I. The Basics
Pizza Palace is a fun and challenging game that combines strategy and precision mouse-clicking as you attempt to serve a progressively long and demanding line of customers in your restaurant. On each level, there are a number of customers who come into the shop and order a pizza. There are rumored to be 20 levels in the game (which I am attempting to verify). The process of making a pizza is simple enough: click on a customer on the left side of the screen to take his order; go to the right side of the screen and program a pizza maker to make the size of pizza corresponding with that order (either a quarter, half or whole pizza); go to a topping station at the bottom of the screen and apply anywhere from one to three toppings (unless the customer orders a plain cheese pizza, in which case you can skip this step); put the pizza in one of two ovens at the top of the screen; and, finally, when the pizza is done cooking, deliver it to the customer who ordered it. While this sounds simple, the number of customers and the amount of toppings they want on their pizzas gradually increases from level to level. By level 11, you will be running back and forth between double-digit customers, three pizza makers, three topping stations and two ovens. It gets very hectic very quickly!
You start out with one oven, one pizza maker and one topping station. As you earn money by selling pizzas, you can use those funds to buy more equipment and upgrade the equipment you already have. Part of the strategy in the game is figuring out how to upgrade your equipment, and the quicker you service your customers, the more money you will have to do it. How much money you make on each pizza depends on the type of pizza you make and how quickly you make it. The money for the pizza alone (disregarding tip) is as follows:
1/4 pizza, 0 topping = $20
1/4 pizza, 1 topping = $30
1/4 pizza, 2 toppings = $45
1/4 pizza, 3 toppings = $60
1/2 pizza, 0 topping = $45
1/2 pizza, 1 topping = $55
1/2 pizza, 2 toppings = $70
1/2 pizza, 3 toppings = $85
1/1 pizza, 0 topping = $100
1/1 pizza, 1 topping = $110
1/1 pizza, 2 toppings = $125
1/1 pizza, 3 toppings = $140
These amounts are constant. They do not change as you advance in the game, although you will earn more money as you go up in levels because you'll be making more pizzas with more toppings. In addition, each customer has the potential to tip you up to $25 for the pizza he ordered. But, the more you keep your customers waiting, the more your tip drops -- from $25, to $10, to $5, to $2, to $0. If you're really slow, the customer will get exasperated and leave before you can give him his pizza. In addition to upgrading your kitchen appliances, you can upgrade your cook (Berry) twice during the course of the game to make her run faster.
The game gives you two "lives" -- or, put differently, one do-over. If you fail to earn enough money on any particular level, you will be given one more chance to complete that same level. One more failure in the game, however -- on
any level -- and it's game over.
After playing Pizza Palace for a couple of days, I noticed that there is a pattern to every level of the game. In other words, each time you play a particular level, there is the same number of customers, and each customer on that level orders the same size pizza with the same number of toppings. The toppings the customers order may change from game to game. But, for example, each time you play level 1, there is just one customer who orders a quarter-sized pizza with one topping. Each time you play level 2, there are six customers, and all of them order quarter-sized pizzas with one topping except customers 4 & 6, who order quarter-sized pizzas with no toppings. If you make it to level 13, you'll find that all 17 pizzas are quarter-sized and have between 1 and 3 toppings (i.e., no cheese pizzas).
Memorizing these patterns is a key to advancing further in the game. Below, I provide details on the patterns and also provide some tips I have learned from playing the game.
II. The Level Patterns
Pattern recognition offers two distinct advantages. First, it allows you to program the pizza machines on the right-hand side of the game
before you take a particular customer's order. This is a significant time saver. For example, let's say you are playing level 7 of the game and have just made a whole pizza for customer 5. If you know the pattern for level 7, you'll know that the next three pizzas will be quarter-sized cheese pizzas (i.e., no toppings) and, thus, the instant you pick up the whole pizza to take it to a topping station, you can program your pizza machines to start making quarter-sized pizzas, even if you have not yet taken orders from customers 6, 7 & 8.
Second, knowing in advance how many toppings will be on each pizza will assist your strategic planning. If a pizza has two or three toppings, you may want to take it to a topping station that you've upgraded, so that the toppings will be applied more quickly. If you know a pizza is going to have three toppings, you won't need to take the customer's order before you start applying them. And if a pizza has no toppings, you'll know that you can immediately transfer it to an oven. Thus, knowing how many ingredients will need to be put on each pizza in advance can be a huge help.
Below I have listed the size of the pizza and the number of toppings ordered by each customer on levels 1 through 15. As I (or others) progress further in the game, I will add additional levels. I have committed this list to writing on a notepad that I keep next to me and use as a guide as I play the game. I'm hoping that this will help me memorize the patterns in the game more quickly. The fraction below represents the size of the pizza (1/1 meaning a whole pizza), and the number in parentheses is the number of ingredients on each pizza. In addition, I have listed in parentheses next to each level the maximum amount of money you can earn on that level if every customer gives you a $25 tip.
