Pizza Time

Pizza Time is an essential part of Pizza Tower gameplay. It's an escape sequence which marks the second part of a level, after the destruction of Pillar John.

Gameplay

Pizza Time is normally the main requirement to opening level's Exit Door and completing the level. Once Pillar John has been slain, the level immediately turns into a mad chase back to the beginning. The changes level undergoes are:

• A timer, varying for the level, will start ticking down, indicating that the player must escape as fast as possible.
• John Blocks will switch states, changing the ways player can go trough the level, and in some cases doors become blocked by a big John face.
• Escape Spawners, in the form of John's face, will start spitting out new enemies throughout the level.
• Clock and bell pickups become collectable.

During Pizza Time, the player's points are slowly drained, with 5 points being drained for every second wasted, giving the player even more of a reason to try to get to the exit sooner to get a good rank. Taunting while standing over the exit door during Pizza Time will give the player 25 points; however, it can only be done 10 times per level, with a max total being 250 points.

Pizza Portals, if unlocked, can be entered during Pizza Time to start Lap 2, which teleports the player back to the place Pillar John was, without resetting the timer (clock and bell pickups, as well as enemies John faces spawn, do reset). Starting Lap 2 gives 3000 points.

The timer does not count down when the player is in Secret Eye areas (except in the WAR level). However, the time keeps counting down during cutscenes and item pose animations, wasting a small portion of time.

When time runs out, Pizzaface appears and starts to chase the player. If he touches the player, they instantly get a Time's Up, requiring to start the level again.

Miscellaneous

The exceptions to the usual flow of this mechanic are boss fight levels and two normal levels:

• WAR doesn't have Pillar John to defeat and thus doesn't have Pizza Time. Instead, it has its own timer ticking through the entire level, and there's still a Pizza Portal to access Lap 2.
• The Crumbling Tower of Pizza starts with the destruction of the real Pillar John, causing the entire level to be in a Pizza Time state. When the time runs out, instead of Pizzaface chasing after Peppino, the player instantly gets a Time's Up, indicating that he didn't leave the tower before it fell apart completely. There's also no Pizza Portal.

The music playing during Pizza Time is "It's Pizza Time!". When the player goes for Lap 2, it changes to "The Death That I Deservioli". The short track heard on the Time's Up screen is called "Your Fat Ass Slows You Down".

Pre-release

Main article: Pizza Time/Pre-release

Although Pizza Time mechanics was part of Pizza Tower since the beginning, the ways of activating the sequence was frequently changed throughout the development, as seen in the early versions of the game.

Trivia

• The Pizza Time mechanics are an intentional parallel to the escape sections of Wario Land 4 and Wario Land: Shake It!.
• If the player manages to stay alive for about 30 seconds after Pizzaface has appeared (without starting Lap 2), "The Death That I Deservioli" will automatically start playing after "It's Pizza Time!", which already has ended.
• In early builds, levels used to have unique escape themes instead of only "It's Pizza Time!", see Pizza Time/Pre-release.

Gallery

HUD

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  Pizza Time notification.

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  Timer bar.

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  Timer fill bar.

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  Pillar John bar indicator.

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  Escape spawner.

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  Pizzaface sleeping.

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  Pizzaface waking up with the text "Showtime".

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  Tower icon during The Crumbling Tower of Pizza.

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  Peppino's idle HUD during Pizza Time.

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  Gustavo & Brick's HUD during Pizza Time.