Kaizo Trap is a tribute to Nintendo Hard games in general, but more particularly the Platform Hell genre and Kaizo Mario World. There are also numerous other shout-outs to science fiction, particularly entries that deal with rogue Artificial Intelligence.
- The game system itself is based off of the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
- Many of the tactics used to beat the game, such as carrying snail shells for long distances and using multiples of them to jump up great heights - are tactics frequently used in Kaizo Mario World.
- An Invisible Block appears in the first death montage, made infamous by Kaizo Mario World.
- Places where the heroine has evidently died are covered in blood spatter, akin to Super Meat Boy.
- The final stretch of the mountain level is a vertical wall-jump shaft with flamethrowers spitting fire horizontally, reminiscent of a part from Flame Stag's level. Also, Kai's wall jump is very reminiscent of X's, best demonstrated in the final boss segments.
- After the heroine chooses to continue the game, an MS-DOS-style loading screen is displayed that features fragments of Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, eventually leading into a repeated string of AM's monologue of how much he hates humanity. Also, main characters come through extremely torturous trials. And they have no mouth.
- Said string of AM's hate speech eventually devolves into a constant repetition of the first four lines from the chorus of The Lemonheads' If I Could Talk I'd Tell You.
- The aforementioned DOS-like operating system is called "ZhugeDOS". Zhuge is the family name of the ancient Chinese military strategist Zhuge Liang (style name being Kongming, Koumei in Japanese), after whom the Japanese term for a kaizo trap (孔明の罠 / "Koumei's trap",) is named.
- During the Shadow Partner's battle, a screen behind him is displaying text from The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams, which has a similar theme to Ellison's work.
- Just before the final battle, some Morse code can be seen spelling out "I think therefore I am"; Descartes' famous quote.
- The Kaizo Trap system keeps the love interest imprisoned in a manner similar to the human batteries in The Matrix.
- Some of the graffiti is left by recognizable names: "T. Takemoto" is the creator of Kaizo Mario World, while SethBling, ProtonJon, BeardBros and AGDQ (all of them having done runs of Kaizo Mario) can also be spotted.
- On getting the first alternate ending, changing the springboard from yellow to red is a Sonic the Hedgehog reference, one of many indeed. (The red ones go further. And fasta.)
