As a Nightmare Fuel page, all spoilers are unmarked as per wiki policy. You Have Been Warned!
Pizza Tower is a wacky game based on 90s cartoons, so it's bound to be funny. But in the same ways that those cartoons could also be deranged and terrifying, this game is no different.
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General
- Letting Peppino get hurt a multiple of ten times will briefly award the player with some very creepy imagery on the upper corner TV monitor that displays Peppino's mental state
. Noteworthy examples include a munching, toothy mouth with eyes in the upper gums, Gustavo's head as part of some robotic abominationnote and Peppino's face distorting into a horrifying Ghostly Gape. Don't you dare play this game late at night, especially if you suck.- The Noise has his own unsettling TV Images when you get hurt 10 times as him, including a void with 5 eyeballs inside, The Noise getting his head shot off while trying to go out for a walk, a broken, bleeding Noisey, and The Noise rapidly glancing towards and away from the player on a black background, looking like he's struggling not to snap all the while.
Pizza Granny: If you hurt Peppino too much, you can go to hell! - Peppino's rank screens aren't immune to the occasional fright; his D-rank screen has some unnerving in-between frames if you have a quick eye, and even scoring the elusive P-rank on a level will cause Peppino to briefly give the player an evil look before returning to the background and posing.
- The Noise's D-Rank screen, pictured above, shows him turning his face into complete Nightmare Fuel by staring you down with big, red eyes, a giant gaping maw filled with Scary Teeth and a speech bubble filled with Angrish scribbles.
- If you stay idle on the title screen without making any input and keep Peppino shrouded in darkness for 40 seconds, an Easter Egg will trigger where Peppino will leap out at the screen screaming with a huge, gaping mouth and close the game.
Levels
- The background for "John Gutter". There's crumbling John blocks everywhere including skull-like faces.
- Most of the boss doors feature the detailed face of said boss ominously staring at the player. Pepperman and The Noise have the smiles of a Serial Killer while the Vigilante scowls like he's ready to pull the trigger. The Doise, in addition, looks downright insane, with his head on the boss gate melting off. Fake Peppino has an angry look with blank eyes...
- The Pig City is one of the few levels that retains drastic Pizza Time background changes in the final game. Upon Gustavo and Brick knocking down John, the old lady in front of it stares behind her with a shocked face, and for good reason. The city ends up going up in flames, with the civilians in the background panicking for their lives.
- There's a hidden room in The Pig City that's entirely made of bacon with Bacon pick-ups and instead of being a whimsical bonus, the music is creepy and unsettling, and it's all dark. Then it hits you that this is in a city of sentient pigs.
- Also the background of this room is pitch black, with only the faint face of a giant, realistic-looking pig—much, MUCH larger than all the pigs you've seen so far in the level, taking up nearly half the screen—constantly right behind Peppino. If you're brave enough to stick around, it'll eventually smile and flash a thumbs-up before disappearing.
- Fake Peppino has an uncanny feel to him, with one of his eyes sometimes hanging from his socket and giving an awkward un-smile. His moveset, as shown in his boss fight, is pretty much Peppino's moves but… wrong. This thing twists and contorts in some freakish ways while attacking. The music doesn't help much as it starts out sounding like an off-putting remix of "Pizza Time!". The arena looks like a rundown version of Peppino's restaurant but get to phase 2 and the facade starts to slip. The Peppino picture on the wall and window gain the same uncanny look, the sign on the window just says "Peppino" over and over, and there are twitching body parts in the background now. Phase 3? The floor breaks up and the player has to run down a long tunnel while escaping from Fake Peppino who’s now a giant crawling head with their mouth gaping open.
- The theme that plays during Phase 3, "Okay Campers, Rise and Shine!", despite the name, is tense and fast-paced as you'd expect, but you can also occasionally hear what seems to be a deep and menacing voice throughout the music. Listen closely, and you can make out "PEPPINO, COME OVER HERE NOW!".
- You'll notice that attacking Fake Peppino when he is down to his last hit point in his first and second phase never triggers a phase transition cutscene like with the other bosses. After you endure a barrage of clones, Fake Peppino reappears and then phase 2 starts. Phase 3 is simply preceded by the floor breaking underneath you the instant you take off the last hit point of Fake Peppino's second phase, taking you into the dark tunnel below. It's telling that you win by running from his invulnerable final form, where he can take two hit points off if he touches you, at a point where you are likely low on health by then.
- His portrait is an exact mirror of Peppino's the first time you fight him, just to make sure you get the full shock when you face that instead. In later battles, you get his portrait proper, as it would look without the game's cartoony artstyle... The game swings for the Uncanny Valley as hard as it can for this one◊.
- Though, if you fight him as the Noise, take out both of Fake Peppino's phases, get into the chase sequence, and get caught, the Noise will promptly give out an even scarier Nightmare Face and a blood-curdling screech that actually sends Fake Peppino away! Of course, this is mitigated by the fact that Fake Peppino simply skitters off like some dejected puppy being scolded by his owner than actually afraid of the Noise.note
- Tricky Treat, a new level added exclusively for the Halloween update is normally a goofy pumpkin-themed bonus level that's not very scary. However, if you backtrack to the level's entrance or get caught by the Ghost Pumpkin while using the ghost transformation, you're treated to a Smash Cut to an uncannily realistic-looking image of Peppino staring at you from the shadowsnote , with no sound playing whatsoever. And then the game closes, like with the title screen Jump Scare.
