Video Game / Pizza Tower

IT'S PIZZA TIME! ^note Clockwise from the center: Peppino, The Toppins, Gerome, a TV showing Peppino, Pizzaface, a Priest, The Vigilante and a knocked out Cheeseslime.

"Hey, my time is now!
Heart is seething, fists are beating, wow wow wow!
Cheese and Pepper, let's make some Noise!
Serving fresh pizza is my choice!"

— Pizza Mayhem, from the game's official soundtrack.

Pizza Tower is an indie 2D Platform Game by a small team called Tour de Pizza, led by "McPig" (previously known as "Pizza Tower Guy"), heavily inspired by Wario Land and Deranged Animation cartoons of The '90s. It was finally released on PC through Steam on January 26th, 2023, after five years of development and a variety of demos, both public and private.

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—which literally supports the entire level—and must race back to the beginning of the level as it starts to collapse with a timer leading to Pizzaface waking up...

On March 11th, 2024, a free update was added to the game allowing you to play as The Noise, the third boss, in a pseudo-New Game Plus mode.

For updates on the game, see its Twitter and Tumblr. The SAGE 2019 demo is available through Itch.io.

Previews: First Demo Trailer, SAGE2019 Trailer, Steam Trailer

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"Y'all ready to get FUNKY?!"

Tropes in the final game: #-L

• 100% Completion: Getting all the collectibles and high ranks replaces Pizza Boy's icon in the menu with Pillar John. If All P-ranks and chef tasks are also completed, the icon turns gold.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: After all the shit Peppino had to go through to save his pizza parlor (some of it literal shit) he loses it when Pizzahead challenges him to a Boss Rush and beats the ever-loving crap out of all of them barehanded, including Pizzahead.
  • In the Noise’s campaign, when Pizzahead brings out the boss rush, he simply decides to go Super Mode, flinging tons of bombs rapidly at all of the bosses, finishing things off by throwing a gigantic bomb at Pizzahead.
• Ability Required to Proceed: The tower is populated by Stupid Rats that will block the way, unable to harm Peppino but immune to all of Peppino's standard moves. Getting past them will usually involve bringing the level's gimmick transformation to them, although a handful must instead be destroyed with another enemy's projectile. Incidentally, the ones that are placed such that you must use the Ball transformation to defeat them are shaped like bowling pins.
• Acrofatic: True to his inspiration, Peppino has a rotund physique, and is able to run at high speeds, roll infinitely, destroy blocks, and jump high distances.
• Action Horror: The atmosphere of Don't Make A Sound is uniformly oppressive and haunting to convey its status as a Shout-Out to Five Nights at Freddy's, ducking and weaving between the sightlines of unique enemies that can do serious damage and Jump Scare the camera if they catch you; the game allows you to go fast, but it will punish you hard if you screw up. When Pillar John gets taken out, the level leans more heavily on the action side: Peppino has a shotgun (The Noise gets a gatling gun) and can decimate the monsters that once hounded him down.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed in the Noise's campaign, where Noise — originally depicted as a mischievous Jerkass in the main campaign and who fought on the villains' side — is instead depicted as a lone-gunning hero aiming to take down the eponymous tower; though not doing so without embracing his back-handed side. Later shown to be a parodied trope when his campaign is revealed to have been a movie adaptation of the game that he himself produced.
• Advanced Movement Technique: While all essential moves are taught in the tutorial, a few are more advanced and obscure:
  • If Peppino is holding an enemy, his belly slam remains applicable in the form of a Spinning Piledriver; you can press down to take out both the enemy you're holding and anything below.
  • Pressing Grab and then holding up will cause Peppino to perform a leaping piledriver on whatever enemy he grabs.
  • When performing a run-dive, pressing Jump will make Peppino perform a downwards body slam, negating his horizontal velocity instantly without crashing into a wall or ceiling.
  • Pressing Run or Grab while Super-Jumping will make Peppino cancel the jump into a shoulder-bash, instantly giving back the Mach 2 speed. Holding left or right while pressing the button will face the bash in the same direction; not pressing a direction will simply have Peppino return to the direction he had been running before.
  • Grabbing an enemy while running towards them at Mach 2+ will make Peppino swing them around, dispatching any enemies and blocks that are hit.
  • The fastest way to gain speed is to press Grab, press down for a belly-slide in the middle of the grab, and then press Run whilst releasing down to start a Mach 2+ run.
  • If you press the backwards direction and Grab while airborne at Mach 2+, Peppino will twirl out of his run and move slowly in the opposite direction. This improves Peppino's mobility on rails as well.
  • Running requires you to hold the Run button, but it doesn't require you to hold the forwards direction. If Peppino runs at Mach 2+ without pressing the forward key, his speed will not increase, allowing for somewhat steadier movement.
  • The Noise's unique moveset has the same array of mechanics, but also an additional "secret move" combo based on a trick from early beta versions of the game; See Ascended Glitch below.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: The last phase of Fake Peppino's boss fight has you running away from them through a tight tunnel until you reach an exit.
• Aliens Steal Cattle: In "Fun Farm"'s background, a cow is seen being abducted by an alien. There are also cows serving as obstacles in the UFO segment of "Oregano Desert".
• All the Worlds Are a Stage: The Grand Finale level (which, incidentally, is after the final boss) is this, involving you running down the entire tower, including the various world hubs, with just about every enemy and mechanic coming back at least once.
• Anachronism Stew: Deliberately done in Oregano Desert. The level is styled after an Old West "Cowboys and Indians" type theme, while also having modern-day convenience stores which sell pizza in the middle of the desert.
• Ancient Grome: "Ancient Cheese" is a vaguely Greek-themed ruins level.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Certain levels feature "The Gustavo & Brick Hour", in which Peppino takes a breather and gameplay switches to Gustavo & Brick's moveset. In Gnome Forest, it happens when Peppino encounters a dead end with no way forward; in Pig City, Peppino gets arrested and it's up to Gustavo to continue. When playing as the Noise, you switch to another Noise.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: The player can unlock alternate outfits for Peppino and the Noise by performing certain miscellaneous feats such as clearing all of World 1 in under an hour or killing a total of 1000 enemies. They are mostly Palette Swaps, but some have an Unmoving Plaid effect added to them.
• Angry Fist-Shake:
  • Peppino shakes his fist when you hit him on the file select screen.
  • Captain Pizza Goblin shakes his fist when you manage to get away from the area he bombards with cannonballs.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Aside from living food, many other objects are also alive such as clouds, trash cans and stampers. Subverted with treasure chests who are revealed to be men with limbs and eyes sticking outside the chest.
• Antepiece:
  • Transformations, gimmick enemies such as Hamkuffs, and other new mechanics are consistently introduced in a safe and simple environment, then expanded upon in later, more challenging rooms. For example, the first time you have to use a bomb to defeat a Stupid Rat in Ancient Cheese, the bomb spawner is right next to the rat with no nearby hazards. Later instances have the bomb and the rat placed further away (which can serve to show that the bomb WILL blow up in Peppino's hands if you take too long), then separated by platforming challenges or specific throws. It culminates in the final instance during Pizza Time where, under a ticking time limit, you must carry the bomb across several platforms to reach the rat, but by which point you'll be more than familiar with platforming while carrying a bomb.
  • If the player completes all of Floor 1 in under an hour, they unlock an outfit they can wear named "Sage Blue". It's pretty easy to score this set of garments, and that's on purpose; it serves to imply that there are some collectibles that could become permanently impossible to grab on a particular save file.
  • The Boss Rush which precedes the Final Boss has a way to show that the bosses are going to behave somewhat differently. After hitting his Rage Breaking Point, Peppino unleashes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown against Pepperman, which takes off four chunks of health. This is to show you that while you'll have to fight every boss again, they'll only take a few hits before going down.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Your dash getting interrupted and your combo ruined by an enemy with the ability to damage you has the potential to be very frustrating for speedrunning (which was in fact a big hassle in the newer Wario Land games), so this game gets around that by having enemies drop their guard in fear if you're coming at them at a dash speed of Mach 3 or higher, allowing players to barrel though normally harmful enemies if they keep their speed up. Plus, the few enemies that aren't scared of you speeding at them take a second before they can attack, making them also vulnerable to the dash if you're fast enough.
  • After charging a Super Jump, you can slowly move Peppino left and right to adjust where he'll jump from, in case you didn't get the timing precisely how you wanted it. Relatedly, you enter doors in the levels by pressing up, which is incidentally how you charge a Super Jump while dashing. If your timing isn't perfect and you end up charging a Super Jump instead of opening a door, you can slowly walk Peppino to the door, and he'll enter it once close enough.
  • The combo meter will pause its drain during certain situations where Peppino cannot move, such as lining up a shot with Greaseball during Golf or during the cutscene for opening locked doors, as to prevent unfair loss of a combo when the player is unable to do anything. On that same note, hitting Greaseball himself with an attack or putting him will reset your combo timer, making getting a P-Rank on Golf way less difficult.
  • Similarly, the qualifications for getting a P-Rank are hard, but not merciless. While dropping your combo is an instant fail, taking damage does not disqualify you from a P-Rank ^note But it does cut the time by half of the base time until you extend your combo. This allows you to easily keep up a P-Rank run even if you mess up here or there. In addition, the screen-clearing Super Taunt counts as a combo hit if it kills an enemy, giving you a free way to extend a P-Rank attempt every few minutes.
  • During Pizza Time, enemies that weren’t explicitly spawned during said escape or Stupid Rats will not respawn if you end up running through a previous room, with puzzles or destroyed blocks also staying solved/busted. This comes in handy if one tends to struggle to flee to the exit, or if one’s going for Lap 2 and running up close to the end of the time limit.
  • When Pizza Time occurs, Gustavo and Mr. Stick will often jump in, pointing to the route leading to the start. Given how large the levels are, this is helpful in preventing players from getting lost on the way back to the beginning of the level.
  • Going into Secret Rooms during Pizza Time will pause the Pizza Time timer so that you're not pressured to complete them quickly or skip them. Note that this does not apply to WAR's bomb timer.
  • Enemies usually make it obvious if they can damage you, such as having spikes or being an obvious attack. Otherwise, enemies — especially bosses — will flash red if making contact with them will damage you.
  • Rooms with Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits tend to have checkpoints in them, which you respawn at should you fall into said pits, cutting down on extra travel time compared to putting you back at the entrance of the room. This, plus the fact falling in a pit doesn't cut a penalty out of your combo timer, helps mitigate maintaining combos in these rooms.
  • Inside the prison room in "The Pig City" is a Pizza Boy Cutout that always respawns when you enter the room for the purpose of refreshing the combo meter, as it is otherwise (outside of the secret room under the toilet) devoid of collectibles to help keep it up.
  • Since Fake Peppino never becomes vulnerable on his own like other bosses, the game displays a grab icon above him whenever he's open to one for the first two hits.
  • All the destroyable blocks during the escape sequence in Fake Peppino's final phase will remain destroyed even after retrying his boss fight, making all subsequent playthroughs of that section easier.
  • Taunting in front of an enemy will cause it to activate any special move it has, such as Kentucky Kenny throwing a spicy chicken wing, or the Patrollers activating the Toppin Monsters, removing any need to wait. This is needed to get the achievement for parrying a Noise Goblin’s arrow as the Noise, because they won’t attack the Noise normally.
  • Enemies being killed through means other than Peppino himself killing them will also count towards the combo meter. It comes in handy in certain level puzzles that require Peppino to wait for an enemy to destroy an obstacle, like Stupid Rats.
  • Restarting a level is snappy and quick; from the moment you press confirm on the "Restart Level" button, the most you have to wait for is the stage door to slam shut behind Peppino (something that takes about a second) before you're able to try the level again. For people attempting S or P rank runs, this can be extremely convenient or even important in speedrun situations.
  • The final boss fight is not only long, but has the attack patterns change completely between phases, what with Phase 1 being Pizzaface, Phase 2 being Pizzahead, and Phase 3 being the boss rush. To compensate for that, the player's health is completely regenerated between phases.
  • In the "WAR" level, the entire level is on a timer, and you need to find and destroy switches to increase the amount of time you have before the bomb goes off. Because this would be pretty redundant to a Pizza Time's escape sequence, this level simply doesn't have Pizza Time. If you're going for Lap 2, there will instead be four switches you can destroy before needing to escape the level again so that you're still properly pressured, just not overly so.
  • While playing as the Noise, The Doise is Killed Off for Real after beating him once, and re-entering the fight will present you with his corpse and an instant victory. However, if you want to earn a P-rank legitimately, or just want to replay the fight, you can respawn him by taunting three times in front of his boss door before entering.
