Pizza Tower appears to be like and feels like virtually nothing else in gaming proper now, its wacky ’90s Cartoon Cartoon-style animation accompanied by a bafflingly catchy soundtrack—suppose basic blue sky, turn-of-the-millennium Sega vibes pushed to even higher heights. Of its two major composers, Ronan “Mr. Sauceman” de Castel got here to music late, with Pizza Tower not solely being his first skilled work, however first publicly obtainable music, interval. Catching up with the opposite important composer, ClascyJitto (additionally credited as Frostix), I discovered that whereas they have been publishing their very own work for lots longer, they’re additionally nonetheless in highschool.
I used to be at all times assured that my music was good, however seeing all these actual individuals affirm that could be very nice.”
ClascyJitto
Pizza Tower is already a recreation of the 12 months contender in a packed 2023, with a number of the crispiest, most impressed 2D platforming of the previous 10 years forming the dough beneath that attractive artwork and bangin’ soundtrack’s sauce, cheese, anchovies, pineapples, and many others. The indie devs labored on it for 5 years bolstered by an lively Discord, and that neighborhood is the place de Castel and ClascyJitto first got here to the mission as followers. “I joined the Discord manner early in growth and I began making remixes of a number of the early variations of the songs that have been out,” ClascyJitto informed me. De Castel had already been introduced on as composer by lead developer McPig, and each have been impressed by ClascyJitto’s takes on the early soundtrack. “Ronan favored the remixes and McPig prompt the concept of bringing me on as one other composer for the sport.”
The tracklist is fairly evenly cut up between each composers, with the coolness important menu theme Pizza Deluxe supplied by visitor composer Submit Elvis, and regardless of their completely different backgrounds and large geographic gulf (ClascyJitto is predicated on the east coast of the US, de Castel in France), they managed to create a large, but very cohesive soundtrack united by that propulsive, funky, virtually infectiously optimistic early aughts vibe. Significantly, it is nothing however pre-Monetary Disaster magic, a timeline the place Sega managed to maintain making {hardware}.
Pizza Tunes
The ice world (properly, freezer world) monitor Celsius Troubles is my favourite of ClascyJitto’s contributions, with this significantly dancy break within the tune partway via that basically will get me each time. The composer themself, in the meantime, singles out Wednesdays, What’s on the Child’s Menu, Wudpecker (additionally praised by de Castel after we spoke), and to my delight, tutorial theme funiculi vacation. It is a lowkey tackle nineteenth century Neapolitan anthem (and supply of the pizza supply tune within the Spider-Man 2 recreation) Funiculì, Funiculà.
Whereas a lot of ClascyJitto’s different music exterior Pizza Tower has a give attention to sampling and remixing (together with the monitor Lonely Poisoner, which they cited as a favourite), Pizza Tower’s OST required extra conventional composition, one thing they characterised as getting them exterior their consolation zone. “Making music for Pizza Tower is type of like a enjoyable little recreation for me,” ClascyJitto mentioned. “[It] undoubtedly makes me do issues I would not usually do.
“Like in Oregano Mirage & Celcius Troubles, the melodies are very lively in a manner. They transfer a complete bunch. I look again and surprise how I had the persistence to place in every word one after the other. These days I might get very drained doing that!”
It is such a fantastic soundtrack I might barely consider ClascyJitto continues to be of their teenagers. It wasn’t till we homed in on how Pizza Tower’s success had affected their life that I requested in the event that they needed to stability engaged on it with a day job, and so they informed me the “solely factor [they’re] actually balancing is faculty”—particularly highschool.
On the time of our dialog they have been chafing on the strict formalism of a music concept class—a bit ironic, given the circumstances. Although they attempt to maintain their work and persona on-line separate from their private life, ClascyJitto acknowledges “it might be actually humorous to tug the ‘are you aware who I’m?’ card.”
Except for leaving the choice of hitting a music instructor with a “I co-created a greatest promoting soundtrack” on the desk, ClascyJitto informed me contributing to Pizza Tower hadn’t rocked the boat on their life an excessive amount of: “It is undoubtedly grounded me in how a lot nothing modified in any respect.”
“I used to be at all times assured that my music was good,” they went on, “however seeing all these actual individuals affirm that could be very nice.” ClascyJitto continues to be cranking away with new work on SoundCloud and Bandcamp below the deal with RiZi, not too long ago releasing the album Hello-Velocity Explosion Gadget, whereas additionally tinkering on a pair video games, too: Earth Mechanica and Kipidon.
