Papa Louie Arcade (or Papa's Gameriawhat?) is an umbrella term for the arcade-style platform game series Papa Louie and its More Popular Spin-Off series of Time Management Games (itself known as the "Gamerias"), accompanied by the mobile-exclusive games Slider Scouts and Papa Louie Pals. Produced by Flipline Studios, all the games are set in a universe themed around food.
In Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack!, you play as the titular Papa Louie, who must rescue his pizzeria's customers from evil sentient food as he prepares to fight the nefarious Sarge. Games since the direct sequel, Papa Louie 2: When Burgers Attack!, feature new playable characters with their own weapons and skills, and new varieties of enemies as you battle your way to the point of confronting the new Big Bad, Radley Madish (whom Sarge was notably Demoted to Dragon for in When Burgers Attack!).
The Gameria games have you working as a restaurateur of different restaurants owned by Papa, each dedicated to a specific type of food. You serve up a variety of customers with a hands-on approach to preparing the food, judging you for cooking and presentation in addition to ordering speed. You earn tips along the way, which you can use to buy upgrades for your restaurant, both to improve productivity and keep your customers entertained as they wait. You also earn a large paycheck every week, which can be raised through working up the rankings. Starting with Papa's Pancakeria, you can spend tickets you earn during your shift to play and win prizes in Foodini's mini-games in between days.
The franchise has become Flipline Studios' most well-known one, and it's the game studio's longest-running and most-updated work up to nowadays, appearing prominently in most media on their website, including their blog. On the blog, many entry series are themed in some way after Papa Louie Arcade. The two most notable ones are Papa's Next Chefs, a yearly tournament set up by Flipline to find default chefs for every new gameria they're setting to release, and Kingsley's Customerpalooza, another (now-defunct) contest wherein fans submit their ideas for new characters in the series.
Installments:
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Main Games
Platformer Games
- Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack! (November 29, 2006)
- Papa Louie 2: When Burgers Attack! (June 5, 2013)
- Papa Louie 3: When Sundaes Attack! (March 4, 2015)
Gamerias
- Papa's Pizzeria (August 7, 2007)
- Papa's Burgeria (December 6, 2010)
- Papa's Taco Mia (May 20, 2011)
- Papa's Freezeria (August 5, 2011)
- Papa's Freezeria Deluxe (March 31, 2023)
- Papa's Pancakeria (March 5, 2012)
- Papa's Wingeria (June 13, 2012)
- Papa's Hot Doggeria (November 19, 2012)
- Papa's Cupcakeria (August 7, 2013)
- Papa's Pastaria (December 9, 2013)
- Papa's Donuteria (June 16, 2014)
- Papa's Cheeseria (June 10, 2015)
- Papa's Bakeria (March 14, 2016)
- Papa's Sushiria (December 13, 2016)
- Papa's Scooperia (July 24, 2018)
- Papa's Mocharia (March 2, 2021)note
- Papa's Cluckeria (February 22, 2022)note
- Papa's Paleteria (March 7, 2024)note
Tablet (HD) and Smartphone (To Go!) Ports
- Papa's Burgeria HD (April 26, 2012)
- Papa's Burgeria To Go! (February 21, 2013)
- Papa's Freezeria HD (October 30, 2013)
- Papa's Freezeria To Go! (February 27, 2014)
- Papa's Wingeria HD (August 28, 2014)
- Papa's Pizzeria To Go! (November 13, 2014)
- Papa's Cupcakeria To Go! (September 14, 2015)
- Papa's Cupcakeria HD (November 19, 2015)
- Papa's Taco Mia HD (June 27, 2016)
- Papa's Taco Mia To Go! (March 21, 2017)
- Papa's Pancakeria HD (May 17, 2017)
- Papa's Pizzeria HD (August 7, 2017)
- Papa's Hot Doggeria HD (November 20, 2017)
- Papa's Hot Doggeria To Go! (November 20, 2017)
- Papa's Scooperia HD (July 24, 2018)
- Papa's Scooperia To Go! (July 24, 2018)
- Papa's Pancakeria To Go! (October 29, 2018)
- Papa's Wingeria To Go! (February 22, 2019)
- Papa's Donuteria To Go! (June 7, 2019)note
- Papa's Cheeseria To Go! (October 25, 2019)
- Papa's Bakeria To Go! (January 17, 2020)
- Papa's Sushiria To Go! (April 22, 2020)
- Papa's Pastaria To Go! (July 7, 2020)
- Papa's Mocharia To Go!note
- Papa's Cluckeria To Go!note
- Papa's Paleteria To Go!'note
Mobile-Exclusive Games
- Slider Scouts (October 4, 2016)
- Papa Louie Pals (March 26, 2018)
The Papa Louie Arcade series provides examples of:
A-L
- All There in the Manual: The actual games mostly involve simplistic plots, and much of the series' surrounding lore comes from side content such as Flipline's Flipdecks for it (the Flipdecks are also used for their other works) and Word of God. It's especially the case of individual characters, most of whom have little characterization present in the games and are instead developed in the flipdecks, although their personalities and relationships with others remain pretty minimal.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Flipline's April Fools blog post for 2017 narrates that Guy Mortadello has taken over the entirety of Papa Louie's restaurant franchise and replaced all of the employees with BotWursts. A fake tournament named "Guy's Last Chef 2017" (of a similar nature to Papa's Next Chefs) has the public vote on out of all the chefs that Guy plans to fire, who gets to stay behind on the BotWursts' maintenance.