  • The Halloween patch added two "Rat Fairies" to rooms in "Gnome Forest" and "Pizzascare" to top off your combo meter in what was otherwise a long stretch without any pickups or enemies to kill that you would need to play perfectly to not drop your combo on, giving a bit more leeway on those sections.
  • As of the update that added the Noise as a playable character, the combo meter will swap colors if you haven’t lost your combo yet, allowing you to tell if you’re eligible for a P-Rank before getting an S-Rank.
  • Because of how The Noise moves, there's one section of "Peppibot Factory" where it would be nearly impossible to avoid taking damage as him ^note there's a > shaped turn in the second room with electric sockets on the bottom, top and left wall in a hairpin so tight the Noise's wallbounce will send him into it before you can react, so to keep this from being unavoidable damage, a water bucket is following The Noise at the start of the level and will splash the sockets on the top of the section, shorting them out and removing the hazard. The bucket returns in "WAR" Where it will similarly kill enemies that the Noise would have to go out of his way to kill otherwise because of his more bouncy movement compared to Peppino.
  • During the Noise's version of "The Crumbling Tower of Pizza", he will run over Snotty instead of rescuing him like Peppino does. This may catch you off-guard, but it does not prevent you from earning the "Snotty Approved" badge, merely happening for the Rule of Funny.
• Anti Poop-Socking: Parodied by one of the Pizza Granny NPCs in Floor 3.
  Pizza Granny: Remember to not take too many breaks, keep playing! Your time here is limited!
• Anthropomorphic Food: All over the place, from the rescuable Toppins to the common enemies.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Falling down a pit will have a "Technical Difficulty" cut-in screen before respawning Peppino at the nearest checkpoint. Said screens feature Pizzaface laughing at Peppino laying in the Family Guy death pose on top of a plate of spaghetti and bones (with the spaghetti sauce looking like blood), laying down in a chair with bandages and casts over his body, or looking annoyed about some ice cream that just fell out of his cone.
• The Artifact:
  • The heavy presence of cows in Oregano Desert is a bit of a leftover from earlier in development, when the fire-breathing transformation was undone by drinking milk. In the final game, every transformation is undone by the priest, but the cows were kept and now serve mostly as flavor. That said, you do drink milk to undo the Heater Peppino transformation from the Pepper Pizza in Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator.
  • Several of the End-Game Results Screen images were supposed to be responses to playing in a certain way: "That's the one, officer!" for hurting Peppino a lot, "Confused?" for killing as few enemies as possible, and "No judgement" for not unlocking any of the other results screens. In the final game, all of these are tied to completion percentage, leaving the former two as Orphaned Punchlines.
  • The Peppino clones in "WAR", as well as Fake Peppino's boss fight, remain intact even when you're playing as the Noise.
• Artificial Outdoors Display: Almost all of the game is set inside the title tower, yet many of its areas have painted skies on the walls and prop clouds to resemble outdoor settings. Windows can be seen in the background providing glimpses of the true sky. The Vigilante's arena is one of the more clearly visible examples of this. The final boss is actually set outdoors, as it is on the building's roof.
• Art Shift: It's a recurring joke. Between the game's intro, stage title cards, the TV in the top right, and the boss VS screens, you'll get to see Peppino, Gustavo, and company in quite a few goofy artstyles, often trying to make them look a lot more badass than they actually are.
• Ascended Glitch: In some beta versions of the game, it was possible for Peppino to initiate a super jump while in mid-air, so long as he was running at high enough speed. Since it's also possible to cancel out of a super jump and return to running at mach speed by pressing the run button mid-jump, it became possible to have Peppino "fly" by running, super jumping, canceling into a run, super jumping, and so on. While this was patched out of the final game, when the Noise was added as a playable character, he gained a variation of this technique: He can initiate a crusher jump (in midair, hold up and press the jump button), cancel the crusher jump into a horizontal spin, and then crusher jump while spinning. The reason it's this trope and not just an overlooked bug is that you unlock one of the Noise's outfits by performing a few repetitions of this technique.
• Ascended Meme: Gnome Forest's secret level theme is called "Everybody Wants to Be a Secret", referencing the Lario meme based on the level's title card.^note Before the meme took off, the track had been named "A Secret in the Trees"
• Aside Glance: The Vigilante gives an annoyed look at the player if they take a while to pick up the gun he tosses to Peppino.
• Athletic Arena Level: "Golf". Although it's more of a Greasy Spoon that randomly happens to have mini-golf courses and is inhabited by demons for some reason.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: The title card of the final level features Peppino on a pile of defeated enemies.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: The final boss's theme, "Unexpectancy", is nine minutes of hardcore rock with three distinct parts. The first part is ominous but epic as Peppino faces down Pizzaface, the second part is weird and chaotic during the bout with Pizzahead, and the final part is a full-on Theme Music Power-Up, featuring remixes of "The Death That I Deservioli", "Cold Spaghetti", "Oregano Mirage", "Don't Preheat Your Oven", and "Tombstone Arizona".
• Badass Preacher: Pizzascare has an Exorcist (who are Priests with a different outfit) who is depicted fighting off a Pizzard in the Title Card. They're mildly less badass in gameplay, where they give Peppino a really powerful Nigh-Invulnerability powerup instead.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • At the end of the boss fight with the Noise, he suddenly gets a minigun and is about to attack again, only for Noisette to show up and drag him away from the arena, ending the fight.
  • The next boss follows as well. The boss gate has Peppino's face on it, and entering the gate starts a fight against another Peppino. After the VS. Screen, it's promptly revealed that it's not a Mirror Match, but instead a fight against Fake Peppino.
  • Played for laughs regarding Don't Make a Sound. The title screen itself depicts Peppino and the Toppin Monsters from the level happily frolicking in a meadow, having fun. The stage itself takes place in a dingy pizzeria, with the monsters being FAR from friendly.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: Clearing any stage with a low score as Peppino nets this complaint from him:
  (irritated, gesturing at the results) Good job! That was... D: AWFUL
• Banana Peel: Banana peels cause the player to slip, complete with a whistle sound.
• Battle Against the Sunset: The fight against The Vigilante takes place in front of a backdrop depicting the setting sun, fitting as a culmination of the Wild West theme of the floor he's the boss of and his own cowboy motifs.
• Battle in the Rain: The Boss Rush and Pizzahead's last phase are fought during a thunderstorm.
• Bedsheet Ghost: Peppino turns into these when he touches a Mushroom Ghost. He can pass through electrified blocks and freely levitate around the air.
• Belly Flop Crushing: Peppino's body slam attack involves him doing a belly-first Ground Pound.
• Big Bad: Pizzaface wants to blow up Peppino's restaurant for no discernible reason. In truth, Pizzahead, who operates the Pizzaface mech, is the real villain, wanting to destroy his pizzeria out of envy over the fact that his own restaurant went out of business.
• Big Ball of Violence:
  • In Floor 2, Gustavo and Brick are fighting in a ball that moves back and forth.
  • Peppino and the Noise create a ball of dust while fighting each other in the Noise's boss fight, twice. Unlike Gustavo and Brick, however, these fights have the dust cloud mostly absent, with the brawl fully shown to the player.
• Bigger on the Inside:
  • The Pizzamarts in Oregano Desert are the size of a shack from the outside but take a few screens worth of space when going inside. The Flying Saucer takes up about a screen from the outside but is several screens big in the inside.
  • The titular Pizza Tower itself also counts. Despite its appearance of an ordinary-looking tower on the outside, it hosts many locales which range from a cemetery to a whole city.
• Big Boo's Haunt:
  • "Wasteyard" combines this with The Wild West, Creepy Cemetery, and Underground Level. Peppino has to deal with Pizza-ghosts, and some segments where he surfs on corpses. An enemy can turn Peppino into a ghost, where he can pass through barriers and collects "Ghost Peppers" to power him up. Also, knocking out Pillar John in this level results in him returning as a Vengeful Ghost who chases you during the Escape Sequence.
  • In "Pizzascare", a Darker and Edgier horror-themed variation on the medieval-themed "Pizzascape", ghosts are a common enemy in the level that require blessings from an exorcist to defeat, and the level also has a recurring gimmick in the form of King Ghost, who trails behind Peppino in segments and activates traps along the way.
• Bittersweet Ending: The normal ending, obtained by beating the game without obtaining every tower treasure. Peppino's destroyed the Pizza Tower, and gained enough money and customers to keep his business afloat, but John is dead, Gerome is mourning, and Pizzahead gets away.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: The "secret ingredients" are... esoteric, to put it one way. They're not things one would expect on a pizza, including a can of beans, peanut butter, and a yellow box vaguely labelled as "food".
• Black Bead Eyes: Some characters and enemies have beady eyes, like Swedish Monkeys and Olive Troopers.
• Black Dot Pupils: Most characters who don't have Black Bead Eyes, still don't have irises. There are few exceptions like secret eyes (who have irises) and Pepperman (who has blue pupils). Pencer has one Black Dot Pupil and one eye with a yellow iris.
• Blackout Basement: The level "Don't Make a Sound" is one of these, having the failing lighting obscure most of Peppino's vision. However, you'd best keep an eye on what's in the dark parts...
• Blush Sticker: The Piggy Bank in the main hub world has a circular red blush.
• Body Sled: Peppino can ride zombies like a sled in "Wasteyard".
• Bookends:
  • You start out beating up cardboard cutouts of "Pizza Boy" in the tutorial. They are styled after Pizzahead, the true identity of Pizzaface and the final boss. Right at the end of the final escape sequence, a line of Pizza Boy dummies is all the tower can muster as a last defense before Peppino crosses the entrance gate.
    • Meta-Example: The layout of the last set of cutouts is the same as the last set in the old tutorial in early demos.
  • The first "real" level of the game is John Gutter, an odd landscape filled with what seem to be defective copies of Pillar John, such as a spherical one, one that's drooping over into a U-shape, or various "dead" ones that act as destructible blocks (and must all be destroyed for one of the game's achievements). The final escape sequence of the game, after defeating the final boss, starts with you destroying the original Pillar John from which all the clones were made, now worn-out, dirty, and decrepit. And if you get all the Secret Treasures, you get to revive him after the credits, too!
  • Right after John Gutter, you'll probably jump into Pizzascape, a medieval castle-themed stage. One of the very last stages in the game is Pizzascare, a spooky medieval castle that uses most of the same tileset and a remix of the same music. This is especially notable when no other levels share the same theme twice.
  • The first floor of the Pizza Tower starts out by requiring the player to complete a specific first level, John Gutter, before opening up the next three. The final floor inverts this: only three levels are accessible on the floor with the fourth starting after the final boss.
  • When you activate Pizza Time, you'll hear an ominous "hello there!" said at the start of the track. What is the name of the track for the final escape sequence of the game? Bye Bye There!
  • During their experimentation with game development, Pizza Tower's creator posted some early concepts for a new game they wanted to create, tentatively named "The Leaning Tower Of Pizza". The name of the very final level in the finished version of that game? "The Crumbling Tower of Pizza".
• Boss Battle: Each world ends with a boss fight which must be cleared before they can proceed to the next set of levels.
• Boss Rush: In the second phase of the final boss, you have to fight the bosses again, but with a big twist. After Pizzahead summons all the previous bosses in his final phase, either Peppino hits his Rage Breaking Point or The Noise activates his Super Mode, delivering 4 hitpoints of damage to a boss every time they attack.
• Bottomless Pits: There are bottomless pits throughout the game, some of them marked with warning signs.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The October 24 update adds a new level for finding every secret called "Secrets Of The World", where you need to go through a gauntlet of all 57 of them in random order in under a short time frame^note 25 seconds per secret, which in total, give you 23 minutes and 45 seconds, which while rather lengthy, the level's length makes up for it.
• The Cameo:
  • Pizza Boy, the mascot of Pizza Boy Pizz-Pizza from Don't Make a Sound, appears as a Training Dummy throughout the game. But in truth, he has a way bigger role as the final boss.
  • Mort the Chicken, the protagonist of a little-known PlayStation 1 game by the same name, appears as a power-up.
• Carnivore Confusion: Pepperman and the Vigilante agree to Peppino's offer of a slice of free pizza. This is despite both of them being anthropomorphic pizza toppings.
• Cartoon Bomb: Pizza Box Goblins toss such bombs at Peppino. Peppino can pick them up and carry them to throw them at Stupid Rats that block the path; In previous builds of the game, he would start running uncontrollably until the bomb blew up on his face, in a similar fashion to the Flaming Wario transformation from the Wario Land games. The Noise uses these as an attack in his boss battle, and in boss battles when playing as him.
• Casino Park: Fast Food Saloon is a spin on the trope, as it's based on a western saloon rather than a Las Vegas-styled casino, but still has gambling-inspired elements, such as collecting playing cards for bonus points and racing against a horse for the Toppins.
