Demo 2 Test 1

Demo 2 Test 1 build is a playtester build made before the release of Demo 2. This build features reworks of many features of the game, from moveset and level design to sound design. Although it's only a playtester build of the main demo, the differences between them are very minor.

Gameplay

After the title screen, the game starts off outside the Pizza Tower, and the player, controlling Peppino, can choose one of the three levels featured in this build: Tutorial, Ancient or Factory.

If the player chooses to go to the Tutorial level, they will learn basic controls and will be sent back into the title screen. In the other two levels, Ancient and Factory, the player is tasked to go through the two floors of each tower, collect five toppins (and, optionally, five pizza coins). Those toppins are needed to feed Pillar John, who guards the Noise Satellite on the third floor of the tower. Upon gaining access to it, the player has to destroy it. The Noise will then come in with a detonator and will activate Pizza Time. At this point, the player's objective is to escape the tower. After this, their rank is shown; it depends on the amount of points gathered throughout the game.

If the player went through the task of collecting the five pizza coins in the level's respective towers, they will gain access to a challenge version of that tower. This is a custom-made challenge in the theme of the respective level featuring the transformations found in that level, which the player must complete under a time-limit. Upon completing the challenge, the player can get the level's Tower Secret Treasure.

Peppino's moveset

This version features an inconvenience in regard to Peppino's moveset, that being the removal of wall-climbing. In no state can Peppino climb walls anymore, which makes some parts of the tower either easier or harder, depending on the player. Besides that, no major changes have been made since the last build.

Mechanics

Transformations

In this build, the following transformations received changes or made their debut:

• Knight has received one change since the last build, that is the ability to slide off all slopes.
• Boxed. A new transformation featured in this build, it works entirely differently to how it is in the final game.
  • Upon being hit by a Box Stamper, Peppino will be squished into a pizza box with his legs sticking out of the bottom of the box. He will peek out of the box while standing still and moving around, and come out of the box when jumping.
  • While Boxed, Peppino’s walking speed is higher than his regular speed, and he is able to fit into small gaps. That makes it able for him to crawl through tight spaces on conveyor belts. He can defeat enemies by walking into them.
  • This transformation can be removed by a Grabbie Hand.
    • In this state in development, the Boxed transformation works almost identically as Flat Wario does in Wario Land 2.
• Sticky Cheese. Another new transformation featured in this build, it, too, works differently to how it does in the final release of the game.
  • Upon getting hit with a blob of cheese from a Cheese Blob Maker or a Cheese Peppibot, Peppino will get covered in the sticky cheese, with pepperoni for eyes and green bell peppers for eyebrows and mustache.
  • While in this form, Peppino takes a bit of time to start walking, and can stick to vertical conveyor belts. He is able to defeat enemies by walking into them.

Gimmicks

These gimmicks have first appeared in this demo:

• Conveyor Belt
• Grabbie Hand
• Box Stamper
• Cheese Blob Maker
• Noise Satellite

Levels

• Tutorial
• Ancient
  • Ancient Challenge
• Factory
  • Factory Challenge

Changes in the Tower

The game has received a lot of changes, most notable in level design. Where previously have been custom-size room layouts, now are standardized rooms. It is most notable in Ancient: now a lot of the rooms have been remade to fit into 1x1 (box rooms), 2x1 (wide rooms) or 1x2 (tall rooms) screen spaces. Because of that, some of the previously featured content (the banana peel and the skateboard, for example) made no sense gameplay-wise anymore, since these hazards don’t make much difference in smaller rooms.

Despite the smaller room size, there still was enough room to add some gimmick- and transformation-based challenges into the towers. Thus, previously basic platforming sections (such as obtaining most of the toppins or getting the first key in Ancient) now require a little more skill.

The overall objective of the game has also been drastically modified, together with the characters involved. In this build, Pillar John plays a much bigger role than he previously had, this time guarding the third floor of either of the towers. Because of that, getting all five toppins on the level has become a necessity as opposed to being a neat (and optional) achievement in the previous build. The Noise has changed a bit as well, but in a less major way than John: he now owns the Noise Satellite, the destruction of which causes him to appear in this build, unlike before, where he would come upon defeating the boss of the tower. This is the only difference in regards to the Noise.

Since Pillar John has become a guardian of the third floor, the “neat achievement” threshold was filled with pizza coins. Now, collecting all of the coins in a tower (that being five) unlocks the challenge version of that tower, where the Tower Secret Treasure can then be obtained. While the achievement stayed relatively the same, the way of getting it has become much harder.

The escape part has received a minor tweak: there are no longer any arrows that would direct the player towards the exit. Now, the player has to rely on their own memory of the level’s layout and plan the escape themselves.

Trivia

• If you somehow change Peppino's color palette, in some instances he will still wear the usual white clothes. These instances are, for example, the rank screens and the Time’s up death sprite. This happens because those sprites are colored white by default, while the majority of others use the yellow base, on top of which the white palette is then applied.
• There is a bug where, while jumping in a tight space with the Boxed transformation, a number of jumps will be performed instead of one, with every jump playing a separate sound and creating a separate particle effect.