00:01.55 Dave Hello everybody, my name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to Tales from the Backlog. This is a video game deep dive review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it, and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show, a host of Super Pod Saga and a real pizza maniac. Welcome back, Aaron Klassen. 00:25.05 Aaron Hello, it's been a long time, but so i mean I still love pizza though, still total pizza maniac. Thanks for having me on. 00:31.59 Dave Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course 00:54.96 Dave Good to have you back, man. ah Longtime listeners will recognize Aaron from a couple of past episodes on the show. First of all, Aaron was here for a round table discussion about long games and burnout and why we can play some hundred hour games and some of them ah destroy our brains and melt them into sludge. ah The other one we did more recently was an episode about Balatro, which is right in the wheelhouse for Aaron here. Today we have another exciting game. As soon as I liked it, I decided I was going to play this game. I knew I should reach out to you. This felt like an errand game to me. 01:28.43 Aaron It's a very erring game. well We'll get into it a little bit more, but yeah. 01:32.96 Dave Yeah. Uh, today we're going to talk about Pizza Tower, which is a platforming game developed and published by tour de pizza for PC in 2023. If this is your first time listening to the show, thank you for stopping by today. We appreciate you. Normally we do a non-spoiler and then full spoiler breakdown on the show. Today we're not doing a spoiler section. There is no story really in the Pizza Tower. ah There are characters, there are levels, there are gimmicks in things that I suppose like... 02:04.41 Dave you technically could be spoiled on, but like the spoiler section in this episode would be like, hey, remember this level gimmick? Wasn't that cool? And they are cool, but I don't feel like that's a discussion that I'm super interested in having to merit like a separate spoiler section. So we're just not gonna do it this time. 02:21.94 Aaron Mm. 02:23.09 Dave ah Pizza Tower, I don't feel like it is a very spoilable game. So ah no spoiler section. We're just gonna kind of let it rip. We're not gonna spoil the ending on purpose for you or anything, but That's how we're doing it today. So what is Pizza Tower? We have prepared some elevator pitches for everybody. My elevator pitch for Pizza Tower is Wario Land plus Sonic the Hedgehog inside of a pizza chef's ambient dream. Aaron, what's the ah pitch for Pizza Tower? 02:55.71 Aaron I wrote down the exact same thing you said, but add more 90s squiggly animation like science court or home movies. 03:02.56 Dave Yeah, I feel like that's the other part of Pizza Tower's pitch is it has this aesthetic to it, which is ah it stands out for sure. 03:10.74 Aaron Oh yeah. Yeah. i If, if, if anybody out there has ever, nobody's ever seen science court, but if you've ever, if you've ever seen home movies, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. 03:18.75 Dave Mm hmm. Yeah. The nineties animation for sure. Uh, I played this on PC. It took me eight hours to beat. And then I spent maybe five more hours replaying levels, trying to get better scores, uh, finding secrets and stuff like that. You also unlock a new character when you beat the game. So I did play around with that new character a little bit. So 10, 10 to 15 hours played. How about you? 03:43.05 Aaron Uh, I'm pretty sure I'm at about seven and a half hours or really close to eight. I, uh, I never did beat it. I got, um, I, I got to the boss battle against the noise and then just 8 million other things came up that I had to play games for, like, I guess, uh, for our super pod game club or playing Sonic 06 to punish ourselves. Cause we, none of us could beat a cameo, which was also a punishment kind of, but yeah. 04:09.78 Dave Fair enough. Yeah, so it's not a super long game. And it's definitely not a game that I feel like you have to beat to get a good idea of something. 04:14.02 Aaron No. 04:19.13 Dave You know what this game is like within the first couple hours. So it just keeps increasing in weirdness and gimmicks and stuff like that as you play. So i let's ah Let's talk about what got us into playing this game in the first place, because I think you played this game before I did, like for the first time. So we'll start with you. What was it that made you want to play Pizza Tower in the first place? 04:43.66 Aaron Yeah, so being a big fan of the Wario Land series, like I've played Wario Land 3 and 4, I guess I'm not a big fan if I've only played those two, but still ah being a big fan of those two. I remember seeing this game on itch.io a while ago, along with there were a few other games on there as well that kind of had the same style as like ah this and like Wario Land 4 and stuff. And I remember thinking that's cool, but like, it's just kind of, it was still like a demo back then on itch.io. 05:13.45 Dave Yeah. 05:13.94 Aaron ah As soon as I heard that it came out on Steam, like a full release, and it was only, I think it was like only 15 bucks, I jumped on it immediately. 05:24.35 Dave Yeah, kind of similar to you, this game first caught my eye probably because of the aesthetic when I saw a screenshot, but then when I learned that it was you know inspired by Wario Land, because like you, I played a lot of Wario Land 3. One of my favorite games on the Game Boy Color was Wario Land 3, and then Wario Land 4 on the Game Boy Advance, of course. and I didn't know this like going into it per se, but I have a dream of what I want a Sonic the Hedgehog game to be. And I kind of feel like this game has turned out to be that. So. 06:12.98 Aaron Sorry. 06:13.58 Dave It's all right, restart that. 06:22.76 Dave So for me personally, ah it really was just like, it's a story that's been told so many times, right? It's like, you love this old game series. They're not making those games anymore. So the indies ah take it upon themselves to make their own version of that new thing. And so, when I found out we have this indie version of Wario Land coming out, I jumped on it like, well not, I didn't jump on it. That's a lie. I didn't buy it right away. I played it for the first time like a couple of months ago, but I wish I had listened to it. And I did the gamer thing where I told myself that looks really cool. I'm gonna love this. I'll play it someday and then um put it on my backlog resolutions list for the Discord server backlog challenge that we're doing this year. So this was one of those. I'm really glad that I played it to do our quick opening thoughts here before we get into the episode. 07:13.26 Dave I think this game is exactly what I thought it would be. It is the promise of a new kind of Wario Land type game. It's also got a bunch of Sonic the Hedgehog in it, ah like I said in the elevator pitch. 