• Catching Some Z's: Sleeping things have the letters "Zzz" next to them.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster: The game starts out fairly goofy in the first few levels, before becoming a bit more grim and gritty in the fourth hub. Then the boss fight against Fake Peppino happens, marking the game's move towards a more horror-inspired atmosphere. Then the final hub becomes mostly horror themed, only for the final boss to swing the mood back around to goofy with the reveal of Pizzahead and Peppino's anger-induced power-up to defeat him.
• Charged Attack: When Peppino is given a revolver, it can be charged for an oversized bullet.
• Checkpoint: Most checkpoints are present in secret areas that make the player respawn there when falling down a bottomless pit.
• Circling Birdies: Stunned enemies have stars hovering over them. The Noise gets an actual bird when stunned.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: An unlockable mode in The Noise's scenario allows a second player to join the action as Peppino. However, only the player in front gets full control. To switch roles, either both players must taunt at the same time or the follower must grab and toss the leader, however they automatically switch when the leader takes damage. If both players hold the run button, they turn into a Big Ball of Violence.
• Collapsing Lair: After finally defeating Pizzahead and knocking down the Pillar John in the final level, the tower starts to collapse. The rest of the level consists of making a mad dash for the tower entrance through the Hub Level with your friends (and the other bosses) in tow.
• Collection Sidequest: The 2023 Halloween update adds 20 invisible pumpkins hidden in the levels. They're invisible until you get very close, but a tune plays to indicate their presence. Collecting all 20 pumpkins unlocks Tricky Treat, a maze where there are 10 more for bonus costumes and Pizzaface chases Peppino around from the get-go in a ghost disguise.
• The Colored Cross: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties screen for Gustavo and Brick features a green medkit cross. It was initially red.
• Combos: Beat up multiple enemies in a row for bonus points. Combos can also be maintained by picking up items (although this does not increase the combo meter). From the tenth combo on, you can use the taunt action once as a Smart Bomb by holding Up as you perform it. P Ranks require you to kill at least one enemy in the first screen of a given stage and then never drop the following combo until the end.
• Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: Electric outlets, usually placed together in rows and columns, are usually located in very unnatural places. While Peppino can't die on these, they still count as a hit, knocking him back.
• Conspiracy Theorist: Peppino dresses up like one in the title card for Secrets of the World, the various images in the background also serve to enhance the effect.
• Counter-Attack: Taunting at the same time as Peppino touches an enemy will cause him to parry them without taking any damage. This can kill enemies who would normally be immune to his grab.
• Covers Always Lie: Almost all of the title cards are this in some form.
  • An In-Universe, Title Card version: the one used in "Don't Make A Sound" has Peppino happily frolicking with the various Toppin Monsters on a blue-skied backdrop. The actual level is a Whole-Plot Reference to Five Nights at Freddy's, in which they are out for blood and will dish out some of the heaviest score penalties in the game if they get Peppino. Amusingly enough, the text clashes with the rest of the Title Card by being rather ominous in its design; from its blood red color, small size, and intimidating font style used.
  • The same can be said for the Title Card for "Golf", but with the opposite tone. It looks like an action-movie poster, featuring a blood splattered Peppino wielding a golf club and a shotgun in a golf-themed hellscape. The actual level ranks as one of the goofiest in the entire game, taking place in a mini-golf diner where you knock around the diner's owner into basketball hoops, and the shotgun never appears in this stage in any capacity. The stage does have demons, at least.
  • Oregano Desert has an alien cow in a UFO chasing Peppino in the distance. While there are aliens, cows, and UFOs, funnily enough, none of these things are able to hurt Peppino in any form aside from being a nuisance for your combo counter.
  • Fastfood Saloon has Peppino getting into some trouble with Ranch Shooters. Realistically, they are a Nervous Wreck that only shoots out of self-defense.
  • Deep Dish 9 shows Peppino fight aliens that never actually show up in the actual level. The Olives are the closest to being aliens you fight, though it's most likely because you thrashed their UFO back in Oregano Desert, as most of them are harmless there.
• Cowardly Lion: Peppino looks almost constantly anxious while he traverses the tower, even though he's cleaving through swarms of pizza-themed enemies by charging through them and having Nigh-Invulnerability due to damage going to his score instead.
• Cowardly Mooks: Bandito Chickens run away as soon as Peppino gets too close, dropping harmful bones as they do so.
• Crate Expectations: Some levels have classic wooden crates as destructible objects. For an example, in "Wasteyard".
• Create Your Own Hero: Pizzaface explicitly telling Peppino that Pizza Tower is going to blow up the restaurant quickly results in Peppino running inside and beating Pizzahead up and destroying the tower.
• Crosshair Aware: In some sections of Crust Cove, crosshairs mark the locations where the Captain Pizza Goblin shoots his bombs.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • For Wario Land 4 players: Holding the dash button alone will start Peppino's dash — You do not have to actually hold a direction to get the dash going. Although doing so will slowly transition the dash from Mach 3 to Mach 4, but sometimes players will want to stay at Mach 3 for less speed and more control, making it essential to realize exactly how the dash mechanic works.
  • The Super Jump has constantly been compared to the Shinespark from various Metroid titles, but it doesn't work exactly the same — Pizza Tower has you press up, not down, to store the jump. Plus, you'll have to hold up to keep the jump charged, keeping it held while pressing left or right if you want to move while it's stored. Releasing up will perform the jump immediately.
  • For most of the game, the attack button serves as a way to get Peppino to do his Dash Attack, which serves as a nice way to build up momentum and begin running up walls. If he's holding a shotgun, though, the attack button instead has him shoot, which halts his momentum and won't allow him to run up walls.
  • Due to the Noise's moveset being just similar enough but also critically different from Peppino's in extremely important ways, you will experience some growing pains of messing up otherwise easy jumps or other acrobatics after switching between the characters.
• Debug Room: A debug mode can be enabled by adding "-debug" to the parameters of the game's desktop shortcut and pressing F5 in-game to display a command console. Toying around with the commands reveals all sorts of unintended scenarios like insta-killing bosses with the super taunt or instantly beating the game by triggering Pizza Time in the very first room of the hub, causing the game to act as if you were playing The Crumbling Tower of Pizza.
• Death Throws: Killed enemies fall off the screen.
• Defeat Equals Friendship:
  • Gustavo gets chased by Brick in the first hub level, and in the second, they're tangled in a Big Ball of Violence. In the third, they're wrapped in bandages and giving each other the thumbs-up, teaming up to become playable in the levels.
  • Pepperman, The Vigilante, and The Noise hold a grudge against Peppino after being defeated on their first encounter, but after the final fight, they and Fake Peppino will take Peppino's lead as they escape from the collapsing tower. The credits show them in rather amicable terms, and in the end screen, they're all seen hanging out at the restaurant after Peppino offers them free pizza.
• Degraded Boss:
  • In "War", Peppino clones similar to Fake Peppino appear as a common enemy that can be dispatched with a single shotgun blast.
  • Pizzahead initiates a Boss Rush after his first defeat, but Peppino, finally at his limit, freaks out and does four hits of damage for each attack, making the fights much quicker.
• Demoted to Extra: In The Noise's scenario, Peppino is reduced to only appearing in a secret room.
• Deranged Animation: While not terribly disturbing, the game's art style heavily uses intentional Off-Model, heavy squash and stretch, and odd proportions. When Peppino runs, he starts by cartwheeling his arms, and the faster he runs, the angrier and more deranged his character portrait gets. Some of his throws involve his mouth growing huge and chomping down on the enemy he's holding, launching them at high speed.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Gustavo, Mr. Stick, Noisey, and/or Noisette will stomp any enemies on their way down during Pizza Time. This includes a rather infamous slope in Pizzascape.
  • When playing as The Noise, Noisette will replace Mr. Stick as the Cash Gate for boss fights, and she will give The Noise a sloppy kiss after he pays her. However, if you are playing Swap Mode and switch to Peppino before paying Noisette, she will fly off without a kiss.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Going for Lap 2 during Pizza Time. That means warping from the entrance back to the far end of the level again, thus having to speedily rush back to the entrance once more, during a Timed Mission, and for which you won't be given extra time to complete (except in War, in which it only compensates for that level's gimmick of extending the time limit by finding items). But not only does initiating Lap 2 give you a massive point bonus, it also respawns any enemies and bonus pickups exclusive to Pizza Time, making it absolutely essential for scoring high enough to get S-Rank and P-Rank.
• Directionally Solid Platforms: Some platforms are only solid from above.
• Disembodied Eyebrows: A handful of enemies and stage objects have floating eyebrows. Examples include Box Stampers and Trash Pans.
• A Dog Named "Dog": The cruise ship in Crust Cove is named the S.S. Ship.
• Double Jump: A spinning uppercut acts as a mid-air boost. So does the Noise’s crusher. Certain powerups like the Knight also grant a double jump. Gustavo and Brick have this as a part of their base moveset, though it requires Brick with you.
• Down the Drain: The aptly-named "Oh Shit!" level. It features a lot of shit.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: In both "WAR" and "Don't make a Sound.", Peppino picks up a shotgun and cocks it before going ham on his enemies with it.
• Dramatic Thunder: The weather turns bad after the second phase of the final boss ends.
• Drone of Dread: "Meatophobia", which plays when standing near a Pillar John or in the secret bacon room in the Pig City, and during the Peppino's Final Judgement screen. It's really just the Jet Set Radio tag effect slowed down to an unrecognizable degree.
• Dueling Player Characters: Two of the boss fights are against The Vigilante and The Noise, who were playable in earlier builds of the game.
• Dungeon Bypass:
  • Triggering the escape sequence during "Golf" blocks off the only exit to the Final Course, requiring Peppino to take a lengthy alternate route to get back to the door. However, an inventive player can skip past all this by lining up one of the burger golfers to knock Greaseball into the level's Pillar John, then quickly sprinting back to the entrance before it does so, as seen here.
  • Normally at the end of "Pizzascare", the Ghost King will block off the passageway to Pillar John, forcing the player to run through an enemy-filled tunnel in order to trap him inside a TV — then run through the tunnel a second time once the countdown has started to free him before they can continue the level. Letting Peppino reach his maximum speed before entering the passageway, however, allows him to barrel straight through it before the King has the chance to get into position, skipping the tunnel entirely.
• Dungeon Town: The Pig City takes place entirely in a Urban Hellscape inhabited by pigs for Peppino's section, as well as a Chinatown-esque portion inhabited by shrimps for Gustavo's.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: The "YOU SUCK!" End-Game Results Screen requires you to beat the game with less than 50% completion, while also taking longer than two hours so you don't get a special end-screen for speedrunning the game. Even if you only collect the minimum 86 Toppins (out of 95), avoid the secrets and treasures, and even skip a stage (and only one stage, since beating the game requires getting all the toppins in 17 other stages and at least one in the 18th), you can still "fail" by getting just a few A-ranks. If you're a new player, your first judgement is far more likely to be "No Judgement."
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After a hellish day, Peppino ends off his adventure by destroying the Pizza Tower, trashing Pizzahead, potentially reviving True John with the tower's treasures, and making away with enough money and customers to keep his restaurant afloat for now.
• Easter Egg:
  • Wait on the file select menu while it is dark for around 40 seconds and Peppino will lunge at the screen, forcefully closing the game. While the lights are on, you can click on Peppino (or press the Mach Run button if you're using a controller) to beat him up. He'll contort in comical ways, including turning into a pizza, and will briefly clench his fist in anger once you stop. Slapping him enough times will unlock The Noise from the get-go on a fresh game.
  • Hold the parry button as Peppino to breakdance and spawn a boombox.
  • There are some hidden rooms around the hub areas, such as Noisette's restaurant, one with a clown car powerup and another with nothing but a car and a trash can with somebody hiding on it. These rooms typically contain content that was present in earlier builds, but got scrapped in the final release.
  • In Tricky Treat, using the Ghost transformation to go back and leave the level from the entrance displays a silent Jump Scare of the unused "The Judgement was final" screen without any text. Peppino just stands there staring at the player in disappointment for a while until the game forcefully closes itself.
  • Want to Rematch The Doise without him being dead? Taunt three times in front of his boss gate, and he'd come back to life! He's still dead during the final boss rush, though.
• Easy Levels, Hard Bosses:
  • Played with, as most of the game's difficulty comes from getting the best rank in stages. You can't really lose a level prior to Pizza Time, and the enemies usually go down pretty easily to Peppino's abilities. In the boss levels, though, you have a limited amount of Hit Points before you lose the fight and have to start all over again, and the bosses themselves are fast-paced, have more health than you, and a gradually expanding array of moves, up to a Final Boss which is also a Marathon Boss.
