Game Introduction:

"Pizzar Tower" is a side-scrolling 2D platformer game. The gameplay can be simply understood as a blend of "Wario + Sonic". The incorporation of exaggerated stylized expressions in the game also makes it more in line with the preferences of players in the Western market.

The game incorporates a large number of environment destructible elements, allowing players to experience the exhilaration of continuous destruction of environment blocks and defeating enemies. At the same time, the game introduces a fast-paced parkour gameplay similar to "Sonic", making the gameplay rhythm more compact. This maximizes the exhilaration brought by the previous environment destruction elements, ensuring that the level experience will not feel tedious to the players.

In conclusion, I believe there are three main reasons why "Pizza Tower" has achieved such success in the Western market.

• The exhilarating experience of extensive environment destructible elements
• The excellent level flow experience brought by the fast-paced parkour elements
• The exaggerated stylized presentation methods

So, I will mainly analyze the advantages of the first two elements in 2D platformer games and try to extract why such games are so well-suited to the gaming preferences of Western players.

Game Analysis:

• Extensive environment destructible elements enhance the exhilaration of the game (Wario Land)

When it comes to "Pizza Tower", the vast majority of players will associate it with the game "Wario Land". The abundant environment destructible elements and exaggerated presentation methods in "Pizza Tower" are identical to those in "Wario Land".

The game sets a large number of interactive obstacle blocks on the player's necessary path. Players must constantly destroy the blocks on the way to progress in the game. This diminishes the emphasis on platform jumping elements in traditional 2D side-scrolling games, replacing it with the huge pleasure brought by continuous environment destruction.

Traditional 2D side-scrolling games emphasize "avoiding obstacles", while "Pizza Tower" emphasizes "charging ahead". What players need to do is not to find the path, but to create it. Compared with the level design elements of traditional 2D side-scrolling games that test players' divergent thinking, the pleasure brought by charging ahead using direct thinking is irreplaceable, greatly enhancing the player's gaming experience.

Not only the static obstacles in the game, but many enemies in the game can be defeated directly by charging, which further strengthens the exhilarating experience of "charging ahead" in the game.

• Fast-paced parkour gameplay optimizes game level flow (Sonic)

In addition to the exhilarating environment destruction elements, the fast-paced parkour gameplay in the game is also one of the reasons why "Pizza Tower" is well received by foreign players.

This speed-dominated way of passing levels inevitably reminds players of the classic game "Sonic". Compared to the meticulous level design of most 2D side-scrolling games, the game mode of fast-paced parkour games focuses more on the player's adaptability and immersion.

Most games known for their level design often require players to spend a lot of time and energy on level puzzles. Even though the sense of achievement after passing the level is strong, the gameplay often requires a calm and slow appreciation, and the overall game pace is relatively slow. Because the level design of these games is very detailed, almost every scene has a lot of elements and puzzles to attract players to explore. These types of games will to some extent reduce the requirements for game operation and adaptability, and instead value the player's understanding and observation of game mechanics.

On the contrary, the speed-dominated way of passing levels often doesn't focus too much on the level content, because players will sprint through the various scenes in the game, and they don't have enough time and energy to study the scene details of the level. This type of gameplay greatly reduces the design difficulty of level puzzles, and increases the game's test of the player's operation and adaptability. Because players need to pay attention to the game's terrain and monsters at all times during the sprint, and make various responses.

The fast-paced game mode also makes the game's own level flow experience more compact, because the need to constantly control the character to respond will increase the game's immersion (can be compared to racing games). Slow-paced puzzle-oriented 2D platform games can easily make players feel bored due to the slow pace, further losing interest in these types of games.

The compact level flow also further enhances the player's game experience. Compared to most games that impose a hard time limit to ensure a relatively compact game pace, the speed-oriented approach instead gives players complete control over the game pace, enhancing the player's control over the level flow and improving the game experience.

Player Research:

• Western players' preference for "classic nostalgia" games

As I mentioned in the analysis, we can find traces of "Wario Land" and "Sonic" in "Pizza Tower", which is also one of the reasons why "Pizza Tower" is so popular in the Western gaming market. Most Western players have been loyal fans of Nintendo and Sega since childhood, and have some gaming foundation and understanding of "Wario Land" and "Sonic". Moreover, Western players generally have a strong sense of nostalgia and fan sentiment, which can be seen from the previous success of the game "Sonic: Unknown Frontier" and the "Sonic" movie series at the box office in the West. "Wario Land" also has many loyal players and fans, but "Wario Land" has not been updated for a long time (over ten years). However, the appearance of "Pizza Tower" gave a surprise to the previous "Wario Land" players and responded to the players' expectations for Wario-like games.