- All Your Powers Combined: Papa is the only costumer in the original Flash version of Pizzeria to order all the toppings available, giving him the most complex order in the game overall. Due to the topping palette in the game's mobile ports being too large to fit within a single order, Papa's order was simplified considerably for them.
- Anchovies Are Abhorrent: Averted in Pizzeria, which features anchovies as one of the pizza toppings to choose from, and plenty of customers order them without anyone else calling them out for it. Wally's official Flipdeck in particular states that anchovies are his Trademark Favorite Food, and he'd have liked it if they were also available as a replacement for hamburger patties.
- And a Diet Coke: Hot Doggeria, Big Pauly's standard order is a kielbasa loaded with everything under the sun and a large box of Candy Jack, accompanied by a large Diet Fizzo.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes:
- In the gamerias, you can earn clothes for your character(s) as prizes for completing levels in Foodini's mini-games and mastering special recipes (that is, getting five stars with each of them from good servings). Bakeria introduced an alternate outfit (known as a "Style B") for each customer that you get from earning a specific set of stickers; these are featured alongside a more regular "Style H" worn by costumers during their favorite holidays, which can't be altered otherwise.
- Starting with When Burgers Attack! (which introduced the feature for the franchise as a whole), the platformers also have two unlockable styles for each customer, with the second one being a "Style C" instead of a "Style H".
- Anthropomorphic Food:
- All enemies in the platformer games are living food of different kinds.
- When Sundaes Attack! also has sentient ice cream cones as friendly NPCs.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- In most of the games, once you've earned a Gold Customer Appreciation Award from a customer, that customer shows up less often, which keeps the late stages of getting a Gold CAA from every customer from being a Luck-Based Mission.
- From Sushiria on, you can send a customer a coupon in the mail, which guarantees that they'll show up the next day. It's perfect for leveling up customers and achieving stickers pertaining to a certain one. You can't send coupons to closers or Jojo, though.
- Starting in Bakeria, if you're aiming for a sticker that requires you to serve a special to a certain customer, they'll still happily accept it even if they didn't order it, meaning that you'll still get a good score as long as you made it correctly.
- In Mocharia, while you still need to be alert for taking milk out of the frother before it's too late, the coffee being made will automatically stop when it's perfect. Additionally, because of potentially how long pouring out milk and coffee can take, they don't count as unskippable tasks like spreading ingredients in the final area in case an alarm sets off.
- If an alarm starts ringing while delivering food to a customer, the game will automatically cut afterward to the area in question to help try and prevent the food from being ruined.
- Starting in Pastaria, Santa will only come during the Christmas season. However, to make it easier to get his gold award, he starts with the silver award and comes every day during Christmas holiday.
- If you choose to have a Custom Worker as your co-worker and you start the day again either due to a game crash or reloading due to a bad day, the game remembers your design for the Custom Worker and instantly loads them without you having to recreate them.
- Art Evolution: The artistic abilities of the creators have steadily improved over the course of the series, starting with a large jump between the first Papa Louie game (which had a relatively zany art style) and Pizzeria (which delineated most of the style's look that we know today). One of the selling points of Bakeria is that it features all-new models for every character, especially ones who haven't been redrawn in years until that moment, such as Wally
and Penny. - Artist and the Band: "Scarlett and the Shakers" is a successful ska-punk band consisting of Scarlett on vocals, Rudy on bass, Marty on guitar, and Clover on drums. Each member of the band has been a customer in the series as well as a worker in some of Papa's restaurants (Rudy and Scarlett work at the same restaurant).
- Ascended Extra:
- This will happen to any customer who becomes Promoted to Playable thanks to becoming a chef.
- Duke Gotcha, a news reporter, initially serves as one of many customers in the game, but from Papa's Cluckeria onwards, there's breaking news segments featuring him after reaching certain rank in the game where he will report events relevant to the game's plot.
- Ascended Glitch: When making When Pizzas Attack!, Matt Neff and Tony Solary missed one enemy when replacing placeholder graphics, resulting in there being a single-appearance "Cheese Wheel" with a less anthropomorphic look than the other food-based enemies in the game. This has become a Running Gag starting with When Burgers Attack!, which has a lone Cheese Wheel added on purpose this time around. When Sundaes Attack! features a Cheesecake Wheel enemy.
- A Simple Plan:
- Freezeria begins with the protagonist seeking for a laid-back job at the titular restaurant located in Calypso Island as the place has minimum population. However, right after getting started, a boat filled with tons of tourists flocks in to the island, much to the protagonist's shock.
- Cluckeria starts with Papa pitching an idea to a prospective worker to open a chicken sandwich restaurant in Oilseed Springs where there's plenty of oilseed plants (rapeseed) growing for lots of cheap natural cooking oil, has tons of chickens for meat and due to being an out-of-the-way town, zero competition. After opening, however, three rival restaurants suddenly crop up and begin the Chicken Sandwich Wars, much to the protagonist's horror.
- Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Most characters with a Trademark Favorite Food have outfits and/or a haircut that represent what their favorite food is.
- Band of Relatives:
- The Romano Family Quartet, which consists of the four Romano family members physically seen in the series.