  • Played straight for P-Ranking — while regular levels are challenging, they're consistent and somewhat forgiving (If you can follow the line the stage is designed for, you can make mistakes and still P-Rank). Bosses are much more difficult, due to randomized debris being a feature for all of their fights, and if you take any damage at all, you have to start the entire fight over. Even with liberal use of the parry, you can easily take stray damage since you have to watch Peppino, the boss, and any debris that shows up on the stage, and it's entirely possible to end up in a situation where you parry one obstacle or the boss and immediately get hit by something else (as there's a parry cooldown, but no mercy invincibility during).
• End-Game Results Screen: Following The End screen, Peppino gives a Final Judgement of the player's overall performance and then some final stats are displayed. This ranges from him giving a sarcastic double thumbs up while saying "You Suck!" at very low percentages to shouting "WOW!" when the game is cleared with at least 95% completion. There is also a bonus screen for speedrunning the game in under 2 hours and the best possible one for doing it in under 4 hours with at least 95% completion. The same rules apply for the Noise, though in his lowest ranking he blames Noisette, and claims all the credit for 95%+ completion.
• Epic Fail: Getting a D-Rank in a stage has Peppino bearing an annoyed look, declaring "Good job, that was..." D AWFUL while the music ends with a strange distortion that sounds like a balloon deflating.
  • When getting a D-Rank with the Noise, he looks absolutely deranged, with a speech bubble containing garbled gibberish and with a scribbled "DIE" for the rank.
• Episode Title Card:
  • Each level has its own unique title screen. When playing as the Noise, images of his face appear over all the faces depicted.
  • Switching to Gustavo and Brick pops up a title card for the "Gustavo and Brick Hour". Switching back to Peppino has one that portrays him as a silly Waddling Head and very disdainfully reads, "Back to that guy".
    • When playing as the Noise, it's instead the “Noise and Noise Hour”, with two Noise heads in place of Gustavo and Brick, and switching back shows “Back to that Noise!”
• Escape Sequence:
  • During Pizza Time, when the timer runs out, the invulnerable Pizzaface awakens and begins chasing the player at high speeds. The player has to maintain at least Mach 2 while being chased, as Pizzaface is very fast when he first spawns and will only get faster over time. If he touches the player, he ejects them from the level and no progress is made.
  • In the Wasteyard level, during the return trip, you're constantly chased by John's invulnerable ghost.
• Eternal Engine: The "Peppibot Factory" level, which resembles a huge factory populated by Peppino-like robots making pizza.
• Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: Most appearances of pizza and pizza-themed objects, including the Box of Pizzas, Pizzard enemies, the Pizza Boy clothes, and even the word "Pizza" in the title logo, depict a basic pepperoni-and-cheese pattern. Other types of pizza do appear, however.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • The Toppin Monsters in "Don't Make A Sound" are each based (some more loosely than others) on one of the five Toppins you can collect, and are encountered in the same order you normally pick up the respective Toppins (Mushroom, Cheese, Tomato, Sausage, and Pineapple). To further drive the point home, each actual Toppin is collected during the stretch of level that contains their counterpart, with the Pineapple Toppin and Toppin Monster both only appearing during Pizza Time, reflecting how the Pineapple Toppin often can only be collected while escaping.
  • Each boss in the game has an attack style that's similar to Peppino on some level:
    • Pepperman's movement and attacks are primarily a counterpoint to Peppino at his baseline as an Expy of Wario, with a shoulder bash, ground pound, self-absorbed nature, and shrinking after taking enough damage.
    • Vigilante acts as a compliment to Peppino's weaponry — even giving Peppino a revolver to match his own — and a few more advanced moves like sliding.
    • The Noise is based around Peppino's high-speed movement, chaining moves together, and — to his own detriment — using the taunt to extend combos.
    • Fake Peppino is of course, a textbook example of those moves being applied literally rather than figuratively, as each of Fake Peppino's moves is a direct copy of something Peppino himself can do, even translating the screen-clearing taunt as a projectile attack.
    • Pizzahead focuses on the transformations, starting out with the revelation that Pizzaface is just a tool of his, utilizing different items that Peppino encountered earlier in the tower (even referencing Gustavo's tandem abilities with Brick), brings in his own "Special Guests" in the form of the four previous bosses, and eventually settles on morphing his body in different ways to exaggerate his attacks.
• Evil Knockoff: Three cases.
  • The Peppino Robots are introduced in Peppibot Factory and look like robotic copies of Peppino who roll around on a single wheeled leg. When they spot the player, they attempt to attack them using moves similar to those of Peppino himself.
  • Peppino Clones appear in WAR. They look identical to the real Peppino, but become deformed and reveal a long tongue when they attack. They also dissolve when they die and ribbit like frogs when they attempt to lick the player.
  • The fourth boss is Fake Peppino, a warped Humanoid Abomination version of Peppino with a similar moveset to the real Peppino's.
• Excuse Plot: A giant pizza threatened to shoot a laser at your restaurant. The story doesn't get any deeper than that, with the gameplay being the full focus of the experience. The final boss battle zig-zags this by featuring a major twist, but it's easy to miss unless you've either followed the development of the game or paid attention to the recurring image of Pizza Boy throughout the game.
  • Playing as the Noise does away with the plot, though in the ending it’s revealed that the whole thing was just a movie.
• Expy:
  • The Noise is reminiscent of a Totally Radical version of Domino's Pizza's Noid, a fellow mischievous, pogo-riding midget in a bodysuit with rabbit ears (as opposed to Noise's pizza-crust shaped hat).
  • The Pickle enemy is directly based on the Ropers from Memoirs of Magic.
• Extendo Boxing Glove: Red boxing gloves are wrapped in gifts. They act as springboards. An extendable boxing glove can also be seen in the title card of "Deep-Dish 9".
• Eye Pop: When characters get startled, their eyes often extend.
• Faceless Eye: The secret eyes in each level are just that… floating eyes.
• Face Plant: Peppino tends to land on his face after falling from great heights.
• Fire-Breathing Diner:
  • The Oregano Desert level introduces enemies called Kentucky Kennies, who try to throw spicy chicken wings into Peppino's mouth. When Peppino swallows one of these chicken wings, he starts breathing fire, becoming slightly harder to control, but gains the ability to kill enemies on contact and do an air dash in midair.
  • Near the end of the Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator level, you get a slice of Pepper Pizza which takes this up to 11. Not only is Peppino's skin cherry red from eating it, but the heat of the pizza is enough to propel him through the air and spin, and you can destroy enemies and ice blocks on contact.
• Fish Eyes: Most of the rats have eyes that look in separate directions.
• Flintstone Theming: Nearly everything is themed around pizza or pizza ingredients.
• Floating in a Bubble: Some levels feature green olive bubbles that Peppino can enter. The bubbles fly upwards and can be popped on command.
• Floating Limbs: Mr. Pinch has his hand completely detached from his head.
• Flying Saucer: Oregano Desert features a large purple flying saucer. In addition, the U.F.Olive enemy flies inside a miniature flying saucer.
• Follow the Money: Small pickups often lead the player to toppins, or progress.
• Food Porn: It's right there in the name. It's hard not to develop a craving for pizza by the end of the game with how much Anthropomorphic Food you encounter.
• Foreshadowing:
  • You'll often find cardboard cutouts and advertising tied to a pizza slice-shaped mascot called Pizza Boy, including a poster in one of the backgrounds of the "Don't Make a Sound" stage set in his pizzeria stating it went out of business. In fact, he's prominently displayed in the main menu under your game completion percentage — looking more and more angry as you make progress. He's the mastermind behind the game's events and wants to destroy Peppino's restaurant out of spite.
  • In the same stage as above mentioned, in the background, all four Toppin Monsters encountered in the stage can be seen inactive… except there's what appears to be a Pizza Boy animatronic dancing on stage. In progressing through the stage, as the monsters become hostile, the Pizza Boy is the only one who never shows up to attack you. Then, in the backroom area, you see it is because the Pizza Boy animatronic has been hanging dormant up in chains the entire time. What you saw on stage was the actual Pizza Boy, who in two stages' time will be revealed as having been the true antagonist all along, now rechristened Pizzahead.
  • One of the pizza lady NPCs babbles a Wall of Text that sounds nonsensical and yet plainly states somebody tied to Peppino's past will become involved once he arrives at the top of the tower. In Pig City, there is a billboard of Pizzahead standing on top of the tower.
  • Throughout the various hubs, you can notice the same blocks that switch from solid to transparent and vice versa during Pizza Time present and blocking off parts alongside transparent collectibles. Almost as if you'll be running through the hubs on a time limit after the Final Boss...
  • Gustavo can be seen being chased by a rat in the first hub, and then engaging it in a fistfight in the second. By the third, he and the rat have befriended each other. Sure enough, Gustavo becomes playable from the third hub onwards.
  • Peppino is depicted in Golf's title card as wielding a shotgun. While he doesn't get one in the level itself, he does get to use a shotgun in Don't Make A Sound and WAR, to devastating effect.
  • The title card for The Pig City features a "Wanted!" Poster of Peppino on it. Sure enough, he gets arrested halfway into the stage proper, with Gustavo having to bust him out.
• Forced Tutorial:
  • The tutorial level at the very beginning of the game must be completed to access the rest of the Tower. However, completing it fast enough instantly unlocks all Lap 2 portals in every level, allowing you to access Lap 2 and, by extension, the P-Rank in your first playthrough of a level.
  • Gnome Forest gives Gustavo and Brick a mandatory tutorial.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Most characters (like Peppino) with hands have four fingers per hand. However, in certain moments of Art Shift such as the pre-boss Versus Character Splash, characters have five fingers.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The four main bosses minus the fifth boss can count. The Noise is sanguine (a jovial, mischievous gremlin),The Vigilante is melancholic (a stoic no-nonsense-all-business gunslinger), Pepperman is choleric (a brash, egotistic, self-obsessed artists), and Fake Peppino is phlegmatic (a perpetually smiling, empty-headed, bizzarro clone of Peppino).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Pizza Tower Guy, the lead developer's Author Avatar, stalks Peppino all throughout the game. In most of those instances he'll teleport away instantly after appearing on-screen.
  • The Pepper Pizza seems like a regular Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce if you don't pay too much attention, but the background of the stage reveals that the sauce the Pepper Pizza uses is spicy pineapple-flavored BBQ sauce.
  • The first room of the final level after knocking out the original Pillar John is the "Staff Only" hub, with the giant statue of Pillar John in the background, which falls immediately as you enter. However, he's smiling and giving the thumbs up instead of looking miserable.
• Funny Background Event:
  • Various humorous events can be seen in the level backgrounds. For an example, crabs taking over in the Pig City, Swedish Monkey riding on a banana in Oh Shit!, a cow being abducted in Fun Farm, and so on.
  • The title card for "The Crumbling Tower of Pizza" shows Peppino triumphantly standing atop a pile of beaten up people. On a closer look, most of those characters cannot be harmed during normal gameplay or are outright inoffensive. Even the ghost icon from the combo bar is lying there! In the background, Gerome looks real annoyed to have to clean up this mess.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The boss which the Noise faces in World 3 is different, instead being The Doise. And unlike all other bosses, The Doise gets Killed Off for Real, meaning that rematches against them will grant an automatic P rank, and the final boss rush doesn't include them as one of the bosses to defeat due to them remaining dead.
  • Noise Goblins won’t attack you unless you taunt if you’re playing as the Noise.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Even if you revive the Doise by taunting in front of his boss gate, he’ll still be dead when you go through the final boss rush.
• Gameplay Grading: At the end of each level, you're given a ranking from D to P, depending on various factors like how many treasures you collected or how many hits you took.
• Gateless Ghetto: The Pig City level has cabs that are necessary for travel between different districts. You cannot get to those on foot.
• Genre Throwback: The game is a The Renaissance Age of Animation-era Zany Cartoon, akin to The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rocko's Modern Life as well as the games inspired by them, like Boogerman and ToeJam & Earl, but made for the The New '20s.
• Ghost Butler: At the start of each non-boss stage, the entry door slams dramatically shut behind Peppino, startling the chef each time. It won't reopen until reaching Pillar John and activating Pizza Time.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Fake Peppino very deliberately has no build-up or foreshadowing to his existence to make his reveal that much more shocking. And even after, thanks to Pizza Tower's very minimalistic storytelling, there is exactly zero explanation offered as to where he came from, why he's there, how he came to be, whether he's artificial or was just born like that, if he's loyal to Pizzaface or a Punch-Clock Villain, or what the hell he even is. He's just… Fake Peppino, and he exists.
  • The Doise comes out of nowhere, with only a minor reference in Pizzascare’s background beforehand to be the Noise’s third boss, then he gets Killed Off for Real at the end of it, and only reappears as a corpse in the final boss rush.