07:26.54 Aaron Oh yeah. 07:27.52 Dave like moving at high speed, doing platforming at high speed, stuff like that. I like this game more than any Sonic the Hedgehog game. I think this is way better than any Sonic game has ever been. ah So never get a chance to talk about Sonic on the podcast because I don't and don't cover those games because I don't like them. ah This is what Sonic should be. This game is the promise of a modern, new Wario Land game, plus the promise of what Sonic should be. It's really good. And then add on, like, I love the animation. I love the music in this game. It is just an absolute blast. 08:07.14 Aaron it is yeah that's it's so easy to pick up and play too it's not one of those games where you have to kind of relearn the controls because they're pretty darn like if you've played wario land then you basically have it down the the control scheme is pretty much the same except for like that new um where you can like run up walls and and shit like that but um yeah for the most part it's super easy to pick up and play if you haven't played it for a while And all the fun, cool gimmicks make everything or keep everything so fresh after you've ah after you gone through each level and try to beat your score. Or After you try to go through each level once more and try to beat your times and all that. 08:47.66 Dave Yeah, yeah, for sure. So ah we will listen to a bit of music from Pizza Tower. And then when we come back, we'll kind of set up why you're going to the Pizza Tower. That's all like the story that there really is. But we'll get into talking about the aesthetic things because those stand out right away. 09:08.38 Dave In Pizza Tower, you play as Pepino Spaghetti, who is a pizza chef and pizzeria owner. ah One day Pepino is approached by Pizza Face, which is a giant sentient floating pizza who threatens to destroy his pizzeria with a nuclear laser set atop of the nearby Pizza Tower. So Pepino must climb the tower and defeat Pizza Face to save his ah pizzeria. And that's the story. You go in the Pizza Tower, you work your way up floor by floor, and then at the top you have your showdown with pizza face. 09:45.41 Aaron Simple, easy and quick. 09:47.67 Dave Yep. 09:49.29 Aaron Let's do a clear laser. 09:49.41 Dave um Yeah, exactly. So you know, what kind of, you know, sense of humor and stuff you're dealing with just from that, uh, story set up there. I guess we can talk a little bit about the main character Pippino because, uh, for a game that doesn't have a lot of plot, I think that they do characterize Pippino pretty, uh, pretty well. 10:10.13 Aaron Oh, hell yeah. I wish my last name was Spaghetti. Yeah, just just through the goofy little animations you see of him throughout the game. 10:19.16 Dave Yeah. 10:19.20 Aaron And even would just like the little, um if you want to call them cutscenes, like when you go fight a boss or like enter a door even. Yeah, there's a lot of cool ways to animate him and make him seem like he's a real person you know a lot about. Well, not a real person, but like a character you know a lot about. Jeez. 10:34.37 Dave Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's interesting with the, you know, inspiration from the Wario Land games, Wario is like a super outsized personality too, and Papino is like the complete opposite from Wario. 10:46.30 Aaron Yeah. 10:50.84 Aaron Yeah, Wario is totally selfish, totally full of himself and arrogant and all that stuff. But Pepino, he just, he constantly looks like he's scared out of his mind and he's so just not confident about anything he's doing. Like when you go through a boss door or I guess like any door, he looks over his shoulder real fast. He's like, are you sure you want me to do that? 11:09.74 Dave Yeah, he slinks through the door after that. Yeah, it's really good. I got huge co ah courage, the cowardly dog energy from Papino all the time. 11:18.32 Aaron Oh, that's good. Yeah. 11:20.39 Dave I mean, partly because he screams all the time, like loud courage, the cowardly dog screams and the facial expressions and all of that. So it's a character that's full of personality, but not not exactly likable. I don't know, like not like a hero who's excited about the task. Like he's just freaked out all the time. ah 11:42.99 Aaron That's, yeah, that's a good comparison to courage is a cowardly dog. He's got all the, uh, the cartoonish expressions like courage does. And, uh, he's just, yeah, just constantly looking like he's going to poop his pants at any minute or like, uh, even like a Luigi, like Luigi's mansion kind of thing where he's always like scared, reaching for the door knob. 12:00.93 Dave Yeah. 12:01.64 Aaron Yeah. 12:02.71 Dave There are certain times when you get in like certain animations or like to get up to top speed, not top speed, like the mid speed of your dash. When he looks like he's got his shirt sleeve pulled up and he's like, yeah he's like flexing a little bit. That's about it. The rest of the time he's scared out of his mind. 12:21.87 Aaron Yeah, he really does. I like, uh, uh, when you, when you die, well, I guess you won't get whatever, but he died during a boss fight. He just lays on the ground, like wherever he falls, he just lays there on the ground and his face is just like, I can't, I can't describe the facial expression well enough without using my own face, but yeah, it's so funny. Everything he does is so funny. 12:44.40 Dave Yeah, yeah let's ah let's just get into talking about the way this game looks, because this is this you know swerves right into that lane there. So this game has a, like we said, 90s, cartoony, ah pixel art, almost like MS Paint type ah art style in certain places. 13:03.09 Aaron Oh yeah. 13:03.32 Dave ah The developers say that they were inspired by things like SpongeBob SquarePants. For me personally, I saw a lot of Like I said, courage the cowardly dog from your main character. And then from the way that enemies are drawn, the way that the backgrounds are drawn, I got a lot of like that 90s Nickelodeon kind of gross out feel like the Ren and Stimpy, the Rocco's modern life type stuff. Like enemies could be like a big, like ugly melting blob of cheese, you know, something that like Rocco's dog would eat in that show. 13:39.23 Aaron I could see that then like that that one boss the noise he looked these of course supposed to be the the annoyed from dominoes but like way more grotesque looking and it's so fun 13:46.22 Dave Yeah. 13:49.65 Dave Yeah, grotesque is a good word for a lot of the way that things look in the game. um The way the enemies look when you go into a boss fight, it will change up the graphical style. It'll give you a V one like a portrait. And it'll get way more detailed than the regular sprite for Pepino or the boss. And it will give you like this, like, like I said, like this MS paint picture of them, but they're so detailed and weird and gross. 14:22.09 Aaron Yeah Pepino is just a dude and he's going up against like a yeah a giant gob of cheese like as a sheriff or yeah or the noise or like the first boss was like a I'm 14:29.95 Dave Yeah. 14:34.99 Dave It's like a big tomato or like bell pepper or something like that. 14:39.07 Aaron Yeah, which is a big call back to the first boss of Wario land four, it was an eggplant and the boss battle is like the exact same thing. 