- Siblings Marty and Clover are two of the four members of Scarlett and the Shakers (the other pair being Official Couple Rudy and Scarlett).
- Big Bad:
- In the platforming games, Sarge served as this for When Pizzas Attack! in addition to being its Final Boss. The next two games have Radley Madish, who plans to use the Warp Coins to take over the Flipverse and whom Sarge is Demoted to Dragon for in When Burgers Attack!.
- Cheeseria introduces Guy Mortadello as a recurring Big Bad of the gameria series. In his debut, he's revealed to have stolen the player character's instruments, likely in retaliation for the Cheeseria getting his last establishment of his meat pie store chain closed down. He later steals the protagonist's belongings in Scooperia after tricking them into renting a room that's actually the future site of the titular restaurant.
- Big Bad Ensemble: In Cluckeria, there are three restaurant owners competing against the protagonist in the Chicken Sandwich Wars at Oilseed Springs, including the returning Guy Mortadello with his new Mortadello's Bird Meat, NuMarcus (who owns the Nucoop Fry Lab) and the Crumple Sisters (owners of the Crumple Family Chicken). Only the latter manage to put a decent competition with Papa's Cluckeria (apparently surpassing its food quality by a great degree), as the former two had their restaurants quickly shut down due to health problemsExplanation and a lack of fundsExplanation, respectively. However, the Crumple Sisters end up losing against the Cluckeria by external circumstances too, namely due to legal issuesExplanation.
- Big Eater: Many of the fat customers such as Big Pauly, Kahuna, Kingsley and Mayor Mallow tend to order large portions of food, though several skinny ones do, too. Some of Big Pauly's orders include a large hamburger without veggies in Burgeria, a large sundae cup in Freezeria, pancakes with lots of whipped cream and chocolate in Pancakeria, a kielbasa full of toppings with a large drink (this being Diet Fizzo) and popcorn bag in Hot Doggeria, and cookie sundaes full of Creameos in Scooperia.
- Bland-Name Product: The recurring Creameo (a combination of Oreo and Cream-O), Nutty Butter Cup (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) and Yum&M's (M&M's) ingredients, as well as the Candy Jack (Cracker Jack) popcorn and Dr. Cherry (Dr. Pepper) soda in Hot Doggeria.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Wingeria features "Atomic sauce" as one of the standard sauces, which, according to the developers, consist of aged cayenne and habanero peppers as its ingredients. Additionally, there's the fictional "Blazeberry Sauce" which is blueberry-flavoured hot sauce.
- Boring, but Practical: The doorbell, the cheapest upgrade in any gameria in the series since the introduction of upgrades in Burgeria. It alerts you when a customer walks in if you're busy in some other station. Once you have it, it's easy to take looking for costumers coming in for granted, until you decide to go back and try out Pizzeria to suddenly find yourself losing order points for several customers because you were carefully arranging toppings and didn't notice them enter the pizzeria.
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: The main mechanic of the minigame "Hallway Hunt". Using the same gameplay style as a Shell Game, you're supposed to keep an eye on an indicated customer out of four before the lights turn off. You're tasked to follow said person's eyes until they enter a room, which you then have to select. Later levels make the minigame harder by adding unrelated customers mid-blackout to throw you off.
- Caustic Critic: Averted with Jojo the Food Critic, who first appeared in Taco Mia! and has been a special Closer in every game since then. If he really likes the dish you serve him, he'll give you a blue ribbon, encouraging customers to give you higher tips for three days. The worst he does is simply not giving you the ribbon.
- Character Customization:
- The Custom Worker, introduced in Wingeria. You can pick a gender for them, give them a custom name, and change their physical features and colors even after you've already created them. Later entries introduce an optional second worker to take customer's orders at either the dine-in or delivery service.
- Also from Wingeria onwards, you can change the attire of your characters, regardless if they're default chefs or Custom Workers, with clothes and accessories you buy or win as prizes in Foodini's minigames.
- The mobile ports of Pancakeria give you a Custom Worker's pet to choose the breed and name of at the beginning, although you can't change them later.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: At the end of Cluckeria, the Crumple sisters get prosecuted and charged with stealing Papa's secret recipe, serving jail time and becoming the final losers of the Chicken Sandwich Wars.
- Chekhov's Volcano: The dormant volcano seen in the background of Freezeria Deluxe actually becomes active during the "Volcano Gala" holiday that begins after the game's final cutscene. Downplayed in that it doesn't serve any threat to anyone, and is merely a background decoration as well having the aforementioned holiday evolved around it.
- Company Cross References: There are several other Flipline Studios games referenced throughout the series, including Cactus McCoy and Jacksmith, usually in the form of decorations and customer outfits. Notably, in Pancakeria and Mocharia, the icon representing the milk and Skim Milk, respectively, depicts Steak from Steak and Jake.
- Couch Gag: Starting in Taco Mia!, the beginning of day cutscene changes from day to day.
- Creator Cameo:
- The founders of Flipline Studios and creators of the series, Tony Solary and Matt Neff, have appeared as customers in the games since Burgeria. Tony later became a playable chef in Donuteria after winning the 2014 Papa's Next Chefs tournament. Matt (who was notably put against Tony in the 2014 contest's finals) would be Promoted to Playable too in Papa's Sushiria, when he won in a later contest.
