Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack Game Review

Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack Game Background

Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack is a horizontal platform adventure game from Flipline Games and the flagship game of the Papa Louie Arcade series. When evil pizzas come to life and attack the residents of Papa Louie’s apartment building, Papa himself must race into action to save his neighbors. Defeat the living food forces and use the pizzas to free his neighbors from their interdimensional prison cages.

How to Play Papa Louie: When Pizzas Attack

To select, left click with your mouse. Wait until the game loads, then select Continue on the bottom right corner of the welcome screen. The welcome screen’s controls are found on the right center edge. Select Start Game to begin or select How to Play to play the game’s tutorial.

On your keyboard, press the left and right arrow keys to move; pushing down on these keys will make you move faster. Press the down arrow key to crouch. Climb using the up and down arrow keys. You can also press the down arrow key to pick up and drop objects. To jump or glide, press the space bar; press and hold the space bar while jumping to glide. Press the Z key to swing the paddle; press and hold the Z key while moving to stay poised to attack. Press the X key to throw grenades. To pause the game or select a level, press the Enter key.

Although this game may load on touchscreen devices, its controls were optimized for desktops with keyboards.

Basic Gameplay Advice

The game is a platformer. Your goal is to reach the end of the level and rescue the apartment dwellers trapped in the cage. Move across the level and defeat any enemy you encounter. Defeat pizza monsters to turn them into weights, then use them to weigh down the pulley to move the cage up and free the imprisoned people inside.

Summary

The game begins with a cutscene describing the following plot:

Papa Louie is holding a free pizza day for all the tenants at the building his pizzeria is located in. Just as his employee Roy leaves to deliver the last of the pizzas, Papa discovers that the pizzas have come to life and become hostile. Sucked into an interdimensional hole formed from one of the pizza boxes, Papa Louie must defeat various food-themed enemies and rescue the tenants imprisoned by the pizzas.

Navigation

To get started, select the Start Game button on the welcome screen, then choose a save slot to begin. Your browser automatically saves your game progress and allows you to save up to 3 save profiles. If you’re playing for the first time, the cutscene explaining the game’s plot begins; select the Skip Intro button on the bottom right corner to immediately get past the cutscene.

On the desktop, move to the level you want to play using the left and right arrow keys. Once you’ve selected a level, press the Enter key to start it. Each level begins with a cutscene showing Papa Louie entering the interdimensional pizza holes.

From the tutorial onwards, you’ll occasionally see signs in the level. During the tutorial and the first few levels, the signs explain some of the actions you can do to effectively move around the level. As you progress, signs also appear that explain new level features that you might encounter.

Coins and Collectibles

Move around the level and pick up as many coins as you can. You can use these coins to buy more pepper flake grenades from Big Pauly (the first guy you rescue from the tutorial level). To buy more grenades, move down to the first floor of the building and walk toward the left edge, where the restaurant is. Each pepper flake grenade costs 10 coins. You can also pick up pepper flake grenades in the level itself.

Each level also contains 3 numbered coins, which are hidden in various parts of the level. There are 36 coins to collect.

Enemies and Combat

There are two ways to deal with regular enemies. The first is to swat them with a paddle (a pizza peel, used to slide pizzas in and out of the oven). You can The second is to toss a grenade at them. You can swat enemies with the paddle as many times as you can, but you need to be very close to them to do so.

The pepper flake grenades can be tossed from a distance, but you only get a few of them at any given time. You can only throw them from a specific distance and they can bounce back at you if they hit a wall. The grenade will harm Papa Louie if it hits him.

The pizza monsters are a critical enemy in this game. You need to vanquish them and carry them around to weigh down the pulley and free the tenants. Unlike regular enemies, pizza monsters cannot be defeated by swatting them with the paddle. To defeat them, you must wait until they shoot a blob of cheese, then swat that back at them. You can also take them out by shooting a grenade at them.

If you get hit by the blob of cheese, press the space bar continuously (at least 3 times in a row) to free yourself. Getting hit by cheese will not deplete your lives, but touching the pizza monster will.

Pizzas and Pulleys

Once the pizza monsters are defeated, they turn into pizza boxes. Pick them up and carry them across the level; be careful not to drop them, especially when crossing from the air. Before you attack with the paddle or toss a grenade, you must drop the pizza boxes. Pick them up after you defeat your foes.

You must carry the number of pizza boxes indicated on the bottom right corner of the screen to the end of the level. Once at the cage, hop on top of the cage, then hop to the platform opposite it while holding the pizza boxes. The weight of the pizzas and Papa Louie combined will weigh down the pulleys and raise the cage. The level ends when you free the imprisoned tenants from the cage.

Lives

You start the game with 5 lives, which appear as hearts located on the lower left side of the game screen. Each time Papa Louie touches an enemy or his hit by a moving hazard like a rock, he loses a life. You can collect hearts to replenish your lives; these are scattered around the level and can sometimes be found in unexpected places.

Lose all your lives and you fail the level. This is represented in-game by Papa Louie fainting and promptly getting kicked out of the pizza portal. You can replay the level as many times as you want. The coins and pepper flake grenades you collected will be retained when you enter the level again; the game will also restore the coins and levels, allowing you to collect them again.

