There’s something refreshingly chaotic about indie games that fully commit to a ridiculous idea and somehow make it work.
That’s exactly the feeling we got when we first saw Pizzapocalypse 2, an upcoming 3D platformer from Monkey Strike Games that turns a literal pizza into one of the strangest movement mechanics we’ve seen in years.
At first glance, it almost looks like a parody of old-school mascot platformers, full of exaggerated cartoon visuals, bizarre enemies, and absurd humor. But beneath all the melted cheese and slapstick chaos is a surprisingly creative concept.
Instead of relying on traditional movement systems, players use pizza itself as a tool for traversal, bouncing across levels, swinging through environments, launching themselves forward, and improvising their way through increasingly wild situations.
What makes the story even more interesting is that Pizzapocalypse 2 didn’t begin as some massive indie production. The project originally started as a much smaller student game before the team decided to expand the idea into a full release.
Since then, the game has exploded online, especially after a post on X unexpectedly pulled in nearly 4 million views, putting the tiny indie team in front of a massive audience almost overnight. You can also wishlist Pizzapocalypse 2 over on its Steam page.
We had the opportunity to ask the developers behind Pizzapocalypse 2 few questions about the game’s sudden rise on social media, how the project evolved from a student experiment into a full-scale release, what players can expect from the final game, and even another mysterious title the studio is quietly working on:
Considering the first game was free-to-play and received positive reviews, how are you approaching the sequel?
We took into consideration the reviews and playtests of the first game when deciding the main differences: an unlocked camera, a more cartoony art style and major improvements in all aspects of how the game feels.
The original game was about 15 – 60 minutes long depending on how many achievements you were going for. With the new game, we aim to deliver an experience spanning multiple hours over numerous different countries, tons of new pizza moves, robots to play with, unlockable costumes and a narrative to tell the world’s story!
Were you surprised by the amount of attention your post on X and other social media platforms received?
We have always felt like the platformer genre has a big and dedicated fan base, but we were still pleasantly surprised by the numbers! Of course, being part of a twitter trend helped us, but we have been grinding our social media push for months and feel like we are getting the hang of it.
Did that viral attention translate into more interest in the game, such as increased wishlists or follows, if you’re able to share any numbers with us?
While we can’t share exact numbers, most of our wishlists come from social media posts that take off. Usually from our own pages, but we have also seen a surge of interest when other channels post us.
You mentioned that you’re currently working on two games at the same time?
The first Pizzapocalypse was originally a student project, but as our final year of university approached, the whole team was excited to tackle a full version or sequel. We took the opportunity to do just that with the team we had!
In between the original game and this sequel, a smaller group of developers made Drink Up, Cowboy! in our evenings, weekends and vacations, all based on a game jam we did two years prior.
This ended up in two Monkey Strike teams working simultaneously on two different games. We share a lot of the work and developer knowledge between the games to try to make it more manageable.
What can players expect from Pizzapocalypse 2, and what were the main inspirations behind the game?
The whole team loves platformers, from the classics of Mario 64 and Rayman to modern hits like Astro Bot and Indie beloveds like A Hat in Time. We try to take the best parts of each game and make it our own.
Players can expect a fun & light-hearted adventure in Pizzapocalypse 2. We tell a heart-warming and funny story about a small-time chef going against a greedy corporation putting Pizza-in-a-Can.
The game is approachable for beginner gamers while also offering a high-skill ceiling and optional challenges to the more hardcore platform enjoyer.
How many people are currently part of Monkey Strike Games, and how did the studio come together?
As we have been developing these games as students, there have been a few members joining and leaving throughout the year of development, for example to go to internships. Currently, about 12 people are actively working on the game.
The studio was founded in 2024 by Genna Khudilaynen and Dean Gray. We met each other in our first year of studies and worked together on many different projects throughout the years. After June, we will be located in the B’Game incubator, which is an incubator in the same city (Breda, Netherlands) as our university.
The fact that there is this well working ecosystem here for new studios also made it much easier for us to take such a risk.
Finally, how important do you think marketing is for an indie studio today?
The social media algorithms are very opaque, hard to understand and can feel very harsh. However, we do think the current social media landscape can be very helpful to validate some of your early ideas much easier than before.
It also enabled us to gain a huge reach without any funding, so it has definitely been worth it to invest some time. It is not more important than the development, as your game’s quality is a huge part of how effective your marketing will be.
We are lucky that we have a sizeable team, and Genna has 15 years of experience on YouTube (Channel: MrWoodenSheep), so he is able to handle a lot of the content production.