14:43.41 Dave Hmm. 14:45.86 Aaron You just hit him, go into the second stage. Oh, I can't hit him in the front anymore. You gotta hit him from the top, but it's just like a really scary again, grotesque tomato. 14:51.06 Dave Right. 14:55.64 Dave Yeah, yeah, for sure. ah Also with Pepino, a special shout out to the way that they animated his face. And so like you'll see it in his character portrait as you're playing like the little sprite of Pepino that you're controlling. But also there's this really weird UI thing that they did. I can't. discern why they did this. But in the top right corner of your screen as you're playing, there is a TV screen that is always showing. It's like a picture in a picture. 15:27.45 Dave And it's just Pepino's face doing all these wild facial animations. So like, you'll be like going through a level and like as your combo builds or something, and you'll just like go through a level and look up in the corner and Pepino's just fucking going wild in there. 15:43.99 Dave His face is so funny. 15:47.26 Aaron But yeah, if you get hit by an enemy, ah his eyes will like bulge out of his head. He'll go like this. He'll do like a T-Rex's hands, his eyes will bulge out of his head and kill his tongue will be like the courage of the cowardly dog thing where it's like a zigzag. 15:56.26 Dave Yeah. 16:00.33 Dave Yeah, it's ah it's wild like the levels themselves all have these like crazy background art going on like surreal fucking like a lot of them. A lot of them are pizza themed, but you'll have the pizza themed like Wild West level or like the pizza themed factory level and all of the enemies are Well, not all of them, but a lot of them are pizza related. All of the things that you're collecting in the levels, like instead of Sonic picking up rings, you're picking up little mushrooms or sausages or things like that. So I like the pizza theme, but it's all weird. 16:39.01 Dave kind of like I said, like the ambient dream. everything Everything is fucking wild. 16:41.50 Aaron yeah 16:43.39 Dave I love the way this game looks. And like, I think I've heard some people say that they are kind of put off by it. I don't. I don't get that. I love this. 16:54.36 Aaron Yeah, I mean, like I guess maybe if you didn't grow up with that type of cartoons or like maybe I guess I can kind of see it, but not at the same time. It's so unique. Like why what's not to like about it it's it? 17:05.20 Dave Yeah. 17:06.93 Aaron It's not even like it's not even like true, you know, 90s grow sound humor or but like that. I and I'd understand. But yeah, it's just so cool and fun to look at. And it's just so expressive. 17:17.99 Dave Yeah. 17:21.07 Dave The way that the sound design works is also kind of like that, like that busy kind of off-putting, like it's a really loud game. There's a lot of stuff and not just like volume, there's just a lot of stuff going on. And that kind of reminds me of those Like the Ren and Stimpy type stuff too. Like there's, you know, some, uh, some sound effects and stuff like in the main menu, the main menu starts off with like that, that song I played when I was doing the Patreon intro in this episode with like that little boo boo, boo boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, that baseline. And then it kicks into like this bigger version of it. But then as soon as you start the game, it gives you like that nineties, like. 18:01.67 Dave donkey sound effect. You know what I mean? like it's It's so off-putting and doesn't fit what was going on in there, but that gives you like the the tone for like the sense of humor and stuff for how everything goes. 18:05.45 Aaron Yeah. 18:18.30 Aaron It's also got an ah ah weird amount of, like Wario's voice and like his kind of expressions too. Like you, you sometimes hear like some wah, I can't, I can't do it well enough, but you hear a lot of wahs or like, Oh yeah, but Wario's voice. 18:36.86 Dave You hear, you hear, yeah, there's, there's vocals like that in like the songs, like a song will kick in and there'll be just a dude that comes out like, let's get it. 18:37.62 Aaron Yeah. 18:46.59 Dave And then like the song goes out or continues or something like that. Um, the, uh, sound effects for Pippino when you get hit, he does like that. again like that courage the cowardly dog like yell when he gets hit it's really loud it's really uh it's really off-putting um when you do the dash uh because this is a you know wario land type game so your main thing that you do is you press the right trigger to dash and when you get up to speed it will play a guitar chord 19:00.18 Aaron Yeah. 19:15.32 Dave And you're always dashing, so you hear that guitar chord over and over and over again. 19:15.71 Aaron Oh yeah. 19:19.55 Dave So it builds up like this really busy soundscape, we'll say. And that's not even talking about the music, just sound effects. 19:29.12 Aaron Oh, and there's also, uh, those boxes full of pizza you can like jump into or jump up into to go to like a little bonus area. 19:37.40 Dave Yeah, yeah. 19:38.51 Aaron And it makes an undulating sound. If that, that's the way it's like, it's like, you I don't know if that's the right word to explain. 19:41.63 Dave Yeah. 19:44.42 Dave Yep. 19:46.30 Aaron Yeah, I don't know. 19:47.87 Dave Like you just got sucked into an ah but a cardboard box full of melted cheese. Yeah. 19:52.99 Aaron yeah 19:56.19 Dave ah The music I think is also ah really, really good. Really entertaining. There are a ton of different styles to it, but the level music is usually upbeat. It's usually really fun. um I think the soundtrack is really fun. 20:08.58 Aaron yeah it's yeah it's so good there's um there's a lot of bits or not a lot of bits a lot of songs that have How the fuck do I explain? I can't explain any better than like some of them have this real like 90s Sega Genesis grime to them. Like um there there was one song. I totally forgot the name. It has the word dungeon in it. It's like. Yeah, dungeon something I forget, but um it's got this rule like Sega Genesis sounding bass like really like pixelated distorted bass. 20:44.87 Aaron It's good, though. I love it. 20:46.63 Dave Yeah, that song is called Dungeon Freak Show. 20:47.20 Aaron Soundtrack is so good. Yes, that's what it is. 20:52.06 Dave Yeah, the ah soundtrack, by the way, is credited to Mr. Sauceman. Classkey, Jitto and Post Elvis. And all the developers are using pseudonyms here. ah So yeah, shout out to Mr. Sauceman and Classkey, Jitto and Post Elvis. The soundtrack is great. So each level will have a song. And then if you find the bonus area in that level, it will have like ah a breezy relaxed version of that melody and that song, which is really cool. um And then like a lot of the songs are just, they're so cool. 21:28.91 Dave They're so fun to listen to. like They're super upbeat. I listened to it when I mowed the lawn earlier tonight. um it's a good time. 21:34.07 Aaron Fuck yeah. 21:39.50 Dave Couple quick shout outs, because I'm a bass guitar player, so I love when I hear very prominent bass guitar in ah in music. 