Scoring

You earn points based on how fast you finish the level. You also gain 10 bonus points from collecting coins. Your score appears at the end of each level you successfully finish. Your game score is cumulative and is based on the sum of all the points you earn from every level you played.

Levels

Levels are unlocked sequentially. The game begins with a tutorial level that describes the game’s controls and objectives. Every subsequent level is sorted according to 5 stages, corresponding to the floors in the apartment building. Each stage has a theme, and all except the fifth one has 3 levels each.

• Multigrain Fields
• Pasta Jungle Ruins
• Marinara Rapids
• Sausage Mines
• Roof

There are a total of 13 levels (14 counting the tutorial). The final level is a boss fight against the game’s villain, Sergeant Crushida Pepper

Level Features

Over the course of the game, you’ll find several level features that can help or hinder you throughout your journey. From the start of the game, most new level features are explained by signs similar to the ones in the tutorial.

One of the earliest features you encounter are blimps. These move in a predictable back-and-forth pattern (either up and down or left to right) and allow you to cross over to parts of the level that are much higher up.

Some blocks can be smashed by the paddle; these are distinguished by their texture and can open up blocked pathways. You can also hit round boulders to clear your path and take out enemies. Be careful; the boulder will keep rolling once it starts moving and will harm Papa Louie if it hits him.

Ladders and ropes help you move to the upper parts of the level. The two have important differences, which will affect how you use them. Ladders, for instance, require only one hand; you can move up a ladder while carrying pizzas. Meanwhile, ropes need two hands. To climb up a rope, you’ll need to drop the pizzas nearby, then return to them afterward. Subsequently, they differ in the directions they lead to. Areas accessible by ladders are usually connected to the main path and will eventually lead to the cage. Areas accessible by rope are usually dead ends; you must return to the are

Sauce flows and conveyors function similarly but have key differences. Both act as a moving surface that carries Papa Louie and every other mobile object. Levels that have conveyors or sauce flows often have them arranged in such a way that you must walk against their flow to reach a desired destination. One big difference between the two is that you can sometimes change a conveyor’s direction by hitting a lever. To operate a lever, press the left and right arrow keys while next to it.

Spikes appear in some levels, often close to the end of very short conveyors. Hitting the spikes will make you lose a life.

Defeating the Boss

The final level is a boss fight, pitting you against Sergeant Crushida Pepper (Sarge). He begins the boss level with 7 lives (shown on the bottom right corner). In the cutscene, Sarge sprinkles his pepper onto a pair of pizzas to turn them into pizza monsters.

Sarge is immune to both of Papa Louie’s basic attacks. To damage him, you’ll need to first trap him by using cheese balls. These are fired by any of the two pizza monsters on the lower part of the level; redirect them toward Sarge using your paddle. Once Sarge is hit by the cheese, he will remain briefly trapped; use this to shoot pepper grenades at him.

He attacks by shooting pepper flake grenades. The first shot he makes has short range, while the next two travel a greater distance. Sarge laughs before attacking and jumps up and down after he attacks; bear this in mind when confronting him.

Advanced Playing Tips & Strategy

Attacking Foes

In general, you do not need to attack regular enemies; they neither provide a score bonus or any extra coins to collect. Taking them out often helps clear the path for you. Enemies move in a set pattern; they will often march in a straight line from left to right (or, if they’re on a ladder, up and down). Watch their movement closely, then attack when they are closer to you.

Hold down the Z key to poise for an attack; Papa Louie will only attack once you release the Z key. You can move while poised, which can allow you to position yourself to attack slow-moving enemies. Try to attack enemies in groups to take them out at once.

Paddle attacks are suitable for most enemies on flat surfaces and in inclines. They’re most effective when dealing with single or closely-packed small groups of enemies. The grenades, meanwhile, work better for large groups of closely-packed enemies, enemies with ranged attacks, or enemies on platforms that are higher up. In the early levels, try to attack with your paddle and save your grenades for later.

In later levels, some enemies may be hidden from view and emerge when you least expect them. Some might rest in the ground while others drop down from the ceiling. Be careful when moving and be prepared to evade and attack at a moment’s notice.

Exploring the Level

Explore each level as thoroughly as you can. Not only will this help you find the numbered coins you need to complete the game but also lead you to extra grenades and cash. That said, you do not need to collect all of the coins; you can safely leave behind coins that are too troublesome to collect.

Time your jumps with care when hopping between two blimps; they often move in a pattern that isn’t immediately obvious. Often, it’s prudent to wait a little while to get the pattern of movement before jumping.

As a rule, it’s better to move slowly on level ground and run when on a conveyor moving in the opposite direction. Running too fast on level ground can make you vulnerable to unseen enemies.

You will frequently need to drop the pizzas you collected before you reach the cage. Be sure to leave the pizza boxes somewhere safe and stationary; avoid dropping it in conveyors or sauce flows. See if you can clear the area of enemies before dropping the pizzas in your location of choice.

Educational Aspects

This game hones a player’s hand-eye coordination and reaction times. Its complex controls will also challenge players to think creatively when approaching enemies and level challenges.

Player Age Recommendations

This game is suited for older school-aged players and above. We recommend this game for players who like platform games.