Big2Small

Can you get all your animal friends to work together so they can each get their favourite food? Big2Small is a homebrew port for the N64 of the homebrew Game Boy game of the same name. It was released on 22 Oct 2021 for the Game Boy by MDSteele and then went on presale for the N64 on 30 May 2022 by The Retro Room.

This is a commercial game, so I won’t provide a ROM of the N64 port. You can buy it from its shopping page if you like. The Game Boy version of the game is free though, you can get the GB ROM from the download page by using the password demthreeanimals, or from MDSteele’s itchio page.

About Big2Small

This is a 2D puzzle game where the objective is to get each animal onto its corresponding food tile. Elle the elephant likes peanuts, Gisele the goat like apples and Melanie the mouse likes cheese. They each move in a straight line until they collide with an obstacle, after which you can switch to another animal or move in a different direction.

The whole strategy of the game involves placing animals around strategically so the others can move where they need to be. Think of it like those puzzles in adventure games where you have to slide blocks across slippery ice.

Each animal has their own special talents. Ellie can push pipes to open and close paths, Gisele can eat bushes to allow passage and Mel can pass through gaps in fences. As you progress, you also encounter new mechanics like arrows that redirect your movement, mousetraps that kill Melanie or teleporting tiles.

This is a port of a Game Boy game so the graphics and audio is very reminiscent of titles from that era with its low-res pixel art and chiptune music. It’s one of those games that are compatible with GB, but have full colour if you play it with a Game Boy Color.

Review and conclusion

This is the first time I’m reviewing a commercial homebrew game for the Nintendo 64. All the other things that I’ve looked at were either paid hardware or full retail games like 40 Winks. Though this is a strange case since it’s just a port of a free game that you can play anywhere else, even on your N64 as I have shown in the video above via an emulator.

As a Game Boy game, it fits the platform perfectly. The sprites are clear and absolutely adorable, as are the characters’ personalities. The puzzles are engaging without being too complicated. I do find it hard to get a par score even on the levels in the first world, but it’s there if you want to be a completionist.

As a port, there are a few things that are a bit off. The colours are a bit off from the ones on the Game Boy, and the interlaced rendering is very noticeable on high-res screens. It can get quite distracted to see a sharp pixelated character get those jagged edges, especially for a game this simple.

There is a physical release of Big2Small on N64 available (as well as Game Boy and Dreamcast), so I’d only really recommend buying this if you really want to have the box and cartridge as a souvenir. If you want to play it, then just get the GB ROM and run it on an emulator either on your PC or N64.