Level 1 (55)
Customer 1: 1/4 (1)
Level 2 (310)
Customer 1: 1/4 (1)
Customer 2: 1/4 (1)
Customer 3: 1/4 (1)
Customer 4: 1/4 (0)
Customer 5: 1/4 (1)
Customer 6: 1/4 (0)
Level 3 (360)
Customer 1: 1/4 (1)
Customer 2: 1/2 (0)
Customer 3: 1/4 (1)
Customer 4: 1/4 (1)
Customer 5: 1/2 (1)
Customer 6: 1/4 (0)
Level 4 (435)
Customer 1: 1/4 (1)
Customer 2: 1/4 (0)
Customer 3: 1/4 (2)
Customer 4: 1/2 (0)
Customer 5: 1/2 (1)
Customer 6: 1/4 (2)
Customer 7: 1/4 (0)
Level 5 (560)
Customer 1: 1/2 (2)
Customer 2: 1/4 (1)
Customer 3: 1/2 (1)
Customer 4: 1/2 (0)
Customer 5: 1/4 (1)
Customer 6: 1/4 (1)
Customer 7: 1/2 (1)
Customer 8: 1/4 (2)
Level 6 (645)
Customer 1: 1/2 (2)
Customer 2: 1/4 (1)
Customer 3: 1/2 (1)
Customer 4: 1/1 (0)
Customer 5: 1/4 (1)
Customer 6: 1/4 (2)
Customer 7: 1/2 (2)
Customer 8: 1/4 (2)
Level 7 (745)
Customer 1: 1/4 (3)
Customer 2: 1/4 (1)
Customer 3: 1/2 (0)
Customer 4: 1/4 (0)
Customer 5: 1/1 (2)
Customer 6: 1/4 (0)
Customer 7: 1/4 (0)
Customer 8: 1/4 (0)
Customer 9: 1/2 (3)
Customer 10: 1/2 (2)
Level 8 (1000)
Customer 1: 1/1 (3)
Customer 2: 1/4 (2)
Customer 3: 1/2 (0)
Customer 4: 1/4 (1)
Customer 5: 1/1 (3)
Customer 6: 1/4 (2)
Customer 7: 1/4 (0)
Customer 8: 1/2 (2)
Customer 9: 1/2 (2)
Customer 10: 1/4 (3)
Customer 11: 1/4 (3)
Level 9 (1075)
Customer 1: 1/1 (3)
Customer 2: 1/2 (2)
Customer 3: 1/4 (1)
Customer 4: 1/4 (2)
Customer 5: 1/2 (3)
Customer 6: 1/1 (1)
Customer 7: 1/1 (0)
Customer 8: 1/2 (3)
Customer 9: 1/4 (2)
Customer 10: 1/4 (2)
Customer 11: 1/4 (2)
Level 10 (1200)
Customer 1: 1/4 (2)
Customer 2: 1/4 (0)
Customer 3: 1/4 (3)
Customer 4: 1/1 (1)
Customer 5: 1/4 (0)
Customer 6: 1/4 (1)
Customer 7: 1/2 (2)
Customer 8: 1/4 (0)
Customer 9: 1/4 (2)
Customer 10: 1/4 (0)
Customer 11: 1/1 (2)
Customer 12: 1/4 (1)
Customer 13: 1/1 (2)
Customer 14: 1/4 (3)
Customer 15: 1/2 (0)
Level 11 (1260)
Customer 1: 1/2 (2)
Customer 2: 1/1 (2)
Customer 3: 1/2 (3)
Customer 4: 1/4 (2)
Customer 5: 1/4 (0)
Customer 6: 1/2 (0)
Customer 7: 1/4 (3)
Customer 8: 1/1 (2)
Customer 9: 1/2 (2)
Customer 10: 1/4 (2)
Customer 11: 1/4 (2)
Customer 12: 1/1 (3)
Customer 13: 1/4 (3)
Level 12 (1355)
Customer 1: 1/2 (3)
Customer 2: 1/1 (1)
Customer 3: 1/2 (1)
Customer 4: 1/4 (3)
Customer 5: 1/2 (0)
Customer 6: 1/1 (1)
Customer 7: 1/2 (3)
Customer 8: 1/2 (3)
Customer 9: 1/1 (2)
Customer 10: 1/4 (2)
Customer 11: 1/4 (1)
Customer 12: 1/4 (1)
Customer 13: 1/2 (3)
Customer 14: 1/2 (1)
Level 13 (1160)
Customer 1: 1/4 (2)
Customer 2: 1/4 (1)
Customer 3: 1/4 (2)
Customer 4: 1/4 (1)
Customer 5: 1/4 (3)
Customer 6: 1/4 (1)
Customer 7: 1/4 (2)
Customer 8: 1/4 (3)
Customer 9: 1/4 (1)
Customer 10: 1/4 (3)
Customer 11: 1/4 (2)
Customer 12: 1/4 (1)
Customer 13: 1/4 (3)
Customer 14: 1/4 (1)
Customer 15: 1/4 (3)
Customer 16: 1/4 (2)
Customer 17: 1/4 (1)
Level 14 (1735)
Customer 1: 1/1 (2)
Customer 2: 1/2 (3)
Customer 3: 1/1 (2)
Customer 4: 1/4 (0)
Customer 5: 1/4 (1)
Customer 6: 1/1 (3)
Customer 7: 1/4 (2)
Customer 8: 1/1 (2)
Customer 9: 1/2 (0)
Customer 10: 1/1 (1)
Customer 11: 1/2 (2)
Customer 12: 1/4 (1)
Customer 13: 1/1 (3)
Customer 14: 1/4 (1)
Customer 15: 1/4 (3)
Customer 16: 1/1 (0)
Customer 17: 1/4 (1)
Level 15 (950)
Customer 1: 1/4 (2)
Customer 2: 1/1 (3)
Customer 3: 1/2 (2)
Customer 4: 1/4 (2)
Customer 5: 1/1 (3)
Customer 6: 1/1 (0)
Customer 7: 1/2 (2)
Customer 8: 1/2 (2)
Customer 9: 1/4 (1)
Customer 10: 1/4 (3)
Customer 11: 1/1 (3)
Customer 12: 1/4 (0)
Customer 13: 1/4 (0)