- Tony's wife, Mandi, also debuted as a customer earlier in Pizzeria, and is a playable chef in Wingeria.
- Dagwood Sandwich:
- Some of the Special Recipes in Cluckeria distinctly contain more than one fried ingredient, being the largest and most complex. You can also deliberately make and sell some yourself in the Food Truck mode.
- Also Played for Laughs in various YouTube videos about Burgeria where people intentionally make tall, nonsensical burgers in order to get the lowest score possible.
- Decomposite Character: Despite Ninjoy already being in the Freezeria pack when the Pizzeria pack was released, instead of being added as an alternate outfit, Joy was added as a completely separate character in Papa Louie Pals.
- Developer's Foresight:
- From Sushiria onwards, Vincent will normally be the one to deliver alternate outfits and coupons to customers. If said customer is Vincent himself, then Akari will be the deliverer instead. If this happens when the customer is currently in the order station, the player chef will instead deliver it, like in Bakeria To Go!.
- In Mocharia, where Akari is a default chef and thus unavailable anywhere else, Rhonda is the one who delivers the clothes/coupons to Vincent. This detail was added in the game's 1.0.2 patch; before then, the game would have crashed if Vincent received a coupon/outfit.
- Joy/Ninjoy will have a different placement in the parade depending on the identity she's currently in. If she's dressed in her vigilante persona, Ninjoy will walk alongside other costumers based on the customer award she has. Meanwhile, if she's wearing her regular outfit, Joy will join Roy in the Papa's Pizzeria parade float.
- From Sushiria onwards, Vincent will normally be the one to deliver alternate outfits and coupons to customers. If said customer is Vincent himself, then Akari will be the deliverer instead. If this happens when the customer is currently in the order station, the player chef will instead deliver it, like in Bakeria To Go!.
- Disco Dan: Timm became one of these at the time of Taco Mia!'s events, when he left his legal partnership with Quinn to pursue a career as a professional dancer.
- Double Jump: Scooter, Connor and Peggy have this as their skill in Papa Louie 2. Timm and Ivy have it in Papa Louie 3, as well as Scooter returning.
- Early Game Hell: Most gamerias are at their hardest during the first few weeks, before you buy all the gameplay-related upgrades and a decent selection of lobby decorations.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference:
- In Pizzeria, Robby and Allan were fairly normal people with normal clothes and hairstyles. Come Taco Mia, and they have changed a lot since their absence in Burgeria, particularly because they became closers.
- Robby now has a more pirate-themed look to him, with a red bandanna, an anchor print on his shirt, and a tougher-looking facial expression. This symbolizes his days trapped in a desert island.
- Allan now has a unibrow, a pompadour hairstyle, a missing tooth, and evil-looking eyes. The latter, however, has been dropped in Freezeria, and his later appearances as a closer has his normal eyes intact. This symbolizes his days in Oniontown, being a frequent bully victim by high schoolers there.
- In the time-management series, Timm's debut was in Pizzeria. He did not have glasses until Burgeria, and he did not have curlier, messier hair until Pancakeria. This symbolizes his transition from an attorney to a disco dancer.
- Similar to Allan, Deano used to have angry eyes in his first appearance as a closer in Pastaria. However, later appearances revert him to have normal eyes, even when he would become a closer such as in Sushiria.
- In Pizzeria, Robby and Allan were fairly normal people with normal clothes and hairstyles. Come Taco Mia, and they have changed a lot since their absence in Burgeria, particularly because they became closers.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- Even without counting the cruder art style and Early-Installment Character Design Differences throughout, When Pizzas Attack! qualifies in a lot of aspects towards the following platformers.
- While rescuing the customers is a fundamental task like in the later games, you can only play as Papa Louie. When Burgers Attack! (which has Papa unlocked after beating the Final Boss instead) gives you the option to play as the customers you rescue alongside the restaurant chefs you have from the start, and When Sundaes Attack! (wherein Papa is unlocked mid-game) outright has a customer as the starting playable character.
- In addition to rescuing the customers, defeating all enemies of a specific type is required to beat each level (the Pizza Monsters turn back into normal pizza and Papa has to carry each of them to the goal), while the sequels only do this for optional completion progress or more character unlocks.
- You can't Goomba Stomp the enemies, while in the sequels you can.
- Aside from his primary attack, Papa has a second one in the form of limited pepper bombs, which have to be either found in the levels or bought from Big Pauly; the sequels forego this by giving each character an unique attack method. The pepper bombs can also hurt Papa if the player is careless about their positioning, while in the sequels, no bomb-throwing character will get hurt by their own attack.
- Radley Madish is completely absent. Sarge (called "Sgt. Crushida Pepper" here) is the Big Bad instead.
- Pizzeria lacks a number of features people have come to expect from the later gamerias, such as shop upgrades and achievements (with the money serving the role of ranking up given to the following games' rank points). The interface is also slightly different; for instance, the order-taking button is below the ticket holder rather than above the customer's head. Those used to the later games' interface might get a bit confused when going back to this one. The game's mobile ports have the stations more in line with the other games, as well as adding in all mechanics that the most recent gamerias at the time of their respective releasesnote had (upgrades, closers, achievements, choosing between a male default chef, a female one or a custom worker, etc.).
