Big2Small

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Overview

Big2Small is a goofy homebrew puzzle game by Matthew D. Steele (mdsteele) for the original Game Boy and the Game Boy Color, released in 2021. You guide three animals to the food each one likes best.

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. Each animal has its own abilities, and the puzzles are about combining them: the mouse can fit through mouseholes, and the goat is the only one who can eat the bushes that block the way.

Along the way the three chat before and after puzzles, swapping bad puns while Mel keeps dreaming of a spaceship to the moon. Every puzzle has a par move count, and solving it within par earns a star and sometimes opens a bonus puzzle; collecting stars on every puzzle, bonus ones included, is the way to reach 100% on the title menu.

Made by: mdsteele
Released: 2021

Controls guide

In a puzzle

Button and key	Action
D-pad`Arrows`	Send the selected animal that way; it keeps going until something stops it
A`X`	Select the next animal
B`Z`	Select the previous animal
Start`Enter`	Open the menu (Resume, Reset, Quit, with moves, best and par)

Puzzle menu

Button and key	Action
Up/Down	Choose Resume, Reset or Quit
A`X`/Start`Enter`	Confirm
B`Z`	Close the menu

Maps and title

Button and key	Action
D-pad`Arrows`	Walk along the trails to another puzzle or area
A`X`/Start`Enter`	Enter the area or puzzle
Select`Shift`+A`X`	Hold Select while entering a solved puzzle to see its conversation again
B`Z`	Leave the area map for the world map
Up/Down	Pick one of three save files, or Erase file, on the title menu

Cheatsheet

The animals

Elle the elephant: Eats the peanut; can push sewer pipes sideways
Gisele the goat: Eats the apple; eats bushes; leaps over a single row of water
Melanie the mouse: Eats the cheese; fits through mouseholes; dies on a mousetrap

Terrain

Wall, rock, fence, tree, cow: Stops everyone
Bush: Only the goat can enter, and it eats the bush
River or open sky: Only the goat, jumping one square of it
Mousehole: Only the mouse
Arrow: Turns whoever steps on it to face the arrow's way
Teleporter: Works only for the animal it is marked for
Another animal: A solid block to stop against

Areas

Giant's Forest: Meet the trio; bushes for the goat
Hugeson Farms: Fences, cows and mouseholes
Mt. Bighorn: Trail arrows; two bonus puzzles
Middling Marsh: Rivers and bridges
Demi Sewers: Pipes for the elephant to push
Microville: Mousetraps
Neutrino Station: The space finale; two bonus puzzles

Tips

Animals slide until they hit a wall, the edge or another animal, so the other two are your most useful tools: park one where you want someone else to stop.
An eaten bush is gone for good, but the puzzle always stays solvable, so you never have to reset unless the mouse hits a trap. Reset from the Start menu only if you want to chase par.
Check the Start menu for Moves, Best and Par. A star needs a solution in par moves or fewer, and a map marker drawn differently means that puzzle opens a bonus puzzle when you make par.
The goat can only clear one square of water at a time; she cannot jump two in a row, so look for a bridge or a narrow spot in the river.
Only the elephant can move the big sewer pipes, and only by walking into them from the side; she pushes the pipe along ahead of her as she goes, so check where it will come to rest before shoving it.
In Microville, plan the mouse's whole route before moving her. If she slides over a mousetrap she is lost and the puzzle must be reset.