21:43.50 Aaron Oh, okay. 21:49.00 Dave ah This one has like either like slap bass, which stands out, or if it's not slap and pop, it's otherwise really clangy, like ah like the bass for corn or something like that. 22:02.18 Aaron Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. 22:02.88 Dave like Yeah, ah but it stands out. It's really good, like driving the rhythm of the song. And then guy when talking about the music of Pizza Tower, we cannot miss the song called It's Pizza Time. 22:19.00 Aaron Yes! Oh my god, man. 22:24.89 Aaron So I guess, yeah, when you're at the end of the level and you're doing all that, but basically what I'm trying to get at is it totally blows away the song in Wario Land 4 that would play when you're going through the same kind of like level segment. 22:35.19 Dave Oh, yeah. 22:37.38 Aaron Blows that one out of the way. Dude, it's so, so epic. There's a lot going on, yeah. 22:42.87 Dave Yeah, it's wild. So when you get to the end of the level in Pizza Tower, just like in Wario Land 4, you have to grab the thing. In Wario Land 4, you grab the key. In this game, you knock a stone man out of the way or something. 22:54.11 Aaron Yep. 22:59.54 Dave And then you have to go back through the level and get back to the entrance before the time runs out. In Wario Land 4, that song was really, really weird and off-putting, like you know in a good way. it's ah It's a good song. I like it. 23:13.15 Aaron Yeah. 23:13.25 Dave But it's very disorienting and strange. In Pizza Tower, it is like this blasting, driving melody at the beginning. And then it slowly warps into this weird thing as it goes, as the timer gets lower and lower. and it's 23:29.60 Aaron And it's got that lady going, hello there, or whatever she's saying. 23:33.84 Dave yeah 23:34.71 Aaron Oh, shout out to ah Song Tropical Crust. Whoever the person is that goes, ah call me Mr. DJ. 23:42.81 Dave Yeah, that's another thing about the ah about the soundtrack too is so it's not just like the melodies and the instruments. 23:42.88 Aaron I think that's cool. I like that song. 23:51.13 Dave You have like your regular instrumentation, whatever the core group of instruments are in that song. And then there's always other stuff layered into it. So you might have other instruments that are just doing like a real small part in the mix. You might have vocal samples like you just talked about or ah in pizza time when it's like ramping up at the very beginning and before the melody blasts in, there's a guy that just yells like, time to get funky. And then it takes off, it's great. ah So it's visually loud. The sound design is busy and 24:29.21 Dave The music itself is also busy. Like it's a very busy game, but I don't know. 24:33.25 Aaron Yeah. 24:35.77 Dave I'm here for it. I love all of this. 24:37.97 Aaron Yeah, I haven't found a single track that I dislike, man. It's so good. I've listened to It's Pizza Time but more times, more times than I have like fingers or toes or like any other parts of my body. Dude, it's so good. Wish you the part where those bells kick in where it's like ding, dong, ding, ding, dong, ding. 24:53.05 Dave Yeah. 24:53.88 Aaron Dude. Oh my fucking God. Instant, instant goosebumps. So good. 24:57.44 Dave Yeah, it is fantastic. It's my favorite song on the soundtrack, but like, there are a lot that are really good. Like earlier today, I was sharing the level music and the discord server from the oregano desert. And it's just like this awesome melody, uh, that just keeps going driven by that bass guitar. So the soundtrack is great. Shout out to Mr. Sauce, man and company. They did good. 25:24.12 Aaron And again, another shout out to whoever does the, uh, the whole beginning like vocal bit to, uh, tropical crust where they're like, that part's cool too. I think I should shout out that. 25:34.68 Dave Yeah, yeah. It's a great soundtrack, and it's a soundtrack that like, even if you're not gonna play Pizza Tower, like, go listen to it on YouTube, go fucking buy it on Bandcamp or something, like, it's it's a great soundtrack. 25:49.06 Aaron On iTunes, go buy it on iTunes, boot up your iPod. 25:50.93 Dave Yeah. 25:54.20 Dave That's right, throw it on that iPod classic for your, I don't know, for your commute. 25:59.43 Aaron Bust out that Zune, baby. 26:01.15 Dave Oh yeah, Zune Supremacy. 26:07.18 Dave So let's talk about what it's like to play ah Pizza Tower, I almost said Wario Land. 26:11.82 Dave Let's talk about what it's like to play Pizza Tower. So it is a platforming game, side on view, just like regular platformers like that. ah You go through the levels, you collect little mushrooms and pepperonis and cheese cubes, and there's a bunch of treasure to find, there's lots of secrets. I think 26:29.21 Aaron Oh yeah. 26:30.16 Dave If you're familiar with Wario Land, you're familiar with a lot of what this game is doing from a gameplay perspective, but one thing that stands out from Wario Land is they've just added in a lot of extra things that you can do as Pepino. So you start out, you have your shoulder bash like Wario. You can jump, you can jump up in the air, you can dive, you can crawl. ah If you're going down a slope, you can roll into a ball and smash blocks. All that stuff was in Wario Land. The thing that's in 27:04.87 Dave The thing that kind of sets this apart is when you're at full speed, your moveset changes and you can chain anything into anything else. So it's, I think you said this at the beginning, it's really easy to like get a hang of all the different things you can do but it takes a little bit to get used to chaining all of these together and like using the right thing in the right situation while you're going at high speed like wall jumping 27:36.70 Aaron Oh, yeah. 27:37.18 Dave ah you know, while running, jumping off, you can do like a ground pound, you can charge up and jump super high up into the air, all different combinations of these things. So like, once you get the hang of these, and if you can mix in doing it at high speed, like you can get into an insane, like level of skill with this game. 28:00.92 Aaron They totally can, man. And just like you said, if you played Wario Land, you kind of have like half the gameplay down because I'm fairly certain like the entire moveset from Wario Land 4 is like right there. And then, of course, they add a whole bunch on top of it. Like they did an awesome job of not only using what was already a super solid just gameplay loop entirely, but just building so much more on top of that. Like you said, with the dashing, you can run up walls and stuff. 