Babe and Friends (Game Boy Color)

The two Babe films are the story of a pig who manages to do the work of a sheepdog, this concept giving the team behind Babe and Friends on Game Boy Color a pretty solid idea for how to make a video game adaptation of the films. With Babe’s most important work in the films being to guide sheep around to save the farm or prove his value, a game where you do the sheepdog work as the pig could be an interesting direction. Rather than trying to mimic the real activity, Babe and Friends turns it into a puzzle though, Babe’s abilities really put to the test as he needs to guide sheep through hotels, city streets, and hospitals safely.

 

Babe and Friends is mostly an adaptation of Babe: Pig in the City both in terms of the locations visited and which characters can appear in levels. While funnily enough you will never participate in the actual sheepdog tournament that is key to the movie and this game’s narrative, you will be guiding sheep around a great deal as the game’s levels take the form of something akin to block pushing puzzles.

In this top-down puzzler, you will only be managing one sheep at a time, but the goal in a particular puzzle is to guide it safely towards a waving flag. Babe can normally only influence the sheep in one way, oinking at it to make it go in the opposite direction of where Babe is standing. The sheep will run off as far as it is able to, coming to a stop if it hits a wall or object, but if it falls in a hole or river it will lead to an immediate loss. Similarly, many areas having moving dangers to consider, rolling boulders, runaway vacuum cleaners, and even wheelchairs that somehow maintain a patrol causing a loss if you or the sheep make contact with these hazards.

 

Babe and Friends ends up producing a pretty simple but approachable puzzle format through these simple ground rules. Even in a fairly plain layout, you need to make sure you have room to be on the proper side of the sheep so you can send it down your desired path. There are objects you can push, a crate not only able to provide a movable wall so you can better customize a sheep’s path, but it can also be placed in holes or water to let the sheep safely cross. Trampolines let the sheep leap over dangers you can’t eliminate or barriers, and there are special arrow spots where the sheep will automatically turn. There ends up being a bit more variation than you might initially expect from this puzzler made for young audiences. Most puzzles do only involve a small area to consider as well, and if you do mess up, there’s not only a quick restart option, but each puzzle provides a unique password so you can pop back in next time you play without losing much if any progress.

Babe and Friends ends up providing a good deal of unique movement challenges, the task never getting too advanced but still able to make you think as you need to push objects around to set up a useful path or consider how the sheep might interact with a gimmick like conveyor belts. However, Babe and Friends does try and do something that sounds neat in concept but can lead to some confusion. While the puzzles are often small, the area they take place in contains many of them, the idea being you progress from one to the next as you solve them. However, segmenting them isn’t always clear, especially in the more advanced situations later on where you might be guiding sheep into and out of city sewers or across multiple floors of the hospital. The characters who stand around and give hints or encouragement don’t care what puzzle you’re on, always saying the same thing regardless, which can lead to confusion when they give you a tip for a later puzzle like saying certain actions must be done in order. Even more confusing is a key system where sometimes you need to grab a colored key to clear a level, but you can sometimes grab keys from later in the level and seemingly cause an issue when they’re actually needed in that puzzle once you reach it. Resetting the puzzle can fix the key glitch, but there’s almost no value in letting the player explore beyond the limits of the current puzzle so letting you wander off is a detriment rather than a neat touch.

 

The single musical track across all levels does start to get a bit grating too. There is a decent escalation in what the levels themselves offer even if guiding sheep across multiple floors can sometimes feel more complicated than it is interesting, but generally the puzzle designs are tight and will make you stop and think. There is even a little room for some creative disruption, sheep coming to a stop if they run into Babe so if you can get the little pig out in front of them you can make your own puzzle-breaking wall to craft your own solution. It will likely only take you a few hours to conquer it all unless you are a younger player coming to grips with puzzles that require thinking a few moves ahead, but the final level is an interesting sort of gauntlet that throws together a few ideas for a tougher finale. There are some weird moments along the way like the ability for Babe to launch objects across gaps that he only really needs two or three times, but it doesn’t feel like it needs to be overcomplicated. Babe and Friends provides simple problem solving challenges that keep your brain busy enough to make this adventure work well enough as a puzzle game.

THE VERDICT: Working as a sheep pig in Babe and Friends involves a pretty simple and effective puzzle formula. Guide the sheep to the exit safely to win, accounting for the environment and using tools to overcome its dangers or dead ends. It won’t throw any brain busters your way, but it has enough variables cropping up across the adventure to keep the concept steadily evolving. The freedom to explore an entire level rather than just the current puzzle feels like it only causes issues, but generally Babe and Friends works well enough when you stick to the small segment you’re meant to be on as you do need to think a bit to actually beat the layouts presented.

 

And so, I give Babe and Friends for Game Boy Color…

An OKAY rating. While a puzzle game approach may not be as exciting as an action game or platformer for a movie adaptation, it is a much safer route when guaranteeing some form of quality. Babe and Friends hit on the appropriate idea of needing to guide a sheep around, concocted some good environments to host it, and found itself with a serviceable little adventure that can keep you thinking even if its puzzles aren’t that complex. You still need to consider the path to take, which tools are on hand to alter the sheep’s course, and execute things properly, Babe and Friends also keeping the scope of most of its challenges small enough that retries aren’t difficult. The only real scope issue save perhaps the game not being that long is with placing it all in one giant environment you can bumble off into. On one hand, I imagine younger audiences who maybe don’t care for the logical approach of the game might just like wandering around the farm or airport as a pig. Perhaps the characters or keys could have been handled better then, or at least the individual puzzles could have some clearer delineation for the points where it isn’t as clear what’s important or not. It’s hardly going to damage the experience either way, Babe and Friends able to whip up some decent designs for its gameplay formula so even if you don’t really find the idea of playing an adaptation of a film about a talking pig interesting, the puzzle solving can keep you playing for a while.

 

Babe and Friends maybe could have had an extra mode with tougher puzzles for those who do conquer its main adventure, but it was likely wise to not make it too involved when considering its target audience. Babe and Friends avoids being a write-off because its puzzles work independent of any brand appeal, and unlike some block pushing adventures, it never strains its design by making you have to think far too many moves ahead. If you want a slightly challenging puzzle game with a low barrier to entry, it’ll do.