- Interestingly, both When Pizzas Attack! and Pizzeria are also the only games whose intros and outro (in the former game's case) are fully animated, rather than the slideshow style used in later games' cutscenes (which neither of the first two have in the middle of their run).
- A more mild example, but unlike all the other HD ports, Burgeria HD lacks the custom worker feature due to it being released before Wingeria.
- Even without counting the cruder art style and Early-Installment Character Design Differences throughout, When Pizzas Attack! qualifies in a lot of aspects towards the following platformers.
- Eating Contest: In the intro of Taco Mia!, the player character gets their job at the titular restaurant after winning 1st place in a taco eating contest.
- End of an Age: A Meta-related example. Due to the discontinuation of the Flash plugin on the internet post-2020, Scooperia was the last game to be playable on the Flipline website. The first game released after the Flash plugin was globally shut down was Mocharia, which is (alongside the following games) exclusive to mobile. A purchasable PC re-release of Freezeria, titled Papa's Freezeria Deluxe, was eventually published on Steam, though it has yet to be known if Flipline will do the same for any of the other games.
- Every Pizza Is Pepperoni: Zig-zagged. While the various versions of Pizzeria feature a wide array of ingredients to make many varieties of pizza, the Pizza Monsters from When Pizzas Attack! always have the appearance of the standard pepperoni kind, with two pepperoni slices standing in for eyes while the rest are spread across their bodies.
- Excuse Plot:
- In the platformer games, Papa Louie and the nearby citizens get sucked into portal that leads to Munchmore, a food dimension where most end up imprisoned by Anthropomorphic Food who are led by Sarge in the first game and Radley Madish in the following ones. So it's up to the remaining characters to save them.
- Each Gameria begins with a cutscene explaining why your character is working at Papa Louie's latest restaurant. Most of the time it's them getting tricked by Papa or someone else (with Papa offering to help them in the latter case), but some games give another reason, such as:
- Willingly applying in Donuteria because they get a free pass on the popular "Sky Ninja" rollercoaster as an employee.
- Booking a stay at the restaurant in Pastaria due to not being able to find a hotel to stay at for the upcoming wedding between Edoardo and Olga.
- Applying in Mocharia because the job comes with rent-free housing. After signing the paperwork, however, the character discovers that they have unwittingly signed up to be part of a documentary called "Mocharia Life".
- Filling in for Papa in Paleteria after the protagonist wins a 24-carat gold paleta necklace from an event Papa was holding, only for a seal to cause mayhem on the boardwalk and winds up stealing it. Papa offers to get it back for the protagonist, but puts them up at the Paleteria at the last minute.
- Family Business: Papa's Pizzeria from When Pizzas Attack! and Pizzeria, which was Papa's first established restaurant in Tastyville. Roy's (the usual delivery boy until he became the player character of Pizzeria) Flipdeck confirms that he's Papa's nephew, and To Go! introduced Papa's niece and Roy's older sister, Joy, as the female default chef in Pizzeria's mobile ports (although she was eventually confirmed to be the true identity of Ninjoy, who first appeared in Freezeria before Pizzeria To Go!'s release).
- The Goomba: Cooper is the first costumer the player serves in the original Flash version of Pizzeria, and, unlike most starting costumers in later games, has the simplest order in the game overall. Averted in both mobile ports of Pizzeria, where, in addition to him being unlocked later (HD in particular making him a late-game costumer), he has a more elaborate order.
- Halloween Episode: Every Gameria (except for Cluckeria) has Halloween as part of its holiday lineup. As a result, customers would come to Papa's restaurants while wearing themed costumes. Every closer has their own Halloween costume.
- Happily Adopted: The X Twins Xandra and Xolo are confirmed to be this, with Edna being their adoptive mother.
- Hash House Lingo: The Special Order mechanic introduced in Cheeseria often invokes this trope.
- Helpful Mook: The Jellybacks in the platforming games, which are friendly quadrapedal creatures with gummy shells who act as trampolines. They're also the only creatures in the Monster Compendium who has "Bounced on" instead of "Defeated" since they're immune to damage.
- High-Class Glass: Georgito has a money motif, owns a casino in Starlight City, where Wingeria is set, and his Flipdeck features him as "Person of the Year" for a magazine named "Big Money."
- Holiday Mode: Starting with Cupcakeria, there is an in-game year system, with seasonal ingredients that can only be used certain times of the year and holidays such as Christmas, Halloween, and the numerous Fictional Holidays present.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
- Also counting as in-universe Theme Naming, each of the gamerias and their correspondent restaurants are named "Papa's —ria", with Taco Mia! changing the format's spelling a bit.
- For the platformer games, each has the subtitle "When [X] Attack!", with the X corresponding to a food that relates the setting with one of the restaurants ("Pizzas" for Pizzeria, "Burgers" for Burgeria, etc.).
- An Interior Designer Is You: Starting from Freezeria, you can customize your lobby, changing wallpaper or flooring, putting up posters, and placing furniture.
- Job-Stealing Robot: As clarified in a flipdeck dedicated to them (after being first implied in the "Guy's Last Chef 2017" joke tournament), the cooking jobs in Guy Mortadello's former restaurant chain were done by a bunch of copies of a robot model known as BotWurst, with Guy only needing at least a single human employee to maintain the robots at best, and even getting to sell grocery store versions of his food with them. They seem to be pretty effective in serving, as the chicken sandwich restaurant Guy later sets up in Cluckeria only required a single BotWurst to function properlynote , although how well-received they were by Guy's customers is never stated.
