Drive-by review: Order a Pizza
Contains unmarked spoilers for the beginning of the game.
(Originally written March 2024)
You guessed it. Another itch.io bundle game. This is one I intended to play sooner, but I got caught up in the cute animal games instead. Visual novels tend to be pretty short and low-effort, so I chose this one next.
A visual novel where you play as a divorced dad trying to order the perfect pizza.
Order a Pizza is a short Ren'Py visual novel about an unnamed divorced father arranging a get-together where his girlfriend, Margot, meets his rebellious teenage daughter, Abby, for the first time. To quote the game's description, "It's an awkward situation that only the right pizza toppings can solve." Interesting! It's mostly the mundane synopsis that caught my attention. There is no way in hell this is just about ordering a pizza.
You're thrown into this scenario with no prior context - this is a good thing, in my opinion. You get further by talking to Abby and Margot, and point-and-click exploring the room to collect clues on what kind of pizza to order. Abby wants "the usual", and Margot is fine with anything but has dietary restrictions. I only got two clues on the pizza to order this time; "The usual" has pepperoni, and Margot's dietary restriction is that she takes medication for her jalapeño allergy. Okay, time to order. Here's my first pizza: Pepperoni, anchovis, mushrooms, olives. No jalapeños! (I also ordered something I would like...) This order unlocked an ending... Where Margot dies because she also has celiac?! Then it rewinds.
Ohhh. Now I get it.
Explore their back stories and make a tough decision and everything will be FINE. No weird shit will happen. ...We swear.
This appears to be Order a Pizza's format - Each bad ending makes you backtrack to find out more. Revisiting the old hints reveals more information about the three characters. Okay, so "the usual" is pepperoni, but Margot is allergic to jalapeños and has celiac. So we need to have a gluten-free crust pizza with pepperoni and no jalapeño. But if I just met these three characters, is there anything else I'm missing? Oh right, "the usual" is pepperoni and mushrooms. ...Bad ending. Huh? This time, Abby says it's fine to remove mushrooms, I guess... Now there's more pizza options, including having toppings on one side only. What if I try to appeal to Abby and Margot by having mushrooms on the left? ...Another bad ending. FUCK!!!
After my third bad ending and rewind, I realized that this game isn't a matter of picking the right ingredients and getting the good endings. Nope, it's not that simple at all. (Just like real life...) But maybe that's the point. You have to keep making mistakes to go further into the game. It ends up turning into a clever character study with a resolution I didn't expect. The original draft I wrote of this was a glorified liveblog, but when I got to the very end I realized this game is better off played unspoiled. So uh, I hope spoiling the beginning doesn't deter anyone too much. LOL!!! Maybe the perfect pizza ingredients is the lesson we learn on the way.
Order a Pizza was a very pleasant surprise and I was hooked after the first ending alone. It was something I absolutely had to see to the very end. The art and music is good, and there's replay value in not only getting the inevitable bad endings, but the worse ones too. (That said, normal bad endings continue the time loop, but worse endings reset it.) It takes less than hour to finish and is a name your price game; Technically free, but I'm glad I got it in a bundle for $5 because I think it deserves a tip for not being the silly simulator it appears to be. Get it here on itch.io.