28:34.13 Aaron um The cool, almost like wrestling moves you can do when you dash into an enemy and he grabs them and you can do like a cool and downward spiral slam. I don't know what the word would be for that. 28:43.57 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 28:44.73 Aaron Or you can just throw them at other enemies. That's really cool. 28:48.31 Dave Yep. 28:49.50 Aaron Oh, there's one thing I was going to say earlier, too. or you and um ah Oh my god. I just had it in my brain. um Yeah, I just really like that it borrows a lot from that game, but it's so entirely it's its own thing and that's great. Hopefully I remember what the fuck I was gonna say. 29:10.21 Dave Yeah. 29:12.85 Aaron oh 29:14.14 Dave What's cool about this too is like so you get a combo meter that's building up, you're getting scored for you know building up your combo, of course, collecting collectibles, fighting enemies. It doesn't reset when you get hit. It resets if you don't like to do something for a long enough period of time. 29:29.96 Aaron oh 29:35.37 Dave So you're building up this combo, you're trying to get better scores. You get a rank at the end of each level. so If you are incentivized by trying to get better at the levels, you can go back and replay them now that you're more familiar with them and try to get a better rank. 29:54.13 Aaron and I just remembered all ah what I was going to say too. 29:56.32 Dave Yeah. 29:56.33 Aaron um So in Wario Land 4, Wario has a health bar. So of course, if you get hit, you take damage. And if you lose all your HP, you get booted out of the level and that sucks. 30:04.76 Dave Yeah, yeah. 30:08.95 Aaron You have to start it all over. But um Pizza, I almost said Pizza Land, Pizza Tower doesn't have a health bar. when you get hit, it just messes up your score or ranking or whatever at the end. 30:20.21 Dave Yeah, you lose some points, that's all. 30:22.02 Aaron Yeah, and it's so it gives you way more freedom to explore and find secrets and just ah try to collect as much as you possibly can in that one run of the level. um that's That was a really, really cool, huge improvement because that got real annoying real quick in Mario Land. 30:38.12 Dave Yeah, so this is kind of what I mean. I'm glad you brought this up. This is what I meant earlier when I said that Pizza Tower is what I always wanted Sonic the Hedgehog to be, which is a game that lets you go super fast because you this game gets to like crazy speeds if you can if you can maintain it. 30:47.63 Aaron Yeah. 30:57.52 Dave But you don't get punished for doing that. So like in Sonic the Hedgehog, you find a place where you can like build up speed and go on the loop-de-loops, and then you fly off, you hit some spikes, you lose all your coins, and then like, oh shit, I have to play precision platformer Sonic for a while so that I don't die the next time I get hit. Personally, I think that that sucks. In Pizza Tower, 31:18.70 Aaron the um 31:20.30 Dave There is none of that. You might get into full speed and crash into an enemy. You just lose some of your points. 31:25.62 Aaron Yeah. 31:26.14 Dave You might fuck up your combo. The difficulty comes in like, what do you want from Pizza Tower? Do you want to just finish the levels and see everything? Or do you want to try to get S ranks or even the elusive Pranks on the on the levels? 31:41.48 Aaron P rank. 31:43.19 Dave Yeah, there's a P rank. 31:43.36 Aaron I had no idea about that. That's cool. 31:46.56 Dave It's really hard to get. You have to like to find all the secrets. You have to like obviously not fuck up your combos too badly. And then ah we talked about earlier, when you get to the end of the level, you get to the big ah stone guy, you knock him out of the way, and then the countdown starts. 32:01.73 Aaron Yeah. 32:03.38 Dave And it's pizza time starts blasting. And you have three minutes to get back to the beginning of the level. If you get back to the beginning, you can go in this, like it's called a lap two portal. And then that will put you back at the end of the level. You have to go through it one more time. And if you're able to do that, you get a bunch more points. So if you want to build up that challenge for yourself and try and get those high ranks, ah build up mastery over the level and your move set for how to get through it quickly, you can do that. 32:33.44 Aaron That's, that's rad. 32:34.62 Dave But you don't have to, you can just play through it, get through the levels, have fun with all like the gimmicky abilities and stuff, and then, you know, see all the fucked up little enemies they made and all that stuff. You can create your own challenge, which is great. 32:49.27 Aaron That is really cool. Yeah. It's definitely a speed runner's wedge dream for sure. Or ambient dream. 32:53.37 Dave Oh my God, yeah. 32:54.10 Aaron Sorry. Ambien dream. um Yeah. 32:56.18 Dave And Wet Dream, Ambien Wet Dream, that's, that's a, whoo, that'd be an experience. 33:00.76 Aaron Man, I would never, I'd never want to wake up from that. 33:04.57 Dave You probably wouldn't. So ah did you ever like replay levels to try and get better scores in them? 33:05.84 Aaron No. 33:12.79 Aaron Yeah, what was it? There was one level. It had that like those little parts where you would fly the rocket ship into places to break rocks, but they also. 33:20.94 Dave Yeah, yeah. Fly the rocket ship to break the giant cheese asteroids. 33:25.91 Aaron Yeah, and then every time you got the rock, every time you got to the rocket ship to go to the next area, it would have that little or that like little card of Pepino in the rocket ship. He's going like, ah! 33:37.28 Dave Yeah. 33:38.46 Aaron But um there was this part where you're going you can fall through these little like teleporter things that will go from like one place to the next. And there was a bunch of shit I missed there because I kept just flying through it and missing things. And yeah, that was not the mini golf level though. I hate the mini golf level that can stay the hell away. 33:56.82 Dave I thought the mini golf level was fun, but speaking of ah that, you just reminded me, another one of those little cards, like when you get in the rocket ship, there's a level where you can take taxis from ah like checkpoint to checkpoint. And the end, like Pepino's like huddled in the back of the cab, like so scared of what's going on. And then one of them, it's like a hidden cop car. So he gets in and there's like a police officer looking back and he's just like screaming in the back of the cab. And it's great, it's so funny. 34:26.62 Aaron He really is just this cool mix of basically just courage the cowardly dog if he had Wario's proportions. 34:34.78 Dave Yeah. so 34:35.46 Aaron It's perfect. He's even in that rocket ship thing too. His face is just like his mouth is open. Totally wide. 34:42.35 Dave Yeah. 34:43.34 Aaron Courage the cowardly dog, yeah. 34:44.53 Dave I think that, I think that's it. That is the characterization of Pippino. He has Wario's like physical abilities with the personality of Courage, the cowardly dog. 34:54.22 Aaron The things I do for love. 34:57.98 Aaron That's the title of the episode. 35:00.09 Dave There we go. 35:00.19 Aaron Just kidding. 