- The Doise's boss fight takes place in one of the creepiest arenas in the game, as you fight him in a bizarre Acid-Trip Dimension that contains what appears to be a mix between The Doise and Gigyas to a dark and twisted take on Pumpin' Hot Stuff. The most unsettling part of the boss fight, however, comes after you finish fighting him, as after a rock falls on the Noise, a demonic Peddito suddenly swoops in out of nowhere to take the Doise away to kill him offscreen. While you don't see what he does to him, you do get to see the aftermath, as when you re-enter the Doise's boss arena, you get to witness the not-so-pretty sight of the Doise's dead and bloodied corpse lying there, with no music playing and the only sound being the buzzing of flies, which is a very jarring sight in an otherwise lighthearted and cartoony game. He's even still gone when Pizzahead summons him for backup. However, if you perform 3 taunts in a row in the doorway to the Doise, you can fight him again.
Staff Only
Compared to all the other levels, this final floor of levels looks like it's cobbled straight from horror games.note
- "Pizzascare" is filled with scary imagery in the background, like rotten heads without eyes, a melting "pizza skull" and flaming skulls with red candle wax dripping from mouth and eyes, looking eerily similar to blood... assuming it isn't actually blood.
- "Don't Make A Sound" is a very clear reference to Five Nights at Freddy's, being set at an abandoned pizzaria with animatronic mascots chasing you. That is spooky enough by itself, but then the game makes it a Stealth-Based Mission. If you're spotted, a Toppin Monster is summoned in a few seconds, and not only can you not fight them, but the game gives you an actual Jump Scare and Peppino is transformed into a toy like them. And if that wasn't enough, one of them holds a meat cleaver and has a sausage head with holes dripping what can only be assumed to be blood. Fortunately, the latter half of the stage gives you a shotgun, giving you ample opportunity to turn the tables, at which point it goes right back to the other end of the spectrum.
- "War" has a leg to stand on in terms of its gritty theming in many video games:
- The title card is all red with Peppino just looking on in terror at the horrors of war. There's also what appears to be a Peppino Clone rushing towards Peppino, with an unnerving expression of Dissonant Serenity.
- The level starts with Peppino getting a shotgun and suddenly a bomb timer goes down, and if it reaches zero you get a unique explosive fail state. Not only must you run for your life across a battlefield full of mines and soldiers, but you must go through a laboratory with enemies that look like Peppino himself but attack with frog-like tongues and melt away upon death.
- You'd think the secret eyes contain a concept-based breather or three, but entering them in this level reveals that the timer's still going! Truly, nowhere is safe here.
- Even the hub for Staff Only is pretty terrifying.
- There's a giant Pillar John, it being the true John with a humanoid body wearing castle-like armor sitting in misery while bound by cheesy spiderwebs. It almost looks like he's dying.
- The above makes the Freeze-Frame Bonus in the final level a Mood Whiplash, since the giant Pillar John immediately falls as you enter the hub... But at the same time, he's smiling and giving a thumbs-up as he falls. It's funny, but considering the implications, geez, Death Seeker, much?
- In the hallway before Pizzaface's fight, there are statues of him on the walls. While advancing to the window that leads to outside the Pizza Tower (and Pizzaface's arena), one of these statues may turn around to Peppino, as if it knows he's here to defeat Pizzaface.
- Pizzaface's boss portrait somehow manages to make a sentient pizza creepy thanks to the Mad Eye and taking up almost his entire half of the screen, flashing red all the while.
- Pizzahead doesn't look all that scary on his own, but he gives off a specific vibe you would expect from Monster Clowns like the Joker, where you get the feeling he's only so jovial and ineffectual because it's funner to subvert that expectation than it is to play into it. Perhaps one of the most shocking things he does during his fight is pulling out an Uzi and, rather than shooting Peppino directly, shooting himself with it to use the resulting spread of crust and cheese as his attack.
- And yet in the Noise scenario Pizzahead isn't the scariest clown - The Noise himself is. Not only does he bomb all of the bosses and Pizzahead into oblivion, in the end, instead of beating the guy up like Peppino, The Noise, now even more unhinged than before with frighteningly insane eyes, takes out his last weapon - a gigantic bomb, which he drops on Pizzahead with a mad giggle. Even his Joker-like enemy is earnestly horrified of this development.
Unused content
- When Pizza Time was triggered by knocking out Pillar John in earlier builds, in some levels the backgrounds would suddenly get more disturbing.
- In Oregano Desert, meteors would begin to rain from the sky, and the giant pizzas would sprout eyes and screaming mouths.
- In Oh Shit!, the floating pizza slices would gain eyes and teeth and begin laughing as the sewers flooded with cheese, and gigantic worms would appear from the holes in the background. In the final game, only cheese tentacles and glowing red eyes appear from the background pipes.
- In Peppibot Factory, the lights would turn blood red with faces hidden in their shadows, while assorted limbs would come out of the pizza boxes on the conveyor belts.
- In the actual game, the Toppin Monster jumpscares can be a bit of a shock (aside from the Pineapple Monster, who's entirely comedic) when they first occur, but are very simple and goofy, consisting of just a single 2D image popping up on a bright red screen. However, it was originally planned for these jumpscares to be fully animated in full 3D, making them far more similar to Five Nights at Freddy's scares, and the game came very close to these before being canned at the last moment due to performance issues. The original animations◊ are viewable online, and would have been incredibly unnerving had they gotten into the final game.
- The Peppino Clones' slimy tongues were yellow prior to release, implying that unethical experiments were done to create clones from cheeseslimes.
- The song "SNICK IS COMING" is a surprisingly stressful theme for Snick.exe. It all adds to the stress of being chased down by him in Snick Challenge A.