• The Gloves Come Off: When Pizzahead decides to shove a Boss Rush into his final phase, Peppino loses the last shred of patience he has and starts going all-out. Every punch then becomes a flurry of hits that do four times as much damage, reducing the effective Health of each one by three quarters.
  • The Noise enters a Super Mode during the Boss Rush when playing as him, tossing a "flurry of bombs" when hitting a boss with one, doing four damage for each hit.
• The Goomba:
  • Cheeseslimes, who can't attack and just move around mindlessly. The SAGE demo's description even calls them "useless" and "cannon fodder". They have Elite Mook variants called Tribal Cheeses that don't go down so easily, as well as the Spit Cheeses, who lob spiky balls of cheese at Peppino.
  • Subverted with The Vigilante, a Cheeseslime in a cowboy hat who is strong enough to be a full boss fight. It's suggested in an official comic that he pretends to be as weak and cowardly as any other Cheeseslime to catch his opponents off-guard.
• Golden Ending: A downplayed variant, but earning all the treasures earns you an additional scene after the final level; instead of Gerome silently mourning Pillar John's corpse, Peppino manages to revive him into True John using the treasures. He rejoices before clobbering Pizzahead one final time.
• Goomba Stomp: Some transformations allow the player to defeat enemies by jumping on them. Peppino's normal stomp just temporarily knocks the enemies back and maybe stuns them for a brief period of time. Meanwhile, Gustavo, as a pastiche of Mario, plays the trope straight; jumping on an enemy when playing as Gustavo (with or without riding Brick) will instantly kill them.
• Graffiti Town: The Pig City, a stereotypical crime-ridden metropolis inhabited by literal and metaphorical swine (and shrimp in one Chinatown-inspired district).
• Green Hill Zone: While not an early level, "Fun Farm" fits the bill in regards to aesthestics, being a grassy farm with stupid vegetable enemies.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Part of the humor in "Golf". The gimmick of the level is hitting Greaseball across courses using a golf club, and burger golfers are present as new enemies, but Peppino can ram Greaseball with his charging attack instead of using a club, the goal of each course is a basketball hoop (the owner couldn't afford golf holes), another new enemy wears a baseball helmet and mitt, and the level's Stupid Rats are shaped like bowling pins and get knocked over by the Ball transformation from the aforementioned baseball enemies. Also, the scoring names are weird and unlike golf terminology — getting par or lower is dubbed a "primo burg", for example.
  • The Noise even cheats when playing as him, increasing the par if you go above it, making it impossible to get anything below a primo burg.
• Grind Boots: Peppino can grind on rails which are present in certain levels for a speed boost. The Noise uses his skateboard to grind when playing as him.
• Gross-Out Show: Despite the art style being heavily influenced by cartoons of the 90s in which gross humor was a staple, this trope is mainly averted, with the game preferring to focus on the Deranged Animation quality of these cartoons instead. However, some gross qualities still exist, particularly in stages such as "Oh, Shit!" (a Sewer Level with poop blocks) and "Deep-Dish 9" with a planet covered in what is implied to be snot.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: The introductory boss portraits at the start of each boss are drawn in a much more realistic but still Off-Model style, resulting in some very grotesque caricatures of Peppino and his enemy. The biggest one of these is probably Pizzaface, where every wrinkle of his oozing, cheesy, greasy skin is visible.
• Group-Identifying Feature: All sentient pineapples in the tower wear Cool Shades and will taunt in some fashion, from the Toppins, to the Pineacool enemies, to the Pineapple Toppin Monster.
• Ground Pound:
  • Pressing down while in the air allows Peppino to do a belly flop that will break weak terrain, hurt enemies, and if done from high up enough, destroy metal blocks and bounce up grounded enemies. Down + jump while diving achieves the same effect, but with a more traditional butt-stomp animation.
  • All of Gustavo & Brick's Double Jumps end with them doing a particularly weighty ground pound, which has the same destructive properties as Peppino's version. Pressing down in the air has Gustavo dismount Brick (if he hasn't already) to stomp the ground, which lacks most offensive traits of the other pounds but is still useful if you need to quickly descend or destroy weak blocks below.
  • Pepperman uses a ground pound when he has 5-6 health left in both of his phases.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: When Peppino has a revolver, he can fire one bullet at a time or he can hold down fire to load six bullets, which fires one mega-bullet.
• Gun Twirling: The animation for equipping the Shotgun powerup has Peppino spin it rapidly in his right hand before cocking it.
• Half-Witted Hillbilly: The potato and eggplant enemies, exclusive to Fun Farm, constantly wear dopey expressions and attack with farming implements.
• Halloween Episode:
  • Pizzascare, a spookier and more dangerous version of Pizzascape littered with Halloween decorations.
  • Tricky Treat is a more literal example, being a Halloween-themed secret level only unlockable during the game's Halloween event.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: If you're content with just getting through the level, it's the opposite trope, but if you're going for S and P ranks, it becomes this. While the bosses are no slouch, their attack patterns are clear, learnable, and short, and a decent player can memorize their procedure after a few replays. Levels, on the other hand, have a lot more that a player has to commit to memory in order to score S — and especially P — ranks. Couple that with having to execute precise platforming perfectly twice in one go on Lap 2 runs, and suddenly the No-Damage Run boss fights don't sound so bad.
• Harmless Electrocution: Getting electrocuted does not seem to hurt Peppino much, for an example, when getting hit by lightning after grabbing a sword.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Pizza Grannies in the tutorial and some in the Hub Level explain in-game controls.
• Hit Points: Averted in levels, where Peppino cannot die to enemy attacks and hazards and must get hit on purpose to solve puzzles, though the player will get score penalties for being hurt by things like electrified blocks or enemies armed with forks or sawblades, and will immediately lose if Pizzaface catches up to them during Pizza Time. During boss fights, however, both Peppino and the boss have health bars.
• Hit Stop:
  • Time briefly freezes when ramming an enemy at high speed.
  • Hitting a boss when they have 1 hit point left will cause time to slow down while a dramatic zoom pulls in on Peppino and the boss in the moment before impact.
  • The hit stop for dashing into enemies is exploited at the end of The Crumbling Tower of Pizza; when Peppino has barreled through every other obstacle, the Tower's last resort is to spawn a large number of harmless cardboard cutouts in his way, each of which will trigger the hit stop and cost a couple extra seconds before he can reach the door.
• Holiday Mode: The October 24th update changed the title screen and pause screen to be more halloween themed, with the latter even receiving a new, more sinister sounding theme. It also added a few new extras such as characters appearing in their halloween costumes from the end credits as well as special pumpkins you can collect to unlock a secret level.
• Holy Burns Evil: In Pizzascare level, having a cross powerup makes it possible to defeat Ghostknights.
• Horrifying the Horror: Getting hit by Fake Peppino during the chase as the Noise causes the Noise to make a giant Nightmare Face, scaring Fake Peppino off without getting hit. This also ends the chase, allowing you to walk to the end at your own leisure.
• Hub Level: The Pizza Tower itself serves as a hub for the game, separated by five floors, each containing four levels and a boss fight.
• Human Hammer-Throw: Peppino spins some enemies around after grabbing them and before throwing them away.
• Hyperactive Sprite: Every character is highly and comically animated. Peppino in particular has various standing animations with walking ones to match depending on circumstances — anxiousness by default, fear during escape scenes, despair when the escape timer runs out, fuming with anger during the first phase of the final boss, and then being so irate from the third phase onwards that he starts dancing with bloodshot eyes.
• Idea Bulb: One shaped like The Noise's face appears when he enters Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator and gets the idea of drinking hot cocoa to get Satan's Choice-esque powers.
• Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: Combo names change per 5 combo, ranging from "Lame" and "Cheesy" to "Not Bad But not great either." and so on, ending in "Unfunny". After that, the combo level names just loop but with the word "very" before it.
• Idle Animation: Peppino has a number of little poses he does when idling, such as dancing, biting his hand, or just getting annoyed and making an Aside Glance at the player. The Noise also has some, such as shooting himself with a fake gun, or taking off his mask to show his surprisingly handsome face for a moment before putting it back on.
• In a Single Bound: Peppino can jump infinitely high with the help of the super jump.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Due to the game sticking to a formula of four levels and one boss per floor, it's easy to see that the fifth floor only has three visible levels and conclude that the fourth level comes after the final boss, and the fact that you can encounter John Blocks in the hub levels spells out that you'll activate Pizza Time to escape the tower at some point; both of these refer to the same level, the Crumbling Tower of Pizza.
  • Defied when it comes to bosses. Fake Peppino's identity as the fourth boss is deliberately devoid of foreshadowing in the entire game prior to fighting him, to the point where even his Chef Task icon for beating him without taking damage is just a blank icon.
• Item Get!: Peppino briefly poses when he gets a significant item such as a key.
• Jet Pack: One of the powerups is a jetpack that essentially acts like a double jump, but allows further bounces if Peppino lands on an enemy or an ice block. Fake Santas also wear a jetpack.
• Jump Scare:
  • "Don't Make a Sound" is largely a reference to the Five Nights at Freddy's series, with a variety of creatures that hunt Peppino down and on contact trigger a full screen scare that wastes the player's time by restarting the area. Pre-release builds used to have a static Fade In effect to keep those from being startling, but it's gone in the final version. Some of the monsters are actually creepy, but one is just an Elvis impersonator who gives finger guns. Also, they'll randomly celebrate Oktoberfest instead of jumping the player, while still briefly turning Peppino into a doll. The Noise just dies and becomes a corpse.
  • Waiting too long to push any buttons at the title screen causes Peppino to suddenly lunge towards the screen screaming and force the game to close.
  • The 2023 Halloween update adds cardboard cutouts in the HUB that pop out of the floor when Peppino walks next to them.
• Killed Off for Real: Killing Snotty will cause him to be permanently dead in your save file, which will lock you out of Snotty Approved if you don’t already have it.
  • After defeating the Doise as the Noise, he will be permanently dead. Reentering the arena will only have his corpse, before awarding you a P-Rank since he’s already dead. However, you can revive him by taunting three times in front of his boss gate.
• Knockback: Upon getting hit, the player is knocked back pretty far. Enemies can also get knocked back when the player stomps on them and bumps into them without having momentum to kill them.
• Lethal Lava Land: Bloodsauce Dungeon could count, due to being filled with scalding tomato sauce.
• Letting the Air out of the Band:
  • "It's Pizza Time!", the song used for when it's Pizza Time, goes into a fast-paced climax when the timer is down to the last minute, that then slows way down right as the timer hits zero. After that, you're left with the sound of a clock ticking as you try to escape Pizzaface.
  • The tune that plays when you get a D-rank replaces the triumphant ending chords with what sounds like farting, out of tune trumpets.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Peppino is normally a goofy Lovable Coward who is nonetheless very good at braving the Pizza Tower's perils. However, when Pizzahead has the audacity to summon all four of the previous bosses to his aid and then laugh in Peppino's face about it, Peppino decides he's done being afraid and goes absolutely berserk, gaining the ability to deal four points of damage in a single hit and wiping the floor with the other bosses before beating the ever-loving crap out of Pizzahead.
  Peppino: YEEOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!
• Level Ate: Every level involves some amount of food theming in it, but the tutorial level fully embodies this trope. All the terrain is made out of pizza.
• Lightmare Fuel: Basically all of Floor 5 could count, as all of the three main levels are either based upon or at the very least featuring horror tropes to some degree. This is perhaps most prominent in "Don't Make A Sound", a stage that's a massive pastiche of the "killer animatronics" angle of Five Nights at Freddy's, complete with jumpscares… which Peppino is steamrolling through like everything else, everything still exuding the game's prior sense of humor even as a bloody sausage butcher chases Peppino, culminating in Peppino getting a shotgun and completely turning the tables.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: It turns Peppino into a knight. Lightning will automatically strike him when he draws a pithy little knife from a stone, and the lightning bolt projectiles that Pizzards use also trigger the transformation (Noise's Hardoween Demo and earlier only).
• Line Boil: Most things that aren't background elements are constantly moving. This applies to most characters throughout the game, but is best seen with the Stupid Rats, stationary enemies whose linework still noticeably wobbles and jiggles around even if they're not being touched.
• Loophole Abuse: The Turbo Tunnel achievement requires clearing the first room of Deep-Dish Nine's escape — a long vertical shaft where you use the olive transformation to fly up it — without touching the ceiling. Dodging the ceilings using the olive can be a tad tricky, but actually using the olive is completely optional. Running up the walls and simply jumping off to the other before hitting each pillar — an extremely easy task — does count as clearing the first room without touching the ceiling, even if it's not the intended solution to the room at all.
• The Lost Woods: The Gnome Forest, which is a forest maze populated by gnomes and goblins.