35:01.28 Dave ah Speaking of another thing that was taken from the Wario Land series, every level will have a special ability that will transform and power up Pepino in some way. ah So these are like, you know, remember in Wario Land, you have like the zombie power up or like you turn into a bat, stuff like that. 35:17.51 Aaron Yep. 35:20.26 Dave ah In this game, I guess the analogous thing would be instead of turning into a bat, Pepino turns into a cardboard pizza box that can flap around through the air and ah the animations on all of these things are so good. um And these are used for puzzles and a lot of times for getting through special barriers and they will permanently transform Pepino until you find a priest to change you back to normal. 35:47.57 Aaron my favorite ones are the ones where he's though the one where he's rolling in the barrel and like if you hit anything of course it breaks and then the one where he's trapped inside of a bubble and he just floats up those are so fucking stupid oh yeah yeah 35:52.99 Dave Mm-hmm. 35:58.51 Dave Yeah. Those are good. There's a, there's one that I really love where you ride on a, uh, like a cocktail weenie, like a horse, and it has like this, it has like this doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, like galloping sound effect. That's really loud and goofy. I love it. Uh, there's one that, uh, a, like, there's like a cowboy character that throws a spicy pepper that makes you breathe fire. 36:17.48 Aaron sweet so good 36:24.50 Dave Uh, and you just, just keep breathing fire until you find a priest to, uh, to heal you out of that. But. ah Like the levels are partly built around your platforming toolset. And then there will always be sections where it's built around these unique abilities and they're never repeated. So like, you know, you might like or not like one of them, I guess, but it's going to be gone as soon as this level's over. And like, some of them are just so goofy and fun. 36:55.47 Aaron Oh yeah, there's also that one where you can get like a chicken on your head, whose name is Mort, and that's also a shout out to the PS1 game, Mort the Chicken. 37:01.71 Dave Yeah. know 37:05.73 Dave Nice. 37:06.18 Aaron youre for For the two people that give a goddamn, it's Mort the Chicken. 37:09.49 Dave I'm sure someone out there listening to Tales from the Backlog knows about Morth the Chicken. I don't, but I'm sure someone out there does. um There's also ah themes to each level. Like we said, like they all have like their you know desert theme or ah you know factory theme or whatever, but they all have like a platforming and hazard type of gimmick to them. Like there's levels with ghost pursuer enemies on each screen. um There is a level where ah there are basketball hoops and you need to bash this unfortunate character into the basketball hoops to unlock doors. ah There's the mini golf level, which we already established as your favorite. 37:51.24 Aaron Yep. I love it. 37:53.67 Dave Yeah, there's just a lot of like goofy fun and creative ideas going into these levels on top of all the creativity and like free forming platforming that you can do. So like, it's cohesive as a whole gameplay experience, but no level feels the same to play, I think. 38:18.83 Aaron ah Yeah, and the same goes for the bosses as well too, because they all kind of have their own ways to fight them. 38:22.62 Dave Yeah, yeah. 38:24.75 Aaron like ah Like I said before, the apple or pepper or tomato or whatever, it's literally this the eggplant guy from Mario Land 4, you know him, you love him. ah Then there's like the outlaw, it plays basically like a Mega Man boss. It's just like a run and gun little shooter. 38:40.08 Dave Yeah, you have a gun on that level. 38:41.86 Aaron Yeah. 38:42.48 Dave Yeah. 38:43.02 Aaron you gave him a gun and then uh the noise is that one's really fun too you just wait for him like he's he's annoyed so he's hyper as shit and he's just bouncing around the goddamn screen all the time wait for him to just get tired and then you bash him and that was cool too yeah they're all 38:44.32 Dave Yeah. 38:56.90 Dave Yep. 38:59.12 Aaron None of them feel the same. They all play really well and they're not as goddamn gimmicky and annoying as Wario Land 4, which I mean, I love that game so much, but the bosses can just eat ah eat a bag of butts. 39:13.10 Dave I don't particularly love the bosses in that game either. um In Pizza Tower, I think that they're pretty good. There's not that many of them. I think there's five, including the final boss. 39:24.21 Aaron Yeah. 39:24.39 Dave And there's a boss rush, like a Mega Man boss rush within the final boss fight. So yeah, other than that, um most of the time has been flat platforming. but I thought the bosses were pretty fun. The way that they work is ah they all have move sets and then you have to avoid their moves until they become vulnerable. When they flash white, you run over and go bash them. um There's always a really fun animation, like a slow down and like haymaker punch that Pepino throws for like the final blow, which is great. 39:54.41 Aaron Oh, yeah. 39:58.63 Dave And then um 40:01.52 Dave Each boss will have like two phases. Usually in the first phase, you fight them normally. And then the second phase is basically you redo phase one, but it's like dark outside or there's some other gimmick that's making it a little bit tougher. 40:13.52 Aaron Yeah. 40:14.92 Dave ah But I thought I thought these were mostly fair and fun, ah good times. 40:19.40 Aaron Yeah, yeah once you learn their ah once you learn their patterns and all that, easy as pie. 40:25.23 Dave Yeah, the only time that I found the control scheme to be frustrating was during boss fights because you still have the same free-flowing control scheme. So like if you're trying to jump and kind of maneuver in mid-air and you press down on the control stick, you'll do a ground pound right into the thing that you were trying to avoid. ah So like the thing the things that might have helped you out when you're platforming don't translate perfectly into boss fights, but like, I didn't think that any of these were so difficult that I would have like, you know, a really hard time or like die because of that thing I just described. It's like literally the only, the only time I ever felt like, Hey, what was that? That, that sucked in like the whole game. 41:18.49 Aaron Yeah, that's now that I think about it too, there was another point where I think it was just the controller I was using, my control stick got stuck up, maybe, I maybe i don't know, but um there's a move that you can do if you do like up and jump at the same time, or Pepino will do like this uppercut, you can kind of get that into a double jump almost, but um Sometimes I habitually do up and jump at the same time. I'm just so used to doing that like any other game. If you're fighting a boss, don't do that because then you won't be able to jump over the boss or whatever you're doing. 