• 2D side-scrolling players' emphasis on game exhilaration and level pacing

With the development of the gaming industry, more and more 2D side-scrolling platform games are beginning to focus on the level of detail in level design. More complex mechanisms are introduced into the relatively simple 2D side-scrolling platform games, and the level design also begins to lean towards the "Galaxy City" design mode. Both the level of detail in the map and the difficulty of mastering the mechanism have further increased, but this also requires players who just want to play 2D side-scrolling games to relax, to spend more time and energy studying game modes, making it hard to get the purest joy.

"Pizza Tower", with its simple and exhilarating gameplay combined with a compact and excellent level rhythm, perfectly meets the core gaming experience needs of most Western 2D side-scrolling players. This has made "Pizza Tower" the dark horse of the gaming world in recent times, standing out among a host of independent games.

Design Analysis:

• The game's strong operational features significantly raise the lower limit of gameplay proficiency

Based on the previous analysis, we can see that the fast-paced parkour 2D side-scrolling gameplay, similar to "Sonic", makes the game more of a test of the player's instant reaction and operation, reducing the test of understanding the game's level elements and mechanisms. However, this also leads to many players having difficulty getting started, because the game itself does not have a difficulty selection, but only designed a more difficult perfect mode. The perfect mode makes the game level have the challenge of replayability, to some extent raising the upper limit of game operation. However, the lack of difficulty adjustment means that the game's operational lower limit is fixed. If players can't meet the minimum game operation requirements, they may not be able to experience the fun of the game.

This part can also be improved very well, just by reducing the number of obstacles and enemies in the game level or enhancing the protagonist's abilities (increasing health, jump times, etc.), the game's operational lower limit can be lowered without reducing the player's operational feel, thus making it easier for more players to get started.

• The game is filled with edgy elements, making it difficult to appeal to all players

Although this part is not closely related to the gameplay, it is indeed a major issue for most players.

"Pizza Tower" adopts an extremely exaggerated form of presentation in terms of graphics, and the mouse-drawn and chaotic elements-filled visuals are a challenge to the players' aesthetics. Even if the gameplay and mechanics are excellent, they can't be completely divorced from the graphics. The game's own art style, which does not appeal to players, also raises the threshold for playing "Pizza Tower".

The game's music and sound effects content are even more edgy, the harsh sound effects and long-term repetitive music segments are indeed a test of some players' tolerance. This is one of the very few factors in "Pizza Tower" that can discourage players.

Summary & Outlooks:

The elements of scene destruction and fast-paced parkour in "Pizza Tower" also provide new references for the design of current 2D side-scrolling or other categories of games.

Scene destruction elements generally refer to the design of some interactively destructible tiles on the player's must-pass path in 2D side-scrolling platform games, not the entire scene can be destroyed (because 2D side-scrolling games still need a linear clearance experience, players cannot fully decide the level construction). This kind of design can give the game more striking elements, bring more exhilaration to the player through continuous strikes and destruction, thereby enhancing the player's gaming experience.

At the same time, the setting of scene destruction can also be introduced into more game categories. For example, the game "The Finals" that was tested a while ago incorporated a large number of scene destruction elements on the basis of FPS team competition, which also greatly enhanced the gaming experience.

Fast-paced parkour elements, that is, adding more speed-oriented designs in 2D side-scrolling platform games, increasing the player's movement speed, thereby increasing the game's test of the player's operational immediacy, thus enhancing the player's sense of immersion (because the game's pace is very fast, players find it hard to distract themselves).

This fast-paced parkour element can also be incorporated into more game categories. For example, the highly praised game "Ghost Runner" incorporated fast-paced parkour elements into the first-person assassination game, which greatly increased the game's pace and exhilaration. Although it significantly raises the lower limit of game operation, the high exhilaration of fast-paced single-round experience in a short time also makes players willing to try again and again even if they fail, just to make the cool operation they think.