Tropes in the final game: M-Z

• Made of Iron: While he can get hurt, Peppino can't die from being harmed by enemies. Rather, you lose points every time you get hit. The only enemies who can kill the player outright are Pizzaface during Pizza Time, the worlds' bosses, the bomb in the background of WAR!, and the tower itself if he doesn't escape in time during the final level.
• The Man in the Moon: The Moon, like planets in this game, has a face. Can be seen during the final boss fight.
• Meaningful Background Event: The latter half of "WAR" has not only Peppino getting cloned in the background (thus explaining all those Peppino clones you fight in the lab area), but it also shows the same for the level's Pillar John. This serves to both explain why War doesn't have a Pizza Time event (you need to hit John to start it, but he's outside the player's reach) and how the other levels managed to get Johns of their own to begin with.
• Meteor Move: Peppino does one of these to Pizzahead at the end of the Final Boss battle, carrying him high up into the air and then crashing back down onto the top of Pizza Tower.
• Mercy Invincibility: Upon getting hit, the player has a brief period where the character cannot be hit.
• Metropolis Level: Pig City, which resembles a run-down New York suburb populated by pigs in Peppino's half, and Chinatown in Gustavo's section.
• Mook Maker: Certain pizza boxes located around the levels spawn more enemies. Usually these are enemies needed to complete a simple puzzle. Defeating enemies spawned from these does not increase (but still maintains) combo meter.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • The Peppino's Final Judgement screen shows a dark silhouette on a dark background with Glowing Eyes of Doom and only a Drone of Dread playing. It's immediately followed by the End-Game Results Screen, which is comical no matter your rank.
  • The Episode Title Card for "Don't Make A Sound" featuring Peppino happily frolicking with the Toppin Monsters in a sunny field is completely at odds with the level's floor, the other levels found in said floor and the level itself.
  • Conversely, the title card for Golf is a Doom-esque movie poster showing a buff Peppino carrying a golf club and pointing a shotgun at the screen saying "You're dead meat!" The level itself is a mostly lighthearted one taking place inside a run-down mini-golf diner where you either football tackle the owner or strike him with a golf club to launch him into basketball hoops to play "golf" to a low-key but catchy tune, although there are demons present for some reason.
  • The Doise’s corpse being thrown up during the Noise’s final boss rush, doing nothing for a Beat, before being flung off the screen as Fake Peppino jumps in is a comical moment of nothing within the awesome boss rush.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Compared to all the other levels in the Vacation Resort, which include a Pirate's cove, a forest full of gnomes! and a Space Zone, "Golf" is set on a mini-golf course. That doesn't mean it's any less fast-paced or kooky, though.
• Music for Courage: "The Death that I Deservioli" functions as this trope. While "It's Pizza Time!" is a frantic, panic-inducing song that accentuates Peppino's Escape Sequence from the level he's currently in, "The Death That I Deservioli" is a powerful, courageous morale-booster. There is a symbolic reason for this; the song only plays during Lap 2, which means that instead of taking the earliest possible escape, Peppino is willing to flirt with death to get a higher rank.
• Music Is Eighth Notes: When Peppino is breakdancing, eighth notes emerge from the boombox.
• Nervous Wreck: Peppino comes off as one most of the time. He looks almost perpetually worried, is always sweating, and his idle animations include him breathing profusely and biting his own hand with an anguished expression.
• Nested Story Reveal: The end of The Noise's scenario reveals everything was a film with him in Peppino's place. The Peppino's Final Judgement screen is instead The Noise reacting to the film's review score.
• Nice Guy: Gustavo is much more upbeat than the anxious and rage-fuelled Peppino, and is seen being helpful and supportive in all of his interactions with Peppino. He even manages to befriend Brick, one of the Stupid Rats that normally block Peppino's path, after being chased around and then scuffling with the rodent for a floor. He'll even help Peppino during the final boss, jumping on to the stage so that Peppino can throw him at the Vigilante, who is otherwise unable to be stunned and damaged without the gun that Peppino had in the original fight. The only time Gustavo's cheerful demeanor drops is in an early version of Gnome Forest, where failing to deliver one of his pizzas in time would cause him to give a rage-fueled beatdown to Peppino that drains the latter's score as penalty.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Gustavo, Mr. Stick, and Peppino respectively (when Mr. Stick's paired up with Pep and Gus). Gustavo being an all round good chum to Peppino, Mr. Stick for being a stingy, money-loving grouch, and Peppino due to his constant fluctuation between perpetual anxiety and absolute fury who can be a nice guy when the chips are down.
• Nightmare Face: If you take too many hits during a stage, the monitor in the top right will flash one of several horrifying images taunting you with how many times you've been hit.
  • The Noise makes one of these if you get a D-Rank while playing as him.
• Ninja Prop: The final boss will occasionally reach offscreen to throw things at you, including the TV that's part of your HUD during normal levels. The TV will even have Peppino's face on it like it usually does!
• Nitro Boost: Some levels feature dash pads that accelerate the player even from standstill.
• No Fair Cheating: If you attempt to escape the Tricky Treat maze via the entrance, the game cuts to an ominous close up of Peppino silently glaring at the player and just crashes.
• Noob Cave: John Gutter, the first proper level after the tutorial and notably the only regular level to be given its own room in the tower separate from the main floors. It's a short, basic level with no real gimmicks and a simple checkerboard aesthetic. Aside from the myriad of discarded Pillar Johns in the background (which is sorta an important detail in the endgame), there's nothing particularly special here.
• No-Damage Run: Defeating bosses without taking damage is necessary for a P-Rank on boss stages.^note Although it's a bit more complicated than that. What the game actually grades you on is how many health pickups you collect throughout the fight while already at full health, with your remaining health at the end being added to the total. This isn't really noticeable in normal gameplay, since collecting all of them for a P-Rank still requires taking no damage, but can be seen if you modify the game to let you take down bosses faster than you're supposed to, which also doubles as No Fair Cheating. The Final Boss doesn't assign a rank, but does still have an achievement for beating them damage-free. Downplayed with the stages: you still want to avoid taking damage whenever possible, since it drains part of your combo meter and subtracts score, but stages can still be P-Ranked even if you take a couple hits here and there as long as you meet all the requirements.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: During the final boss, Pizzahead summons all four previous bosses as a Boss Rush after Peppino depletes his health once. But Peppino, being absolutely done with all the insanity thrown at him throughout the game, lets out a scream of pure rage and charges Pepperman. From then on, every time Peppino hits a boss, it results in a mauling so vicious that it knocks off half the boss' health at a time. When the last blow is dealt to Pizzahead, he spends over ten full seconds relentlessly pummeling the boss and pushing both of them skywards, finishing off with a piledriver from so high up that it leaves Pizzahead buried in the masonry of his tower.
• Non-Indicative Name: The S rank is given the subtitle of "perfect", even though the rank closer to a "Perfect" would be the P rank, which is even harder to get.
• Non-Standard Game Over: For 90% of the game, the only way Peppino, Gustavo, and the Noise can get killed is if Pizzaface catches them when time runs out during Pizza Time. Unless the level you're playing is either War or The Crumbling Tower of Pizza, in which case running out of time is an instant death instead.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • One in-game achievement requires you to find a hidden room made out of bacon in The Pig City with a few bacon pickups that don't appear anywhere else. No music plays in it other than droning noises while a giant pig approaches from the background... but all it does upon getting close enough is give Peppino a thumbs up before disappearing.
  • When Peppino first enters "Don't Make a Sound", a Pizza Boy animatronic can be seen alongside the Mushroom, Tomato, and Sausage Toppin Monsters on the stage in the background. When Peppino returns to the area during Pizza Time, the stage is empty, but whereas the Toppin Monsters have been the main threats throughout the level, the Pizza Boy animatronic is gone with no indication as to where it went. And it's never encountered at any point in the level; the closest you get are broken-down animatronics of the Pizza Boy character, implying that the Pizza Boy on the stage is not an animatronic, but the ACTUAL Pizza Boy, AKA Pizzahead, in disguise, watching you...
• Notice This: Some Secret Eyes are easier to find than others because they're buried under walls marked with eye symbols.
• Not My Driver: In The Pig City, one of the cabs Peppino takes to move between areas will reveal itself to be a police car much to Peppino's terror upon seeing the cop driving it, taking him to prison to begin Gustavo's section of the level. During Pizza Time the drivers are replaced with Pizzaface instead, though he still drives Peppino to his destination.
• Obvious Rule Patch: When playing Peppibot Factory as The Noise, you start the level with a bucket filled with water. Its sole purpose is to deactivate a row of outlets that would otherwise make the level impossible without getting hurt.
• Oh, Crap!: Enemies visibly freak out when the player character is about to ram into them at top speed, complete with Wild Takes. Charging at enemies who are normally dangerous to approach head-on will also cause them to panic and drop their guard. Even the otherwise unflappable and utterly irreverent Pizzahead has a moment of fearful shock when Peppino goes completely berserk when he tries to initiate a Boss Rush. He gets an even worse one when the Noise throws a gigantic noise bomb at him at the end of the boss rush in the Noise’s campaign.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: Early level "Pizzascape" is a medieval stage that features the Knight transformation as its primary gimmick, acquired by grabbing a sword out of a stone in an homage to the original legend of King Arthur and the sword in the stone. The trope is shown in full during the final boss; when Pizzahead attempts to grab a sword from offscreen, his effort to bring it up to the battlefield ends up upheaving an entire chunk of the tower with the sword in the stone still attached. Suprisingly, the Noise can still grab it, despite being a maniac.
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: The Gnome Forest has the namesake gnomes, who reward the player with the level's Toppins if they can deliver them their gnome pizzas on time.
• Our Goblins Are Different: A number of enemies are based on goblins:
  • Pepperoni Goblins are giant grinning pepperonis who will kick the player if they approach them, causing the Ball transformation.
  • Pizza Box Goblins are goblins coming out of pizza boxes who throw Cartoon Bombs at the player which they can pick up. They have an Underground Monkey variant in the Cannon Pizza Goblins, who wear pirate bandanas and fire bombs from cannons which travel in a straight line and can't be picked up.
  • Noise Goblins are introduced in the Gnome Forest level. They're goblins with faces similar to the Noise who attack Peppino by shooting arrows at him.
• Orchestra Hit Techno Battle: The Noise's boss theme has a techno feel with orchestra hits.
• Palmtree Panic: Crust Cove takes place in tropical setting, albeit with pink sand. It also exhibits elements of Gangplank Galleon due to all the Pizza Goblin pirate enemies that infest it.
• Permanently Missable Content: A handful of outfit colors have unlock criteria that require trying again on a new save file if they're missed. Downplayed because unlocked clothes carry over between save files, meaning that you can still have them unlocked on files that the conditions weren't met in. For this reason, clothes don't contribute to completion percentage.
  • "Sage Blue" is unlocked by clearing all of World 1's levels in under an hour.
  • "Money Green" is unlocked by having the maximum amount of money by World 2, which means collecting all of the Toppins in the first 2 worlds before buying access to The Vigilante's boss gate.
  • "War Camo" is unlocked by clearing War, one of the three last stages in the game, on your first try.
  • "John Suit" is unlocked by finishing the game with all of the secret treasures collected in under 2 hours and 15 minutes.
  • There is one piece of missable content that doesn't carry over between saves: If you kill Snotty in world 4's hub, you won't be able to receive the associated badge on your save file. You can modify your save file to revive him and receive the badge anyway, but if you do, a Granny on the first floor will mention at the end of her normal dialogue that "Snotty will remember what you did!"
• Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Primary: Toppins, required to open boss doors.
  • Secondary: Treasures, required for the Golden Ending and 100% Completion.
  • Tertiary: Pizza toppings, clocks, and bells, which grant points and extend your combo.
  • Extra: Pizzasonas, of which one is found in each secret area. Not required for any form of progression.
• Pineapple Ruins Pizza: Averted. The game remains perfectly respectful of Hawaiian pizza as a choice. One of the Toppins is a pineapple, and you'll regularly be collecting pineapple rings or whole pineapples as score pickups.
• Player Death Is Dramatic: Considering how most of the misfortune that can befall Peppino is Played for Laughs, it's a bit surprising this is played straight. However, there are 2 variants of this.
  • If the player runs the clock out during Pizza Time, and Pizzaface catches up to Peppino, everything except for the latter vanishes into a black void while he has a shocked expression. Then the words "Time's Up" fall on top of him, sending him falling down off of the screen.
  • If the player runs out of life during a boss fight, Peppino is sent flying before falling down to the ground as everything else fades to black. He is left crumpled on the floor covered in bruises.
• Pointless Band-Aid: Some rocks in Oregano Desert have bandages on them, indicating that they're destructible.
• Portal Endpoint Resemblance: Most of the level portals are followed by a few objects and decorations that tend to be relevant to whatever world they transport Peppino to.
• Practical Taunt:
  • Peppino's taunt button lets him use a screen-clearing nuke every time you rack up ten combos, which is a clutch move to keep the combo gauge from running out.