41:51.25 Aaron Pepino will literally just go up instead of jumping like in an arc. 41:56.02 Dave Yeah. 41:56.64 Aaron Don't do that. 41:58.83 Dave Come to think of it, there was one other like level gimmick that I thought ah kind of sucked, and it was the one with the bombs and the timers. You may not have gotten to this part, but ah there's a part later where there are these bombs, and you have to rush to the detonator before the timer runs out. And the timer's pretty... ah Tight so if you don't know exactly how to most efficiently get through these like series of screens to get to the detonator you die instantly and you have to restart the level ah so i had to like restart that level like a bunch of times. 42:30.17 Aaron Oh, man. 42:34.74 Dave Basically, most times that I like to hit a detonator and then get to a new one, I didn't know how to get there in time yet. And you die, you have to restart, figure it out, and then repeat. Other than that, I thought like most of the level gimmicks, the special abilities, the bosses, ah they did a great job of mixing things up and you know still being a really good time. 42:56.64 Aaron Yeah, and the the main reason I hate the mini golf level so much, it was ah for the most part, it's pretty cool. ah But then there's parts where you get to like the edge of a level or something. And I forget if it's like, there's There's I think like an eyeball or something that will like suck the ball over to you No, cuz you're not back in a ball. You're swacking like a little guy um Yeah, there's there'll be these parts that'll suck up the guy and kind of hold him right there So you can go over to him knock him down hit him with your golf club But like there was one or two particular points in the level where you know You gotta you gotta eat the guy over a wall to get him into the next area, but that fucking 43:22.42 Dave Yeah, it's a little guy. 43:28.03 Dave Yeah. 43:41.09 Aaron um the mouth or whatever, we just keep sucking them right back in every time I try to hit him over the wall. So you have to hit him at a very specific angle. And I must have spent like 10 minutes on both of those points where I got stuck and I fuck that just pissed me off so much. 43:55.95 Dave Mm hmm. 44:00.54 Dave that does sound That does sound frustrating, but in the ah in the grand scheme of things, I think that like this is probably like the most like pure fun game that I've played in like ah a long time. it's just ah It is just a delight to play. 44:13.42 Aaron Yep. 44:17.03 Dave like Every time I finish playing, I'm in a good mood. I've got this music stuck in my head now from the levels I just played. like it's ah It's a blast. 44:27.00 Aaron Especially when you get to like the, at the end of the level, it gets cuts to that real meaty riff. It's like, jeette and then you see Papino going like, like his arm is like 30. 44:33.74 Dave Yeah. Yeah. Like a big thumbs up. Yeah. 44:38.25 Aaron Yeah. It's like 30 feet tall. It's So fun. Oh yeah. 44:42.40 Dave Yeah. Goofy. Good time. Yeah. So ah before we get into, ah you know, doing our housekeeping and stuff at the end here, um do our customary like recommendations and things like that. I think it's pretty clear that both of us really like this game. um And if you look on Steam, like overwhelmingly positive reviews, I wish that this game would get put on other ah systems so that more people can play it. 45:04.04 Aaron Yeah. 45:09.41 Dave But for now, it's just on PC as far as I know. But with all that being said, who What type of person do you think you would recommend playing Pizza Tower? 45:20.14 Aaron Probably anybody that enjoys 2D platformers, to be honest, like even if you haven't played Wario Land 4, or any Wario Land for that matter, it still plays like your typical platformer. Just get to the end of the level, ah do the thing, like the tutorial level spells it out perfectly for you too. And not even that, like when you when you ah when you knock the stone guy out of the way, it has all those arrows telling you like where to go and... 45:43.91 Dave Oh yeah. 45:44.94 Aaron um Yeah, they're like... 45:45.03 Dave this All those, all those dudes like pop out of the background and they're like, they're like race, they're like race cars, uh, people on race tracks, waving you in the right direction. and Like those really exaggerated waves are like, uh, the, the people at airports that are like helping the planes go in the right direction and stuff. 46:02.55 Aaron Oh yeah, they've got those like light cone things. 46:04.61 Dave Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those guys are goofy. I love them. 46:07.80 Aaron Yeah, but even if you haven't played Wario Land, any game at all in the series, I think if you do like 2D platformers, you'll like this, especially if you love fast, or not fast, if you love speed, like, a like, hey, shout out to friend of the show, Thrak. 46:24.24 Dave Yeah. 46:24.47 Aaron I know he loves Sonic, so I bet he'd get a real kick out of this. 46:28.49 Dave Yeah, I. yeah 46:31.93 Dave Well, let me qualify this by saying that I do not know what makes Sonic fans tick. I don't understand. But I think that if you like Sonic, if you like, you know, going fast, then Pizza Tower is for you. If you are one of the many people who love the Wario Land games and are wishing for a new one, play Pizza Tower. This is what you are looking for. It's really good. And then kind of like you said, like even if you don't have that, that nostalgia or that love for other series. I think this is just a really, really good, ah tightly controlling, really responsive platformer ah that allows for a lot more creativity 47:13.51 Dave than the average 2D platformer. like It's almost like you know the level of creativity that like Super Mario Odyssey gives you or like a 3D platformer, but it's 2D and you have all of these different ways of moving around and interacting. 47:23.54 Aaron Yeah. 47:29.76 Dave Then you have these goofy power-ups and this awesome music. like this is ah This is an absolute home run. I should have played it. before I should have played it sooner, but I'm really glad that I did because I can see myself just like the levels are not that long. So it's like, if I have like 20 minutes to play, like I'll boot up Pizza Tower, play a level, try and beat a score. It's just a great time. So it's a very easy recommendation to basically anyone who likes platformers, but especially those Wario land and Sonic fans. 48:04.27 Aaron Yeah, because Lord knows we'll never get another Wario Land, Nintendo. 48:07.21 Dave Yeah. 48:08.48 Aaron um It's also got that cool new game plus where you unlock the next character as well, which I think was recently added or something or maybe it's been there for a while. 48:13.89 Dave Yeah. Yeah. It was an update recently. Yeah. 48:19.48 Aaron Okay, yeah, and that's 48:20.25 Dave And the new character plays like the basic controls and ways of interacting with the levels are the same, but it feels different to control the new character. So ah more ah more stuff to check out. And yeah, so. 48:37.45 Aaron It's basically the next Shovel Knight. It's the ah Shovel Knight of this decade, I'd say. because like Shovel Knight came out 2010, 2011? 48:43.18 Dave Could be. 14. 