them on top of the left-hand mousetrap, so that the mouse can escape safely.
  2. Next, have the elephant and goat work together to get the elephant on the peanut (starting by putting the elephant in the top-right corner; then the goat will need the mouse's help to get below the elephant; then circle the elephant around).
  3. With the elephant in place, your next goal is to get the mouse on the top edge of the screen above the cheese, with the goat below it somewhere in the same column.  To do this, put the mouse in the top-left corner; from there, the goat can maneuver into position, then the mouse can pass through the M teleporter twice, and from there get to the top edge above the cheese.
  4. With the mouse and goat in the cheese column, they should be able to work together to get the mouse onto the cheese.  Then the goat can head straight down (the mouse may need to temporarily step out of the way first), jumping over the stars to land on the apple.

Hope that helps, but happy to give more details if you're still stuck.

Thaaaaanks so much, you're both a superstar and a fiend my friend! Made it through to the final stage which looks an absolute doozy!!!! 

Just finished this game on Evercade. It's magnificent. Up there with Baba Is You and A Monster's Expedition.

That is high praise, thank you!

I'm stuck on the level with the mouse goes under the wooden fence and there are cows and a barn and omg......... 

Happy to give hints or solutions if you want.  (-:  Is it "Out to Pasture" that you're stuck on?  (the first level in the farm area)

The level is Out to Pasture.

But actually I'm a puzzle game developer myself. I bought the game from John Roo himself.

If you have a level editor or something I could actually make more levels using the same engine.

Thanks for buying the game, and hope you like it!

For Out to Pasture, the rough outline of what you want to do is: (1) Bring the mouse around the edges of the screen to the top area, and have her help the elephant get to the peanut. (2) Send the mouse back around the edges of the screen to the bottom, then enter the fenced-in area from the bottom. (3) Use the mouse to help get the goat to the apple. (4) Finally, have the mouse exit the fenced-in area through the upper mouse hole, which puts her right on the cheese.

(Not sure if that's helpful at all, sorry; let me know if you want a more specific hint.)

If you're interested in modding the game, the code for the level layouts is here and here.  There's no level editor, unfortunately; my (somewhat ad-hoc) design process was to brainstorm level ideas in a generic tilemap editor, then just type them by hand into the source code, and tweak them from there as I play-tested.

I can get the goat to the apple and the mouse to the cheese, but I can't get the elephant to the peanut. I almost think its impossible. 

If you make a level editor for the game, I can make additional levels. I'm a puzzle designer, but need the level editor to build the levels. Sure I could just change the values in the source code, but that's hard.

From the start of the level, move the mouse east, north, west, then south.  Move the elephant east, then north (putting her on the cheese).  Move the mouse west.  Move the elephant south.  Move the mouse east, north, then west.  Finally, move the elephant north, then west, putting her on the peanut.  You should be able to get the rest from there.  (-:

How do you complete Neutrino Station???? I've been stuck on it for a month and it is driving me insane!!!

Haha, I promise it's beatable, but happy to give hints or solutions if you want.  (-: Which puzzle in Neutrino Station are you stuck on?

Currently I'm stuck on Phase Relay

(1 edit)

Yeah, that one's hard.  Here's an outline of what you need to do:

  1. Remove the bush, then use the goat and mouse to block the lower E teleporter so the elephant can walk down to the bottom area.
  2. Send the elephant into the lower E teleporter from the right, so that it ends up pushing the right-hand pipe leftwards.
  3. Hop the goat over the gap into the top-right area so she can help the elephant get back through the teleporter.  Then the goat can jump back, so now all three animals are in the bottom area.
  4. With the help of the other animals, carefully position the mouse just above the arrow that points upward (this is the critical step!).
  5. Leaving the mouse in place, have the goat and elephant go up the central path together to the top-left area; along the way, the elephant will need to push the left-hand pipe leftwards.
  6. Using the goat and elephant in the top-left area, push the left-hand pipe back rightwards, and put the goat on the apple.  Both pipes should now be in the center area.
  7. Without pushing the pipes, walk the elephant back down the center path.  The mouse will prevent the elephant from running into the upwards arrow.
  8. From here, use the mouse to help the elephant get to the peanut.  Then, with the two pipes still in the center, the mouse can walk to the cheese on its own. 

How'd you pick DC and N64 as targets?

Those were selected by my publisher, The Retro Room.

(1 edit)

Do you know why they chose them? It's just a curious choice, since a GB port would fit more on NES and SMS.

Are you doing the ports, or RetroRoom?

edit: Oh, figured it out. Both DC and N64 have GB emulators, so they're not ports, but the GB ROM shipped with an emu.

Very underrated game. I think because of the missing fancy artworks here on itch. I like the gameplay even better than pineapple kid. Add me on social media @skite2001

(-1)

Probably the best Gameboy home brew I’ve played. Really fun puzzle game :)

Thanks!