Radio: Climb 'n cut, my friend. Won't be easy.
Tiny: I was afraid you'd say so...
Tiny: I was afraid you'd say so...
Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers is a Puzzle Platformer made by Black Pants Game Studio. It's the best underpants-based, physics-powered slice-and-jump game you'll ever play!
Our protagonist is Tiny, an inventor hunting for his rival Big, who has committed the most fiendish crime… of stealing his disappeared grandfather's underwear.
But as Tiny chases the fiend into the desert with the aid of his A.I. companion, The Radio, as well as his arsenal of gadgetry, he finds there is far more to his grandfather, the Pants, and his rivalry with Big than what meets the eye…
The game's labeled as a "Slice and Jump Platformer", with the three main tools at your disposal being a laser to cut objects, a rope to pull objects around, and a rocket to shove things out of the way, allowing you to do what you please to the environment. It was initially announced as being the first of an episodic series, though since its 2012 release the studio hasn't made plans for any sequels. Yet.
Tiny and Big provides examples of:
- All Deserts Have Cacti: The actual location of the desert where the game is set is left unknown, though this doesn't prevent saguaros from appearing
- Art Shift: Most of the game is rendered in a graphic novel-ish style (see Cel Shading), but the tutorial is rendered in a monochrome green low-poly style without the thick lines, in an effort to emulate Tiny's Reality Boy.
- Atop a Mountain of Corpses: The king of the mole creatures is depicted like this in a piece of art shown during the game's penultimate level.
- Big Bad: Big himself is The Rival of Tiny who stole his Grandfather’s magic underpants, giving him great power which he plans to use to kill Tiny.
- Bittersweet Ending: Neither of the brothers gets the pants, as they're nabbed by one of the moles before either can grab them, and both immediately realize this will restart the whole 'unfunny, scary horror cult' process. Without the pants to fight over, though, Big and Tiny are able to reconcile their differences enough to actually talk to each other without resorting (entirely) to insult-flinging, and go into the sunset side-by-side.
- Bonus Level: Several, based on the various arcade machines scattered through the levels.
- Boss Battle: With Big, naturally. An interesting example as he's the only enemy you fight throughout the game.
- Bland-Name Product: The retro handheld gaming console Tiny's using in the opening is, in a postmodern gag, a "Reality Boy."
- Block Puzzle: A major part of the puzzle solving in the game.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- One secret room in the game features the soundtrack album art, a picture made by Black Pants to represent themselves for the credits, and the cover art of another game by the studio ("About Love, Hate and the Other Ones") as posters.
- Black Pants's logo is a recurring motif inside the pyramid.
- When Tiny asks why the Radio would rather not enter a different secret area, the Radio replies:Radio: "It's dark. You won't see a thing. You might fall to death and then you can't regain the pants, which is the primary goal of this game. Therefore, you should stop your pointless exploration and return to the safety of the main route."
- Except for the finale, every level in the game has at least one area containing a giant woodcarving in the image of one of the developers. The Radio announces the player's Achievement Get on a few of them.Radio: Ta-da! An achievement!
Tiny: I did? What for, looking at an ugly face?
- Bridge Logic: The other half of the puzzle solving in the game.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Tiny's gets cribbed by Radio and Big.Radio: "Yikes! We nearly got killed!"
Tiny: "You get used to it." - Bullet Time: At certain times aiming with the laser at incoming boulders freezes their movement, allowing the player to slice them right out of the sky.
- Bully Brutality: The methods by which Big antagonizes Tiny get increasingly deadlier as the game progresses. By the final battle he's throwing entire walls of the pyramid at you!
- Cain and Abel: Big and Tiny, respectively.
- Cartoon Creature: Tiny and Big themselves aren't quite human, but don't really fit neatly into any other real-world category, either.
- Cel Shading: Subverted. The game is stylized to resemble a comic book; as such, it has the thick outlines characteristic of cel shading but lacks the flat lighting that defines it, making it a not-quite-example in the vein of Borderlands (a series it's frequently compared to in the art department).
- Circling Birdies: Well, circling boulders, in this case.
- Clothes Make the Maniac: Putting the Pants on one's head gives the wearer superpowers (namely, telekinesis and jumping hella far), but also invites them to the welcoming embrace of megalomania. We see it with both Big and the king of the Dotties.
- Cutscene Power to the Max: Tiny manages to dust himself off without a hitch after getting kicked off a cliff Sparta-style by Big between the first two levels, and doesn't seem to be any worse for wear after several faceplants in some of the cutscenes afterward, but the amount of height the player can fall from before ragdolling into oblivion is remarkably short.
- Death from Above: Whether it's avoiding stuff being thrown at you by Big or getting out of the way of things that you manipulate on your own, a lot of the challenge of the gameplay is created by falling environmental hazards.
- Death by Looking Up: From the third level onward, Big begins to use boulders that cast the long shadows that often preclude the trope. Whether it happens or not is up to the player.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Crosses over with Sequel Hook. That mole is up to no good...
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Grandpa, naturally.
- Radio is either this or an example of A Dog Named "Dog".
- Exposition Fairy: Radio.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Tiny. They don't just sell laser-rocket-launcher-grappling-hooks at any store, do they?
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: A minor example. Tiny is very killable by long drops and falling masonry during gameplay, but is capable of surviving huge drops in cutscenes.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The Boring Stones. The game tracks how many you grab throughout, but true to their name, the number Tiny collects has no bearing on the plot, making them not much more than a guide for the player (and an extra challenge for the folks going for 100PercentCompletion).