48:47.61 Aaron 2014, really? 48:48.98 Dave Yep. Cause it's been 10 years since we're recording this. 48:49.40 Aaron Oh shit, nevermind. 48:51.44 Dave Yeah. That's the only reason I know it. Uh, cause I just did a podcast where we celebrated 10 years. Shout out to retro hangover. Um, so yeah, I was just laughing in my head. If the Sonic fans didn't already turn off this episode for me talking shit, uh, Check out Pizza Tower. It's really good. So ah before we wrap up here, Aaron, I want to give you a chance to to talk about the super pod saga and the ah the network, the super pod network that you know are now running over there. 49:10.86 Aaron Yeah. 49:22.20 Dave So tell everyone about the show and about the network at large. 49:26.58 Aaron Yeah, so for Stop Super Pod Saga, it's a different video game topic each week with different guests. It's very free form, casual. ah The most I'll note down is like, the we do fake ads and like fake sponsors in the middle of the episode. 49:38.75 Dave Thank 49:42.95 Aaron The most I'll do is I'll just write down like one or two words, like concrete or shoes. And then like in the middle of the episode, I'll just be like, okay, so you like shoes, whatever. And yes, just very funny. We like to goof around and just talk about the games we like and why we like them. 49:56.83 Dave you. 49:59.62 Aaron And then the network is basically just like this one home this one central place for all sorts of really cool indie podcasters like we've got gaming together is on there of course the. um Of course, Super Pod Saga, the show I do with Jerry from Super Gross Radio, which is also on there. We do Retro Rehab. There's a bunch of cool podcasts on there. And we basically just want to help draw more attention to this website to, I guess, what am I trying to say? 50:32.97 Aaron But getting more attention to the website will get more attention to all these other awesome shows on there. And we also do a lot of blogs. um Yeah, it's just a fun way to collaborate on new things and bring all of our shows to the public eye and have fun doing what we do. 50:48.58 Dave Yeah. I, ah so like looking through all the podcasts on the super pod network website, you're basically just running through like a Rolodex of people that have guessed it on tales from the backlog at this point. So like it's so, except for Tommy. 51:00.65 Aaron Except for Tommy. 51:02.65 Dave Yeah. Uh, who may or may not be real. We're not sure yet. Um, We have like on the Superpod network, we have so many people who have been guests on Tales from the Backlog before. So like lots of people who are doing good stuff out there. ah So really recommend going and checking them out. And of course checking out Superpod Saga, which is ah fun, like lighthearted, good time with good discussions inside of that. But it's a very positive show, like We'll listen to super pod saga to have a few laughs. 51:35.63 Dave Uh, listen to a good conversation. I've been on the show a couple times. If people want to go check those out, we talked about roguelikes. Uh, we talked about the Sony PlayStation one through five, which was a good time. 51:48.86 Aaron Yeah. 51:50.53 Dave Uh, it's always good, ah a good conversation and a good vibe over there on the show. So I really do recommend that people check it out. 51:58.37 Aaron Hell yeah. I also recently started doing a bunch of a tier lists of different dumb things. Like we've done, I forget what the first one was. Oh, root beer. And then it slowly evolved into breakfast cereals. We've got a pizza topping one coming out, which I guess is hopefully coming out by the time this episode comes out. Cause that'd be cool. Pizza toppings and Pizza Tower. 52:22.13 Dave Nice. 52:23.14 Aaron Yeah. 52:23.48 Dave That is, Oh yeah. Synergy. Yeah. Uh, we'll have to get you on ah my other show top three sometime. Cause you're, you're veering into list adjacent stuff. So it's time to make that happen. I think. So, uh, yeah, I really recommend everyone go check it out. I'll put a link down in the show notes so people can easily find the website, find all those podcasts, uh, blog tier lists, all kinds of cool stuff like that. 52:48.46 Aaron If you do visit the website, please for the love of God, make a discussion account and leave comments on the website with me. I've told millions of people, dude, make a free discussion account. Leave comments on the site. Cause like the only comments you ever see are from me. So I look like a psychopath talking to myself. 53:08.50 Aaron Oh, but no. Yeah. Yeah. Come check it out. Read some stuff. You don't have to leave a comment. I'm just being stupid. 53:13.61 Dave Now we can hear my dog in the background is trying right now. He doesn't understand email addresses. He's trying to leave a comment right now. 53:21.51 Aaron Yeah, how do you spell discuss? Oh, it's got a Q in it. 53:23.28 Dave Yeah. 53:25.26 Aaron Whoops. 53:26.74 Dave So again, recommend that everybody yeah go check that out. Aaron's a good dude, always having good ah fun times over there on super pod saga. So again, down in the show notes, you'll find a link. So for this podcast, as we wrap up, we would love to have more people join the Discord server. Keep joining our community of really fine people. My dog is not always barking at the Discord server. You can see pictures of my dog. He's very cute, ah but no audio most of the time. So ah there's the Discord server. You can also leave a rating and review. If you've enjoyed this episode, ah please forgive what I said about Sonic. Leave a rating and review. 54:08.66 Dave ah that helps people find this episode if they're searching for podcasts about Pizza Tower or about the other games I cover on the show. That's what we want. 54:16.43 Aaron but not Sonic. 54:20.04 Dave ah You can listen to my other podcast, which I mentioned before. It's called a top three podcast. We do the top three lists there. We do draft episodes of topics. That one is a comedy show. It's a good time. And then also, last but not least, if you want to support monetarily, You can do that at patreon dot.com slash real Dave Jackson for a minimum of $2 per month. You will get a bunch of bonus stuff. You'll be able to vote in what games I do on the show. You can also join for free and you can listen to the show a few days early if you are so inclined. So that is all we're not doing a spoiler section. So I don't know how to end the show. We're not. 55:01.78 Dave Doing spoilers, we're just going to listen to some music and then we will fade into the night. So Aaron, thanks for coming on again, man. This has been an awesome time. 55:08.94 Aaron Yeah, it has been awesome. We'll have to want you and Kia again for another super pod saga. Maybe we'll maybe redo some old topics. I don't know. We'll see. 55:18.91 Dave Yeah, it'd be a good time. I would love to come back. It's always a good time chatting with you. So ah thank you everybody for listening. I appreciate you all very much. Please go play Pizza Tower. And with that being said, tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.