  • Taunting allows you to Bullet Catch projectiles, and Counter-Attack nearby enemies.
  • Taunting also halts your momentum during the animation, allowing you to do things like wait for stage hazards to move out of the way without coming to a complete stop and having to build your speed back up. Especially useful during boss fights, where taunting can keep you in the air as an attack passes by on the ground.
  • Reached the exit during Pizza Time and have some seconds to spare? Taunting a couple of times in front of the door while you have a combo going will let you milk a couple extra points before you leave the level.
    • Doing this the max amounts of times you can, while keeping your combo, lets you unlock an outfit for the Noise.
  • Taunting makes enemies react faster, which is useful if their attacks trigger transformations on Peppino. In "Don't Make a Sound", taunting while a patroller is onscreen instantly alerts the monsters. This saves time on the sections where letting the timer of a security drone run out is required to open gates.
    • This is also the only way to get the achievement for deflecting a Noise Goblin’s arrow back at them as the Noise, since they won’t attack him normally.
• Projectile Pocketing:
  • The Greaseball in the Golf level will collect items after Peppino bashes him through the air, and has exclusive Greaseball Hoops that only he can collect. This property applies even if Greaseball is unlaunched and merely happily skipping around, which one of the secret eye levels exploits.
  • If Gustavo kicks Brick forward, any toppings that Brick rolls through will count as collected.
• Promoted to Playable: Inverted. Out of the final build's five bosses, the first three were previously considered as playable characters, as detailed on the What Could Have Been page. Coincidentally, the fourth is a shoddy copy of Peppino.
  • Zig-Zagged with The Noise, who was eventually added to the game as an alternative playable character.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The tutorial is done to the tune of "Funiculi Funicula," a classic Italian piece of music with a... surprisingly extensive history when it comes to pizza-based nonsense.
• Punny Name: Some of the level names have a pun in the title, such as…
  • Ancient Cheese
  • Deep-Dish 9
  • Refrigerator Refrigerador Freezerator
  • The Pig City
  • Oh Shit!
• Quick Draw: The boss battle against The Vigilante ends with Peppino and the boss waiting for a quick draw signal.
• Rage Breaking Point: Peppino engages Pizzaface in combat with a dead serious demeanor for once, doing a Battle Cry and having an angry posture while idling. When Pizzahead brings the previous four bosses back for a rematch, Peppino then goes absolutely feral in response and begins shredding 4 entire hit points off the bosses and Pizzahead every time he lunges at them.
• Rambunctious Italian: Peppino Spaghetti is very expressive with his emotions. That said, the two emotions he displays most often are extreme anxiety and, when he's running at top speed, full-on rage as he barrels through enemies.
• Rank Inflation: Rank P is the highest rank achievable at the end of a level, even though Rank S is already captioned as "Perfect". It requires you to obtain enough points for an S Rank, find every secret, find the tower treasure, and do a successful Lap 2... without dropping your combo once.
• Recoil Boost: Firing a shotgun downwards will also act as double jump. Firing a gatling gun downwards with cause you to start floating upwards.
• Recurring Riff: The riff from "Pizza Time" is heard in various other themes, such as in John Gutter, or when defeating a boss.
• Remilitarized Zone: The self-explanatory "War" level. Also likely to be the final level the player has to face, post-Final Boss level notwithstanding.
• Retraux: The game's art-style is heavily reminiscent of 90's cartoon shows, and a majority of the Shout Outs are references to retro video games. The gameplay is a throwback to the Wario Land games, most closely resembling Wario Land II.
• Ridiculously Small Wings: Chicago Pizza platforms in the Pizzascare level have tiny wings, and so do the flying pigs in the background of The Pig City.
• Rocket Ride: Deep-Dish 9 level features a rocket powerup that causes Peppino to ride in front of a rocket. Some screen transitions also have him literally board a rocket to another planet, much to his horror.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: Levels are populated by "Stupid Rats", which are giant rats who act as obstacles that can only be removed with transformations. One of these Stupid Rats, named Brick, is Gustavo's companion and mount. Smaller but still man-sized rodents called Bad Rats also appear through the game, serving as conventional enemies.
• Rolling Attack: Peppino can roll by crouching while running. Brick the Rat can also roll, destroying enemies and obstacles in its path while doing do.
• Rubber-Hose Limbs: Some characters with thinner arms don't have visible elbows. Examples include Pineacool, Kentucky Kenny and Pizza Box Goblin.
• Rump Roast:
  • Bloodsauce Dungeon has several pits of boiling pizza sauce in some segments that cause the player character's rear to be set on fire when they fall in, complete with a Pain-Powered Leap.
  • Being torched by the Peasantos in "Fun Farm" sets Peppino's rear on fire.
• Running Gag: Peppino screams every time he encounters a boss. The third time he does this, The Noise mimics and mocks him. The fourth time is against his bizarro clone, who also screams in response. For the final battle, Peppino starts out with a serious Battle Cry, screams in shock one last time when Pizzahead is revealed, and then flat out explodes with rage when the villain sics every previous boss at him.
• Sampling: Many songs in the soundtrack use samples from other songs. For an example, "Unexpectancy" samples sections from the 1920s pop song "After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It". Early versions of "It's Pizza Time" sampled the "Hello there" voice clip from Wario Land 4, but the final game uses a sound-alike, presumably for copyright reasons. Similarly, early demo versions of "Cold Spaghetti" (the second theme of Pizzascape) sampled Wario's voice clips from the same game.
• Save the Villain: In the final level, Peppino frantically dashes to get out of the now crumbling tower and rescues not just Gustavo, Brick, Mr. Stick, Gerome, and Mort, but Pepperman, the Vigilante, the Noise, and Fake Peppino, too. The fact that he goes out of his way to save the bosses implies that, despite all the mayhem and chaos they put him through, Peppino apparently believes that they don't deserve to be left to die.
  • Inverted when doing the same level as The Noise, who will only save his girlfriend and a Noisey, instead knocking out of their way the others.
• Screeching Stop: When Peppino stops or turns around when moving at adequate speed, a screeching sound is heard.
• Screen Shake: The screen shakes when enemies are killed, objects are destroyed or when the player slams against a surface at high speed.
• Scoring Points: The player is ranked for score performance in each stage. This involves finding every secret, making multiple combos, avoiding damage, and escaping before the primary timer runs out. The challenge of the levels comes from scoring these points in addition to escaping in time; other than Pizzaface, taking damage won't cause a fail-state in the game's levels.
• Second-Face Smoke: Pizza Slugs with a blue bowtie have a cigarette in their mouth all the time and can cough up black fumes that can damage you if you run into them.
• Second Place Is for Losers:
  • Though The Noise is not as harsh about it as in the pre-release builds (see that section for more info), he will still say "I'd prefer an S or a P..." upon obtaining an A rank (the best rank outside of the former two).
  • This also is incorporated in The Noise's End-Game Results Screen. Getting one of the two best endings (both of which require at least 95% completion) have a cheering sound go with it, while getting any other ending has a booing sound instead.
• Sequential Boss: Bosses work this way, with every hit point they lose causing them to either add new attacks to their repertoire or change up their patterns. Once you deplete their health, they'll regain it all for a second phase, which just repeats the usual progress, but with an additional obstacle added to the battle:
  • Pepperman will attack you in different ways, entering vulnerable states in different ways as you deplete his health and summoning enemies to aid him. The second phase has tons of enemies already spawning from the get go, getting in your way.
  • The Vigilante will continue to gain new attacks throughout the fight, and his second phase will have him set the battle to take place during the sunset, rendering everything visible only through silhouette.
  • The Noise acts similarly to the previous two fights, entering a vulnerable state after his attacks that increase as the fight goes on. The second phase will cause a giant Noise balloon to crash onto the battlefield and knock out the cameramen, with enemies jumping out of the holes in the balloon to impede you while The Noise adds new effects to his moveset.
  • Fake Peppino will change his attack patterns every time you hit him, which you can only do by striking him two times in order to stun him and make him vulnerable, all the while surviving the increasing army of Fake Peppinos he summons. After surviving a brief interlude of Fake Peppino attacks, the second phase adds a Fake Fake Peppino to get in your way. The third phase will force Peppino to run away from a giant Fake Peppino, requiring him to dash as fast as he can until he can escape the building.
  • Pizzaface acts as a Mook Maker, summoning enemies in increasing amounts that you must launch at him to defeat him. The second phase forces you against the mastermind, Pizzahead, in a shootout, with the broken down Pizzaface mech returning to drop gears on the battlefield, while the mascot gone mad attacks you with bizzare and wacky moves. Then comes a Boss Rush against truncated versions of the previous four bosses, followed by one final battle against Pizzahead.
• Shifting Sand Land: Oregano Desert. It also has shopping marts and UFOs, so it's definitely not your standard desert level.
• Shockwave Stomp:
  • The Noise can stomp the ground and produce shockwaves in his boss fight by using his Noise Crusher.
  • During the final boss battle, Pizzahead can perform a stomp that produces shockwaves.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Averted. Peppino's shotgun has a decent range but few places to really take advantage of it. It covers the width of the screen with a blast about as wide as Peppino is tall.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: A shotgun can be obtained in certain levels as a power-up for Peppino, being essential to solve certain puzzles by destroying otherwise unreachable blocks.
• Shout-Out: Can be found here.
• Show Within a Show: Noise's campaign upon completion is revealed to have been his own produced movie adaptation of the game itself, as him and the bosses are seen in the end screen tearing down a movie set with the title card Pizza Tower: The Movie. The final judgement completion percentage also plays out in the form of critics giving a Rotten Tomatoes-style percentage review.
  • This also applies to Swap Mode, which bases itself off of Noise's campaign despite featuring Peppino (and Gustavo) as playable. The end screen is the same as in Noise's campaign, but with the reveal that Peppino and Gustavo were being performed by actors.
• Signpost Tutorial:
  • There are a few signposts in a tutorial level that illustrate how basic moves in the game work.
  • In Pizzascape level, there are a few messages saying "Double jump, my liege" and one in the secret that says "Get kicked! - Granny".
• Skewed Priorities: The pigs in Pig City will take a picture if Peppino taunts while they're onscreen. This includes if they're currently in the middle of running in circles in a panic while Pizza Time is going on and the city starts falling apart.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator level. Uniquely, it takes place inside (and partly outside) a literal refrigerator, with food and everything. It also averts the "slippy slidey" part of the trope; friction in the level is the same as any other, even on solid ice platforms.
• Slogans: The fourth boss battle takes place in a pizzeria with the slogan "Nothing Compares".
• Songs in the Key of Panic:
  • If the time runs low during "Pizza Time", its pace gets much faster. An inversion happens if the time gets very low, in which case it slows down instead.
  • The Lap 2 theme "The Death I Deservioli" starts off pretty simple before it slowly speeds up and becomes an incredibly frantic song that tells you to run like hell.
• Sore Loser: After being defeated, Pepperman appears in the second hub drawing graffiti of himself as a hero fighting a demonic Peppino. The Noise likewise shows up in the fourth hub glaring daggers at Peppino if the player moves close to him. The Vigilante shows up in Noisette's cafeteria and the final hub also looking upset to see Peppino, leaving Fake Peppino as the odd one out who doesn't appear again until the escape from the tower.
• Sound Test: Sound Test can be acccessed by unlocking every secret eye in the game. Post-Halloween update, it also contains the entrance to Secrets Of The World, the game's Secret Level.
• Space Zone: Deep-Dish 9. It starts in a space station of some kind, then follows up with Peppino getting blasted off to an alien olive planet and then its cheese moon.
• Space "X": Deep-Dish 9 features Space Pizzamart in the background as opposed to regular Pizzamarts.
• Spectacular Spinning: When Peppino uses his super jump, he spins as he ascends.
• Speed Echoes: Peppino leaves alternating green and red echoes when moving fast enough. Combined with his default white outfit, they make up the colors in the Italian flag.
• Speedrun Reward:
  • Normally it takes clearing each stage once to unlock their Lap 2 portal, but if you clear the tutorial fast enough, they will all be available from the get-go.
  • During Peppino's final judgement, you'll get unique judgements by either completing the game in under 2 hours, or under 4 hours with at least 95% completion.
  • One of the chef tasks requires beating the John Gutter level in under two minutes.
• Sphere Eyes: Eyes of many characters are spherelike with eyes touching one another. Examples include Peppino and The Noise.
• Spinning Piledriver: Peppino can piledrive some of the enemies. He spins around while piledriving them.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Boxing gloves wrapped in gifts act as springboards. So do certain bouncy mushrooms found throughout levels and robots in Peppibot Factory.
• Springy Spores: Some mushrooms bounce the player into the air upon contact.
• Stab the Sky: When Peppino grabs a sword, he does the sky stabbing pose while getting hit by lightning.
• Stalked by the Bell: Pizzaface spawns when the timer runs out during Pizza Time, homing in on the player and killing them instantly on contact.
• Start Screen: There's no conventional title screen, as the Pizza Tower logo only shows up in the opening cutscene. After the opening, it cuts to Peppino sitting in his restaurant with the lights turned off. Pressing anything toggles the lights and enables the file select menu, with Peppino looking nervously at monitors around him. Taking too long to turn on the lights causes him to Jump Scare you and shut the game down.
