Attack Potency: Multi-Star Cluster level (Can harm Peppino, who broke through the Pizza Tower and defeated Pizzahead. Pizzahead survived the Pizza Tower being destroyed. The Pizza Tower is a tower that contains an entire realm with various stars and planets)
this kind of deranged western style animation is something i always pretend not to like but it really grips me in a visceral, psychedelic kind of way. there's so much emotion. there's so much primal energetic physicality!!
Peppino Spaghetti is an anxious and ill-tempered Italian chef and the owner of a failing pizza restaurant. One day, he is confronted by Pizzaface, a giant sentient pizza and the lord of the titular Pizza Tower, who threatens to destroy Peppino's restaurant with a giant laser. And so, Peppino goes on a quest to destroy the Pizza Tower and save his restaurant, helped by fellow pizza chef Gustavo.
In the game, you traverse through the aforementioned Pizza Tower's floors, collecting pizza ingredients and the animate Toppins along the way. Within the tower's various stages live many cheesy enemies attempting to impede Peppino's progress. After fighting through their defenses, the player takes out the level's Pillar John and must race back to the beginning of the level as it starts to collapse with a timer leading to Pizzaface waking up...
Tropes in pre-release builds
- All or Nothing: On the Rank screens at the end of each level, the Noise will insult (or even threaten) you if you get any rank below S.
- All There in the Manual: The description for the SAGE 2019 demo says that Peppino donned the blue outfit to go to SAGE 2019, but misread where the location was and ended up going to the Snick Amateur Game Expo instead.
- The Artifact: The track LEANING NIGHTMARE, which plays when you have 2 minutes left on the timer in Snick's Challenge, shares a leitmotif with one of Frostix's tracks, Leaning Dream. However, the latter track was composed for an unused Space Zone-type level (later being reused as a pause menu theme), and as such, LEANING NIGHTMARE is the only track in the game with its leitmotif.
- Armless Biped: Subverted with Snick, who appears armless at first glance but reveals them in certain poses, such as when clearing a level. They are presumably just hidden under his spines.
- Broke the Rating Scale: Or rather, the rating metrics don't exist; In the Eggplant build demo, levels with no set ranking parameters have Peppino reveal your ranking as Eggplant, with a reminder that the ranks aren't implemented.
- Cursed with Awesome: In the Noise's Hardoween Demo and earlier builds, the Pizzards will use their power to turn Peppino into a knight, which makes him slow, heavy, and unable to dash. It also makes him impervious to several types of attack and makes his Ground Pound, especially from decent height, more powerful. Downplayed, since the Pizzards aren't actually trying to hurt Peppino; their character profile says they're apprentice magicians just practicing their spells.
- Christmas Episode: The Strongcold level, a more difficult version of pre-release Bloodsauce Dungeon exclusive to the "Peppino's X-Mas Break" demo.
- Dynamic Difficulty: As the player defeats enemies, a 'Heat Meter' increases. At high levels, enemies grant more points when defeated, but enemies move faster and taking damage causes the meter to go down. The meter slowly decreases over time, so the player must keep a fast pace through the level if they want to maximize their points.
- Expy:
- Courtesy of the SAGE 2019 promos, there's an anthropomorphic purple porcupine with very nice shoes named Snick, who can keep up with Peppino's impressive speed. He appears to exist separately from his inspiration according to the SAGE demo description, as Peppino wanted to go there but ended up at Snick's expo instead.
- In earlier demos, the Noise could do a floaty jump in a similar manner to Mario using his cape. It was eventually replaced by a jetpack-themed double jump.
- The Cheese Dragon looks like an overweight, solid yellow Yoshi. He has a very similar face, with small eyes close together, a large, bulbous nose, and a toothless mouth.
- Hailfire Peaks: The Strongcold, the only level of the Christmas 2019 demo, is full of icy terrain and takes place inside a freezer, but also has vats of boiling pizza sauce like Bloodsauce Dungeon.
- Improbable Weapon User: The Noise uses a giant thumbtack to stab enemies.