- Karma Houdini: In Cluckeria, NuMarcus flees with the money from his investors after his salad drinks cause his restaurant to go bankrupt.
- Live Mink Coat: Crystal, who debuted in Pastaria, has a pet mink named Cannoli around her neck.
M-Z
- Mad Scientist:
- Professor Fitz. In fact, his weapon in the platforming games is beakers.
- Radley Madish in the platforming games. He also uses beakers as occasional backing weapons, and by the time of When Sundaes Attack! has built a vehicle that can function as both a submarine and a rocket.
- Maneki Neko: Sushiria opens with the player accidentally breaking one outside the titular restaurant, causing Papa Louie to fittingly have bad luck with business. The player then has to take over the shop while Papa goes to find a new one. He returns with a giant golden one, which appears in subsequent titles as a furniture item.
- Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: The 15th anniversary pic for the series shows Roy and Joy in their current designs alongside the former's zanily-drawn incarnation from the first Papa Louie game. An additional mention goes to Joy, who didn't exist at the time of the game's release and thus had a version of her in its art style made for this occasion.
- Meaningful Name:
- There are several character whose names sound like their Trademark Favorite Food. These go from normal baby names made to sound punny (Olivia)note to genuinely made-up names that people wonder whether their parents actually also love the food to even name their babies after them (Janana, Cherissa, Emmlette).
- Some customers from the series have color-inspired names, and their costumes will be littered with colors that match the character's names. Their colorful names may also indicate their characterizations. Such examples include Indigo, Sienna (the resident autumn lover), and Scarlett (the resident Valentine's Day fan).
- Rudy, the bassist of the ska-punk band Scarlett and the Shakers, is also a slang term for "rudeboy", a person who enjoys Jamaican-rooted music such as ska. The term itself likely originates from the song "Rudy a Message to You", which is about a rudeboy.
- Men Like Dogs, Women Like Cats: Inverted. The workers of Pancakeria, Cooper and Prudence, have a cat named Cookie and a dog named Pickle, respectively.
- Mockumentary: The sub-plot of Mocharia has the protagonist the unwitting star of an upcoming documentary about them working at the Mocharia, which gets premiered during the Sugarplex Film Festival next year.
- Motor Mouth: The higher award status you have a customer at, the faster they give you their order and judge what you serve them.
- Mystery Meat: One of Taco Mia's standard sauces is "Loco Mystery Sauce".
- No Full Name Given: Most of the characters in the series are given a single name (usually their first name) or alias. Some of the few aversions include the Romano family, the Bombolonysnote , Mayor Mallownote , and Tony Solary and Matt Neff (both of whom take the series' creators' full names).
- Non-Indicative Name:
- Utah, who lives on Calypso Island (Freezeria's setting) despite her name being a landlocked US State. The same applies to her sister Nevada (who debuted in Cupcakeria), although at least her name makes more sense as her name means "snowy" and she lives in Frostfield.
- Downplayed regarding the "Cluckeria"; when Guy Mortadello becomes the first loser of the "Chicken Sandwich Wars", it no longer sells chicken sandwiches exclusively and offers pork, beef and seafood options as well.
- Obvious Rule Patch: When Bakeria removed the bonus tips for completing achievements (as part of their replacement with stickers), some of the remaining tip sources were buffed to make up for it.
- Once per Episode: Every game since Taco Mia features closers - a type of customers that enter last in a day that have a tougher grading system. While the closer lineup tend to change every game, two customers have retained their closer status in all their appearances, that being Quinn and Jojo.
- Official Couple:
- To reflect their real-life counterparts, Tony and Mandi are married and have kids of their own.
- According to their Flipdecks, Penny and Alberto, the chefs of Papa's Freezeria, are dating. Thus far, they're the only pair of default chefs in any gameria to be a couple.
- Rudy and Scarlett; it was confirmed by Scarlett's Flipdeck, even before Rudy made his debut.
- "Little" Edoardo Romano and Olga get married in Pastaria, after such event was teased with Olga's crush on Edoardo as mentioned in her flipdeck.
- Rhonda's Flipdeck confirms that she and Rico are dating.
- In a Shoutbox appearance, Tony announced that Sue and Mary are "a thing."
- Whiff's Flipdeck confirms he and Mindy are dating.
- Clair and Vincent are married, they themselves being Sasha's parents.
- Similarly, Franco and Fernanda are Lisa's parents.
- In the 2024 Valentine's Day image, it turns out that Kaleb and Liezel are dating.
- One-Steve Limit: In spite of the many human characters present with regular real-life names, none of them share a first name or surname with at least another one.
- Only One Who Likes Spam: An inversion. Of the four Romano Family members in Pancakeria, Carlo is the only one to not order coffee.
- Perpetual Smiler: Most characters smile by default, but some characters go as far as to have an open mouth or grin, including: Ally Kabam, Amy, Chase, Didar, Foodini, Hope, Julep, Kenji, Kingsley, Makaila, Mesa, Nevada, Pally, Rithy, and Vincent.
- Pet the Dog: Papa Louie has some moments regarding of his employees misfortunes:
- In Cheeseria, he offers the protagonist a job at his new restaurant to help pay for replacement instruments after the original ones were stolen. They're eventually recovered which also ends in Guy Mortadello's arrest for larceny.