• Steel Drums and Sunshine: The hub of Floor 3 has a tropical theme. Its variation of the hub world theme ("Wednesdays") uses steel drums.
• Stealth-Based Mission: Zigzagged with Don't Make A Sound. On one hand, it features all the hallmarks of the genre, like a dark atmosphere, guards that sound the alarm when you are spotted, and invincible chasers running after you if your cover is blown. On the other, you are very much encouraged to go as fast as possible rather than attempt to hide (guards only ring the alarm five seconds after spotting you, so you should kill them quickly) and the stage forces you to deliberately trigger a chase multiple times, to get a few doors to open and use one of said chasers to punch through normally indestructible blocks.
• Stealth Pun
  • Floor 2 is a Western themed area where the boss is a Clint Eastwood Expy. The world is a Spaghetti Western.
  • Items that boost Peppino's ghost form so he can move faster and break ghost blocks take the form of white chili peppers. They're ghost peppers.
  • Peppino can warp to other areas by jumping into cardboard boxes stuffed full of pizza slices that appear everywhere. They're literal pizza boxes.
  • One of the items in the background of Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator is a bottle of ketchup with a picture of a cat on it. It's "catsup".
• Stock Femur Bone: When things explode, sometimes a femur bone also spawns along with food. Some femur bones can also be seen in the background.
• Stock Scream: Some stock scream sounds can be heard in Pizzascape level theme. As well, some characters — such as Peppino and the Noise — unleash a couple of their own.
• Stock Sound Effects: Aside from screams, the game has a few, such as cash register sound when toppins are counted at the end of the level.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • The sprites, to an extent. Their one-pixel-thick lines and saturated colors resemble something that would be drawn in MS Paint or a similarly limited art program. The actual animation is incredibly fluid, taking advantage of the MS Paint aesthetic for comedy.
  • While playing as The Noise, the title cards for each stage get stickers of him crudely slapped on Peppino and any other characters featured in the artwork.
• Suck E. Cheese's:
  • The arena for Fake Peppino's boss fight is a dilapidated pizza parlor, which becomes even more ruined after he reaches half health.
  • "Don't Make A Sound" takes place in a decaying kids' pizza restaurant, complete with rotting mascots. However, those mascots aren't as friendly as they were in their performing days...
• Super Mode: When playing as the Noise, at the Boss Rush at the end of the final boss, instead of delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, he instead goes super, and starts flinging bombs at a rapid rate.
• Television Portal: Downplayed with the Noise coming out of the TV in the top right corner when you have a high combo while playing as him.
• Temporary Platform: Cheese blocks disappear when walked on. They regenerate after a few seconds.
• Theme Music Power-Up:
  • The final boss music is this, but for Peppino, not Pizzahead himself. "Unexpectancy 3" kicks in when Peppino loses his shit at Pizzahead starting a Boss Rush and gives his first No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to Pepperman.
  • This also applies to The Noise, who gets their own Noise-remix of Unexpectancy 3 when taking on said Boss Rush.
  • "The Death That I Deservioli" acts as one for lap 2, as it symbolically represents Peppino gaining the courage needed to risk his life and dive back into the level. It's likely not a coincidence that "Unexpectancy 3" includes a remix of the song.
• Theme Naming: In the Pig City, there are three streets: Pig st, Swine st. and Hog st.
• Throw the Mook at Them: Peppino can throw enemies at other enemies to defeat them. This gets used in the first part of the Final Boss battle against Pizzaface.
• Timed Mission:
  • Once the Pillar John at the end of every level is defeated, a timer appears, and if it runs out before you reach the end of the level, Pizzaface will spawn and chase you down, killing you instantly on contact.
  • The "WAR" level is the counterpart to Wario Land 4's Golden Passage level, where the level is already on a timer from the very beginning once you pick up the shotgun.
  • Meanwhile, The Crumbling Tower of Pizza lacks Pizzaface due to him being defeated, but instead is a race to get out of the Pizza Tower before it collapses, with the original Pillar John being destroyed at the very beginning. Pizzaface's icon on the timer is fittingly replaced by a cracked, crumbling Pizza Tower.
  • The hidden bonus level, Secrets of the World, is a marathon of all the secrets in the game. If you spend longer than 25 seconds in any one of the secrets, you instantly fail.
• Title Drop: Parodied by the game's Steam page, which invites the player to "BECOME the Pizza Tower!" alongside an image of Peppino as a tower-shaped Cephalothorax. It doubles as a hilarious Brick Joke come the credits and Final Judgement, with the game window's header changed there to "You can call yourself the Pizza Tower now".
• Title: The Adaptation: Noise's campaign is revealed at the end to have been an adaptation of the game called Pizza Tower: The Movie.
• Toggling Setpiece Puzzle: There are switch blocks that activate and deactivate face blocks. While most of the time they're used to direct the player's progress, at the end of Deep-Dish 9, there is a minor puzzle where player has to figure out when to press the switch block.
• Toilet Humour: Crops up in a few places such as the level Oh Shit! (a Down the Drain level filled with, well... shit) and Pizzahead introducing himself sitting on the toilet reading a newspaper while inside Pizzaface.
• Tornado Move: As part of his moveset, by holding down in the air, the Noise will enter into a tornado spin, which will continue on the count as long as you continue holding down.
• Tractor Beam: The Title Card of Oregano Desert and background of Fun Farm has a Flying Saucer using a tractor beam, for the latter to capture cattle.
• Traveling-Pipe Bulge: In The Slums hub and the Oh Shit! level, there are pipes that can be entered. They expand to fit Peppino and spit him out on another end.
• Triumphant Reprise:
  • The end-of-level jingles become increasingly triumphant versions of themselves as you get better and better ranks, with the last note sounding more and more glorious with each step up. The P Rank jingle, on the other hand, is entirely remixed to sound even awesomer.
  • "Bye Bye There!", the theme of the very last stage, The Crumbling Tower Of Pizza, is a remix of "It's Pizza Time!" made to sound more and more uplifting as the level progresses instead of threatening and chaotic.
• A Truce While We Gawk: Right before the second round of the boss fight with The Noise, a giant balloon in the Noise's image flies into the background of the arena. Peppino and The Noise stop their fight briefly to see the balloon and scream as it gets way too close.
• Tube Travel: In Oh Shit!, the player has to travel through the sewer pipes. One such pipe is also found in the Hub Level.
• Turns Red: All bosses except the final boss's first two phases fully refill their health bar the first time you drain it, leading to a phase two with much trickier versions of the same attacks (in the same order, for the ones with a fixed order). Some also switch to a more intense version of their music.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: The Final Boss disappears with a twinkle during the ending when all secret treasures have been obtained.
• Uncommon Time: "Oregano UFO"'s intro is in 9/8 measure, followed by 18/8 segment, followed by 9/4 segment time signature.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Pig City is dotted with taxis that will drive Peppino to the various sublevels, with a brief loading screen of Peppino anxiously waiting as the cab driver takes him away. One specific taxi, on the other hand, is just a cardboard cutout: climbing into it drops the facade and reveals the police car behind it, the loading screen gets replaced by Peppino screaming in terror at the Police Pig driving it, and it drops Peppino off in a jail cell with no way back until Pizza Time activates.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: The bosses of each world make absolutely no use of Peppino's running mechanic like the normal levels (except for Fake Peppino), and are instead much more like traditional platformer bosses. In addition, the Vigilante requires you to fight him with a gun instead of dashing into him to damage him.
  • As the Noise, instead of punching the bosses like Peppino, you instead kick bombs at them. You also don’t use the gun during the Vigilante’s.
• The Unfought: The stage "Don't Make a Sound" involves Peppino avoiding a group of monster mascots and shooting them down during the escape sequence. There should be a Pizza Boy animatronic among them that is seen already active and performing in the background of the first room, but to add to how mysterious the character is up to that point, it is never encountered. Save for in the backroom area, where the actual Pizza Boy animatronic is seen hanging from a chain, unused. This serves for foreshadowing that it wasn't the animatronic on stage at all — it was the real deal, Pizzahead.
• Unmoving Plaid: Some of Peppino's and the Noise’s alternate outfits have this effect.
• [Verb] This!: One of the achievements is called "Whoop this!"
• Variable Mix:
  • Multiple levels each have two different variations of their background music, depending on what section of said levels you're in. This applies to the following levels:
    • Pizzascape: "Hot Spaghetti"/"Cold Spaghetti".
    • Ancient Cheese: "Theatrical Shenanigans"/Put On A Show"!!
    • Oregano Desert: "Oregano Mirage"/"Oregano UFO".
    • Peppibot Factory: "Pizza Engineer"/"Peppino's Sauce Machine".
    • Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator: "Don't Preheat Your Oven Because If You Do The Song Won't Play"/"Celsius Troubles". It then switches to "On The Rocks", which is very different from the previous two.
  • In addition, the following levels switch to a completely different background theme in their respective second halves:
    • Fun Farm starts with "Mort's Farm" and switches to "What's On The Kids Menu?"
    • Gnome Forest starts with "mmm yess put the tree on my pizza", switches to "Gustavo" for the Gustavo & Brick tutorial, then switches again to "Wudpecker".
    • The Pig City starts with "Bite The Crust", which in turn is based on Another One Bites The Dust. When Gustavo & Brick's segment starts, the music changes to "Way Of The Pig".
  • The theme "Secret Hoppin'", which plays in the secret rooms, has a variant for each level's main musical motif. For example, "A Secret Under The Debris" is based on "Theatrical Shenanigans" but with the instrumentation and tempo of "Secret Hoppin'".
  • The Hub Level theme varies depending on what floor you are on, and changes from one to another without interruptions when moving between floors.
• Vent Physics: In a few levels like Fastfood Saloon, there are fans that lift the player into the air.
• Versus Character Splash: When entering a boss battle, a "Peppino vs boss" message appears, complete with character sprites that are more proportional and stylized than usual ones.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Reviving John by collecting every Secret Treasure and keeping Snotty alive in the Slum hub will award the player with seals of their approval on the file select screen.
• Video Game Dashing: Peppino can use grab dash to break blocks. He can also shoulder bash dash from a super jump.
• Video Game Sliding: Peppino can slide on his belly with hands pointed forward to move slightly faster than normal running. Certain actions can make him slide on his back instead.
• Walk on Water: A few levels have shallow pools of water. When running at high speed, the player can run on water without being bitten by anything that lurks inside.
• Wall Jump:
  • Peppino can jump off walls when running on them. When covered in cheese, he must stick to walls before jumping off.
  • Brick the rat can just jump off walls.
• "Wanted!" Poster: A "Wanted" poster with Peppino on it appears in the title card of "The Pig City" and the intro cutscene of the Vigilante's boss fight.
• War Is Hell: The final level, War, seems to be themed this way, with a timer constantly ticking down and a clear sign that Peppino doesn’t like this in the title. It’s outright called this in the files, too.
• We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties: Whenever you fall down a Bottomless Pit, one of several humorous "Technical Difficulty, Please Stand By" cards will appear on the screen, featuring a comically injured Peppino (or Gustavo and Brick, if they're being played) being mocked by Pizzaface, right before the player is returned to the room's entrance or the last checkpoint touched.
• What the Hell, Player?: Every ten times you get penalized from taking damage, a "You hurt Peppino X times" message will pop up with bizarre imagery on the hud's TV screen, such as Peppino contorting himself or a Mechanical Abomination version of Gustavo. This goes up to 100 hits and the last three pictures in the finished game are redrawn versions of the original ones from when this mechanic first appeared. Funnily enough, you can actually unlock an outfit by taking damage enough times.
• Wild Take: The game uses these quite liberally, being inspired by 1990's animation like Ren & Stimpy and Rocko's Modern Life.
• The Wild West: The levels in the Second Floor (Western District) of the Tower carry this theme, taking Peppino through different Western-themed towns and a level based on a farm.
• Wingding Eyes: Stunned characters and zombies have "x" signs instead of eyes. Peppino gets circles around eyes in his portrait when going fast.
• Wolf Whistle: A blatant one plays in the background whenever you earn a new combo every 10 hits.
• "X" Marks the Spot: In Crust Cove, there are some locations on the floor marked with X. Body slamming these locations reveals an anthropomorphic chest.
• You Bastard!: There's a single harmless and green cheese slime enemy named Snotty in the Slum hub that you can kill. Once this is done, there will be a grave in his memory when you reload the area. If the player edits their save to revive Snotty, one of the Pizza Ladies will get new text claiming that "Snotty will remember what you did!"
• You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Played with for a sign on the fourth floor’s hub, which is just as tall as Peppino is- with an outline to boot.
• Zero-Effort Boss: Upon defeating The Doise as The Noise, Peddito will suddenly appear and kill the boss, causing any rematches to open to an instant P Rank as there will be nothing but a corpse on the arena. This also applies to the Boss Bonanza section of Pizzahead's fight as well, where the corpse will just linger on the arena for a few seconds before falling off.

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 served 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 scrapped 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: Pior to The Noise Update, 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).

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Good job, troper! That was... D: AWFUL

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