- It's All Upstairs From Here: Half of a given level in the pre-2019 demos is Peppino climbing a series of floors in the titular tower. The other half kicks in when he makes it to the top, where he needs to get out as fast as he can because The Noise rigged the place to explode.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: One of the power-ups is a pizza shield which hovers in front of Peppino, protecting him from a single hit of damage.
- Marathon Level: Snick's Challenge has you run through the main parts of Pizzascape, The Ancient Cheese, and Bloodsauce Dungeon all in one.
- Nightmare Face: The Noise's C-rank portrait is nothing more than a Thousand-Yard Stare at the player with a drooping frown. If you manage to score even lower and get a D-rank, he instead jumps you with a downright terrifying face with red eyes, a wide gaping maw with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, sharp claws, and being so frustrated that his speech bubble is just random symbols.
- Our Dragons Are Different: The Cheese Dragon serves as the boss of World 1 in older Patreon demos. It has a perpetually goofy expression and flies on a pair of incredibly tiny wings. It wastes your time by breathing fire at the player and butt-stomping on the ground to cause heavy objects to fall on their head to stun them.
- Pinball Zone: The Space Pinball level, which combines The Wild West with a Space Zone.
- Public Domain Soundtrack:
- The first escape theme made for the Noise, Pesto Anchovi, is a cover of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
- The original soundtrack of the game's tutorial was a cover of "Funiculi Funicula".
- Score Multiplier: The Heat Meter functions as one of these, going up a level when enough points are scored, and decreasing a level when Peppino gets hit; in return, it makes enemies faster.
- Second Place Is for Losers: If you get an A-rank (the second best) with the Noise, you'll get a screen with the Noise saying "Not an S" while looking at the player smugly.
- Secret Character: Snick can be unlocked as a playable character exclusive to the SAGE 2019 demo by completing Snick's Challenge, coming with his own gameplay mechanics.
- Shout-Out: Can be found here
- Sore Loser: The Noise abhors D-ranks, donning a Nightmare Face and straight-up ordering the player to "DIE" (at least, we assume that's what that text says) on the results screen if he earns one. His reactions for the succeeding ranks are calmer, but he's never impressed unless you win an S-rank.
- Tactical Suicide Boss:
- Pepperman would be invincible if he kept using the dash attack similar to Peppino's and didn't randomly stop to let Peppino knock him off the tower.
- An unused boss fight with the Noise has him on top of a pogo contraption and wearing a helmet, so he can only be stunned by jumping or ground pounding on him. However, he constantly spawns small minions into the arena, which can be thrown at him to temporarily ground him and his contraption, allowing Peppino to whale on him. He gains a Shockwave Stomp attack in phase two....that leaves him stranded on the ground for quite some time, and spawns flunkies.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Present in certain demos was a co-op feature, in which Peppino works with the Noise to beat levels, and to emphasize that the two are... not on friendly terms, there are various competitive elements in co-op (players are encouraged to fight each other to switch the leader, and the one to score the most points overall and win is the one to announce the Rank at the end of the level while the loser explodes).
- Throw Down the Bomblet:
- In the pre-2019 demos, if there's an empty window nearby, chances are The Noise is going to throw bombs through it.
- Pizza Box Goblins throw these around (sometimes getting caught in their own blasts), which Peppino can pick up. These are required to destroy purple bomb blocks.
- If the Noise presses the attack button during his spinning tackle move, he throws a Noise Bomb, which bounces around for a bit, then explodes upon contact with an enemy or a breakable block.
- Whack-a-Monster: The Strongcold level has a boss battle featuring the Noise randomly rising from one out of five gift boxes in the room. As he's walloped, more characters such as Snick and Gustavo start appearing on the other boxes, along other distractions such as a Noise Waddling Head in the center platform and slippery floors.
- Whatevermancy: The Pizzards are said to practice "pizzamancy" in the SAGE 2019 demo.
- Wretched Hive: The Pig City is one in appearance, since everything is worn and dilapidated, but interestingly not in practice since the pig civilians don't seem to mind their circumstances.
- You Must Be This Tall to Ride: One random wooden cutout piece in the background of the Slum area is a sign that reads "You need to be this tall". Beneath the measurement line is an outline of Peppino, who is one pixel short of being tall enough (including his hat).
Good job, troper! That was... D: AWFUL 760c119bf3