- He offers the protagonist of Bakeria a job after the store they originally signed up for shut down overnight. At the end, he gives them ownership of a replacement store of the same type.
- He offers the protagonist a job at the recently-opened Scooperia after they tell him about Guy outright robbing them. Guy is arrested yet again for the same reason, which leads to the protagonist getting their belongings and money back, as well as a golden scooper as a gift from Papa.
- Pineapple Ruins Pizza: Averted in the mobile ports of Pizzeria, which feature a pineapple topping that several customers order normally without anyone else looking down on them for it.
- Playing Card Motifs: The four members of Scarlett and the Shakers have these. Scarlett is Hearts, Rudy is Spades, Marty is Diamonds, and Clover is Clubs.
- Premiseville: Every town established as part of the Papa Louie world except Calypso Island, Starlight City, and Sakura Bay is a food reference.
- Previous Player-Character Cameo: With a number of the customers having also been default chefs, expect this to come up often throughout the gamerias. In the Parade introduced in Pancakeria, each pair of default chefs have their own parade ride that represents the gameria they were previously playable at (plus the ones in the actual game if the player has chosen them).
- In Freezeria Deluxe, there is a bigger chance that you might see two co-workers dining together. A prime example in the early game is Allan and Akari, who are workers for Mocharia.
- Production Foreshadowing: Six of the twelve baseball teams depicted in Hot Doggeria are references to then upcoming or unplanned games.
- Promoted to Playable: Every playable character throughout the series (except Papa Louie himself, Joy in Pizzeria To Go! and Yui in When Sundaes Attack!) was first introduced as an NPC. If their respective flipdecks are anything to go by, James and Doan (the male chefs of Cupcakeria and Pastaria, respectively) get the bonus points for having been hired by Papa before as a handyman and a graphic designer (which they later worked as onscreen in Scooperia and Mocharia, respectively).
- Put on a Bus:
- Some of the customers sat out one or more of the earlier Flash games after their debut, in order to keep file sizes down due to limitations at the time.
- According to a post on Flipline's blog, Radley Madish fired Sarge at some point after the events of Papa Louie 2, explaining why he's absent from Papa Louie 3.
- Punny Name:
- Come the confirmation of Joy as Ninjoy's true identity, the latter's name blatantly stems from a pun between "Ninja" and "Joy".
- The games feature two women called Mary and Sue. While it originally was just a coincidence, the fact that they ended up becoming an Official Couple means that the creators did notice the pun potential of their names put together.
- Read the Fine Print:
- Implied in the intro of Pastaria while in a rush to book the only vacancy left in Portallini for the Romano Wedding, there's a note stating that by booking the spot, the protagonist agrees to the "terms and conditions" which they ignore, only to realise what they signed up for when they get their uniform, employee handbook and immediate flight ticket in the mail.
- In the intro of Mocharia, the flashy flyer advertising the job of the titular cafe's manager with many benefits (mainly rent-free housing) also has a very tiny note in the corner stating that the protagonist will also be the star of a documentary, which they don't notice until the film crew arrive.
- Real Men Eat Meat: James's order in Burgeria consists neither toppings nor sauces, only three meat patties for his burger.
- Sandbox Mode: A mild example with the Food Truck mode that first appeared in Cluckeria. Instead of having a customer give you an order to cook, you can whip up whatever recipe you wish, and someone will come up and buy it. You can even mix ingredients available on different holidays together. Although, everything is cooked/blended to perfection instantly, so it's not possible to serve anything burnt, raw or badly blended.
- Scout-Out: Yippy, who is a member of the Cookie Scouts. Upon her introduction, you'll usually get a cookie-related ingredient.
- Sequel Hook: Cluckeria has this. After all customers are unlocked and served, a news cast says that the Crumple Sisters have escaped prison, and more worryingly, a warp coin is all that remains in their now empty jail cell...
- Set Bonus: Starting in Hot Doggeria, lobby decorations only give the full listed bonus if used alongside at least two other decorations of the same theme.
- Shout-Out:
- The maximum badge title for reaching over rank 65 is "Better Than Papa!".
- One of Papa Louie's two Halloween outfits is based on Michael Jackson's one from the "Thriller" music video, as clarified in an animated GIF that Flipline published for Halloween 2020 wherein he performs a Michael Jackson's Thriller Parody with several other characters who dress as zombies for Halloween.
- Tohru's Halloween costume is similar to Waluigi's outfit from Super Mario Bros., featuring a dark-colored overall skirt, a pink shirt and cap (similar to Waluigi's purple shade) and an upside-down "T" logo on the cap and gloves.
- Carlo Romano's burger order in Burgeria resembles a Big Mac.
- In Hot Doggeria, the badge for serving enough orders with Red Hot popcorn is "Some Like It Hot".
- Donuteria has the Pon de Ring donut from the Mister Donut franchise available as a seasonal item during the Sky Ninja Returns festival.
- Also from Donuteria is Alberto's order, which includes a Homer Simpson-style donut with strawberry frosting and sprinkles.
- Breakfast Blast is a clear homage to the clay pigeon mode of Duck Hunt, particularly in Pancakeria, where Pickle the dog or Cookie the cat will encourage/mock the player like the famous Duck Hunt dog. (They're replaced with Foodini for the minigame's appearance in Wingeria, and the game was retired in Hot Doggeria due to complaints from fans about its difficulty)
- One of the Ranks in Bakeria is "Keymaster".