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: Downplayed. While it's powerful enough to cling onto and tow very large rocks, the rope is not usable for swinging around on and you can't tow yourself anywhere.
- Hoist by His Own Petard : You'll pull rocks onto your own head more than once. Squish.
- Ironic Name: Tiny and Big. Guess who's the tall one?
- In a Single Bound: This is how Big gets around, thanks to the Pants.
- Justified Tutorial: It's Tiny playing a video game.
- Laser Cutter: Tiny's main way of manipulating the environment.
- Literal Ass-Kicking: Big's introduction.
- Made of Iron: Tiny can potentially survive being hit head-on by several tons of flying masonry as well as falling at least a mile. Big too, if the end of the game is any indication.
- Mind over Matter: Big can move stuff with his brain as long as he has the pants atop his head. (He pretty much uses it exclusively to throw rocks at Tiny/the player.)
- Minimalist Cast: Most of the characters are included in the title, no less, with the only extra additions being that of the Radio, the ill-fated cab driving robot and the Dotties.
- Mythology Gag: Radio name-checks the title of the game's tech demo, Up That Mountain, in reference to the upward journey Tiny has to take in the game's second level. The text is highlighted to emphasize this.
- The Napoleon: Big.
- Not Quite Flight: Big can make floating platforms using his psychic powers, and then jump huge distances between them.
- Orange/Blue Contrast: Best exemplified by the environmental design, particularly within the first half of the game.
- Ominous Floating Castle: Well, more like "ominous floating weird pyramid."
- Painted CGI: has a visual style made to resemble comic books, and makes use of thick outlines for that purpose. The lighting itself is rendered as normal before being overlaid with a set of hand-drawn shadow textures that take the place of traditional color-based shadows. The developers call their solution the "hatch shader," and explain the rendering process in greater detail here
and here. - Panty Thief: Technically speaking, Big is one, though it's less for perverted reasons and more due to the fact that the Pants are empowered. Doesn't make it any less weird, though.
- Parental Favoritism: We don't see it directly, but the game implies fairly heavily that prior to their grandpa's disappearance, Tiny was the favored brother. This serves as Big's Freudian Excuse, to the point where Tiny states that their grandpa loved him more and that it's lampshaded in their discussion at the end of the game.
- Precursors: The unnamed civilization whose ancient ruins form the setting of the game.
- Ragdoll Physics: Present in full force when Tiny bites it, and exaggerated by the tendency for the physics programming to flip out and distort his limbs.
- Riding into the Sunset: The end of the game.
- Ruins for Ruins' Sake: The setting for the game, along with Shifting Sand Land below.
- Running Gag: Falling from a great height, followed by saying "Yikes! I nearly got killed!" Lampshaded repeatedly.Tiny: ...Again?
Radio: "You have quite a talent in nearly getting killed." - Serious Business: Tiny's willing to go raring across the desert and at least 7 stages of platforming to get his grandpa's underwear back, and Big is willing to attempt fratricide in order to keep them. The pants were their grandpa's last and only keepsake, they empower the wearer with Mind over Matter, and were behind the rise and fall of the civilisation that owned the ruins the game takes place in.
- Shifting Sand Land: The game's setting.
- Sibling Rivalry: Tiny and Big, mostly over the pants.
- Super-Strength: Tiny's an unspoken example. Either those rocks are made of styrofoam, or he's very strong indeed.
- Swiss-Army Gun: The Tool™. It pushes things! It pulls things! It slices 'em in two!
- Voice with an Internet Connection: Radio, in addition to supplying Tiny with the tunes from the tapes scattered about the game’s levels, has a role akin to one by serving up the tutorial prompts.
- Trade Snark: The Tool™ is introduced as such in the first level.
- Tron Lines: Inside the temple.
- Temple of Doom: Averted. While they're plenty dangerous due to age and the brothers' influence, and due to being several miles in the air, the main temple isn't booby-trapped. and is in an obvious state of disrepair.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: An unusual example in that this doesn't apply to the game's main villain, Big. The unnamed Dottie ruler who first found the underpants eventually became monstrous and corrupted by their vast power, even demanding human sacrifice. The point is made by a in the temple diorama showing him going mad, cutting people in half with his mind, and then standing atop a pile of skeletons. Big's a piece of work, but he never goes that far.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's possible to kill the moles peppered throughout the game's levels with falling rocks/terrain/etc. This isn't required, but the Radio encourages it, and considering the ramifications of keeping them around, that may have been justified...
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Toyed with. The inside of the temple seems like this, but the final battle takes place on its ruins as they fall/float through the air.
- Voice Grunting: Tiny and Big both have their own sets of shot grunts intended to express the feeling shown in the on-screen dialogue. The Radio uses a clip of a radio mid-scan.
- Wreaking Havok: You can cut, rocket and manipulate just about anything in your environment.
- Written Sound Effect: Several, especially for falling stone blocks.
- Unsound Effect: GUNNO! and KICKO! are among the weirder offenders.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him??: A weird mutual example. Why doesn't Tiny just shoot Big in the face with the laser cutter? Why doesn't Big just tear Tiny in half with his psychic powers?
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The ultimate themes of the game. The ancient civilisation wasn't ready for the pants either, after all.
