The June 2023 Evercade Game of the Month is a puzzle game called Big2Small. The game is designed as a Game Boy Color game and is released by Retro Room Games and is also available to get for the Game Boy Color, Dreamcast and Nintendo 64.
The game is a puzzle game, but not a match the colours or create lines in something like Tetris or Puyo Puyo or Bust a Move. Instead, each level shows you an environment where you must navigate a mouse called Melanie, a goat called Gisele and an elephant called Elle to the foods they would like to eat. Melainie eats cheese, the goat has an apple, and of course, as explained in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, an elephant works for peanuts.
You press an action button to toggle between which of the animals you are controlling, and then you can use the dpad to move that animal. When you push a direction, such as left or up, the animal will go across the screen in that direction as far as they can until something blocks them from continuing in that direction. The objective is to work out the correct route across the level for each animal to get them to end up on their food.
I think the gameplay maybe reminded me of the Tapeworm Disco Puzzle game which released on the Evercade Indie Heroes Collection 2, but maybe the gameplay was similar to something else as well. If anyone knows what this is like feel free to let me know in the comments. There is definitely another game where you press a direction and the character slides all the way across and you have to work out the route to an exit or goal destination.
I really liked the strategy required in playing the game. Often you will have to position one animal in a certain spot to block the path of animal to that they end up in the best place to reach their food. You’ll usually have to work out the order in which the animals can reach their destination as well. For example, you may find that the mouse can go straight onto their cheese, but if they can do so without the use of the other animals blocking it’s way to get there, it usually means that the mouse will be the last one that needs to get to their food and you’ll have to use them to reroute the others.
The animals do have some unique features to their gameplay. For example, the mouse can fit through narrow gaps, and Gisele the goat can jump over water and munch of bushes to clear a path. This really adds to the strategy. Any level that has bushes on, I know the first thing I have to do is get the goat to go and clean up them all to open the full level up for the others.
The graphics are very simple, but nice for the Game Boy Color if nothing memorable. Having played the version for the Evercade on the Evercade VS home console, I was aware that the often light graphics felt a bit glarey on the big TV, but I’m sure this would be fine if played on the Evercade EXP or Game Boy Color.
The sounds of the game are also simple and effective. They are typical Game Boy stuff, so may get tiresome after a while, but inoffensive enough.
I believe this game was made maybe by one person, and get that it’s designed as a Game Boy game, but I do think it’ll benefit from a remake designed for either a modern console or if it had N64 or Dreamcast graphics to give it some more personality. That isn’t to say it doesn’t have any. At the start of the levels there is usually a little bit of dialogue or simple jokes said between the three female leads, and is kinda reminiscent of the banter between Banjo and Kazooie.
I do like this game a lot, but some levels do start to become frustrating if you can’t figure out the solution. Of course, this is a necessary evil as the game would be over in a flash if some of the levels weren’t hard to keep you stumped for continued attempts. Each level has a par number in which you score better or unlock bonus levels if you can beat the level in a limited number of moves. This is the only indicator of how many moves each level should take, and sometimes I have gone hundreds of moves beyond this to beat a stage.
The trouble with a game like this is if you do get stuck on a stage, you pretty much have no choice but to keep attempting it until it’s done as there isn’t anything else to do. Of course, this is the same logic if you reach a boss you can’t defeat in Resident Evil or whatever, but because the levels are in theory very short it can feel like you’ve hit a brick wall if you’re not making progress. The satisfaction of finally beating a tough level is limited if you find that the next level is also tough as nails.
As an Evercade game, this will make a fine addition to the Indie Heroes Collection 3 cart when it releases at the start of 2024. It’s much better than Thunder Paw, but sits below Donut Dodo in my rankings of the announced games so far.
For others who play it on the N64, Dreamcast or Game Boy, it’s a fun novelty game which will give you something new to play on the classic hardware. We’re at an interesting stage with retro consoles such as those, as back in the last days of each of those consoles this wouldn’t have set the world on fire, but would have been a nice extra that will give owners of those consoles something fun to add to their collections. Of course, on Dreamcast and N64 people would have slammed this for looking like a Game Boy game, but in 2023 this isn’t seen as an issue. It’s a new game for retro collectors and enthusiasts. I doubt anyone will get this for the classic hardware with it being their only console after all.
At the time of writing, Evercade EXP and VS users can download this game for free to play during the month of June and it will stay on their consoles until they update it. With the free price tag, I can say that if you’re into relaxed puzzle games this is definitely worth putting some time into.