- The header for the "Quinn's Q&A" post series on Flipline's website blog has Quinn angrily pointing at Matt and Tony like a certain bluffing defense attorney.
- During the the finals and winner anouncement of PNC 2021, Wylan B does the poses that Drake does in the Drakeposting meme.
- In the same vein, during the final cutscene for Paleteria, Toby does one of the same Drake poses.
- Signed Up for the Dental:
- In Hot Doggeria, the protagonist applied to work for the titular restaurant in order to get a free pass to baseball games, the tickets to which were bought out by Jojo.
- The protagonist of Donuteria only signed up to work at the titular restaurant since employees get special VIP passes for the rides, which they use to get on the Sky Ninja. However, the ride breaks down right before it starts and it's closed for repairs for a whole year. Papa Louie then reminds them that they still have a job to do.
- Inverted in Mocharia. Papa Louie plans on filming a documentary about what it's like working at the establishment, but the protagonist just wanted the job for rent-free housing; they not only had no intention of taking part in the documentary, but didn't even know about it until they were already hired.
- Spaghetti and Gondolas: Pastaria is set in Portallini, a fictionalized version of Venice, Italy. Even one of the debutant customers is a gondolier.
- Super-Strength: James, Rico and Captain Cori are capable of pushing boulders around in the platformer games. Special mention to Captain Cori, whose weapon is an anchor. In Papa Louie 3, Robby wields the anchor.
- This Banana is Armed: Papa Louie 2 has Akari and her giant banana-shaped weapon.
- Tongue-Out Insult: In the gamerias, this is one of the reactions a customer may have should their serving performance be the second-worst level that you can get.
- Tournament Arc: Cluckeria revolves around the titular restaurant inconveniently having three rival chicken sandwich shops show up on its grand opening, starting "The Chicken Sandwich Wars", a conflict that gets covered in the news during the first year as each competitor eventually drops out. Guy Mortadello loses first due to getting shut down by the health department, NuMarcus fled with his investors' money after his latest menu item was a finanical disaster and the Crumple Sisters become the final losers due to getting charged with stealing Papa's secret recipe.
- Trademark Favorite Food:
- In any given game, every customer (except for Jojo) has a preferred order that they'll ask for whenever they have the option, and a lot of customers have orders of similar nature from one game to another.
- Most customers that reference a platformer game's baddie in their outfit have what that baddie is made of as their Trademark Favorite Food.
- Uncanny Valley: Invoked with this lovely image◊ from Flipline's 2016 April Fool's blog post, which drew Wally realistically, but with the same cartoonish proportions.
- Unique Enemy: The Cheese Wheel in Papa Louie 1 and 2, and the similar Cheesecake Wheel in Papa Louie 3. Amusingly, they started off as a mere oversight when replacing placeholder graphics for the first game, and they've become a Running Gag in the platformers ever since then.
- Updated Re-release:
- Most of the Gamerias' mobile ports include customers, ingredients (including new procedure parts on a few occasions, such as chips and dips/salsas for Taco Mia!'s ports and pizza crusts and sauces for Pizzeria HD) and features that weren't present in the original releases.
- Papa's Freezeria Deluxe, a purchasable PC re-release of Papa's Freezeria, added in plenty of content that wasn't in the original Flash game or its mobile ports (in addition to retaining the one featured in the latter). Such content includes a more in-depth storyline involving a hurricane, the holiday system introduced in Cupcakeria, and breaking news segments alongside the food truck that first appeared in Cluckeria.
- Variable Mix: The background music changes depending on which station is in use. This varies based on the game, although the customer order section tends to be the calmest.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can, if you want, give someone undercooked, burnt, messy or low-quality food, or otherwise just something they didn't order. The original version and mobile ports of Freezeria, Pancakeria and Wingeria in particular have every customer take a bite of the food you served them before giving you their evaulation.
- Violation of Common Sense:
- Cupcakeria gives you an achievement for burning Santa's cupcakes.
- From Bakeria on, every game has several stickers that are also examples of this, including "throw away 5 fully cooked pies in one day", and various stickers that require you to fill your orders incorrectly.
- Visual Pun: In the "Spin-n-Sauce" minigame, the worst score is represented by a can of chocolate whipped cream, which visually looks like a poo.
- Viva Las Vegas!: In Wingeria, the player character wins a trip to Starlight City (which is the franchise's equivalent of Las Vegas), and wins a lucky slots game only for them to be hired by Papa Louie in his brand new wing restaurant.
- Wedding Episode: The central plotline of Pastaria revolves around the marriage of Little Edoardo and Olga.
- You Mean "Xmas": In every gameria with a holiday system, real-life holidays are used in most of their correspondent months. However, there's also a couple of stand-ins:
- The July holiday in all games is either Starlight Jubilee or Starlight BBQ, which are both celebrated with red, white, and blue star-patterned aesthetics and fireworks. Both are clearly based on the American Independence Day, also known as 4th of July.
- The most common holiday for March is St. Paddy's Day, which has a slightly different name to St. Patrick's Day and the exact same aesthetic.
- BavariaFest is the Flipline version of Oktoberfest, except that is is celebrated in August.