III. Tips 1. Upgrading -- everyone wants to know the best strategy for upgrading your pizza-making abilities. I have made it to level 14 in the game, and the strategy that works best for me is as follows. After level 2, I upgrade my shoes. After level 3, I upgrade my shoes again. After level 4, I save my money and do not do any upgrades. Then, after level 5, I upgrade my oven. You will note that the oven takes longer than the pizza machines or topping stations to perform its task. I find that when you start making whole pizzas (the first of which appears on level 6), it's imperitive to have an upgraded oven, so that the pizzas cook faster. When there's a whole pizza in the oven, you can't fit any quarter or half pizzas in the oven as well, so it slows things down considerably. The quicker you can upgrade your oven, the better. After level 6, I buy a second pizza maker. Then, after subsequent levels, I buy a second topping station, upgrade a topping station, buy a second oven, a third pizza maker, and a third topping station. Then, I start upgrading the rest. At this point, you've got two stoves, three pizza makers and three topping stations going, so it's pretty chaotic. By the time you reach level 13 or 14, all of your equipment should be fully upgraded.
You may find that a different upgrading strategy works for you, and please post if you think there's a better way to go.
2. You can cook multiple pizzas at once. Each oven has the capacity to cook a single, whole pizza at a time. Thus, as noted above, if you have a whole pizza in the oven, you can't add any more pizzas to that oven until the whole pizza is removed. But, if you're cooking a half pizza, you can add another half pizza or one or two quarter pizzas to the same oven. If you're cooking a quarter pizza, you can add up to three more quarter pizzas, or a half pizza and a quarter pizza.
3. The bigger the pizza, the longer it takes. It takes longer to make, cook and apply toppings to a whole pizza than it does to a smaller pizza. Thus, you may want to use your upgraded pizza makers, topping stations and ovens on your larger pizzas.
4. The more toppings, the longer it takes. It takes longer to apply toppings to and cook a pizza with more toppings than it does to a pizza of the same size with fewer toppings. So, again, consider using your upgraded topping stations and ovens on your 2 and 3 topping pizzas.
5. Don't skip the first level. Round 1 is really easy -- just one quarter pizza with one topping. Although the game gives you the option of hitting a "skip" button to avoid the level altogether, I don't recommend doing this. The 55 dollars you earn from that initial customer will help you buy upgrades down the line.
6. Pizza "storage." There are times when you can save time by transferring a pizza from one of your pizza makers to one of your topping stations for "storage purposes." The tutorial below provides an example of how I use a topping stations to "store" a plain cheese pizza on level 7. This can be a good time saver in later levels.
7. Stopping Berry. You can press the space bar to stop Berry at any time during the game. So, if you give Berry a command that you regret, rather than wait for her to reach her destination, you can press the space bar and immediately give her a new command.
8. Being a quitter. If you mess up and are convinced that you have no chance of passing a particular level, you can press the "Q" on your keyboard to quit the level. This will count as a loss, but it will save you the agony of seeing a bunch of frustrated customers get "steamed" about your slow service.
9. Going out of order. You are not required to serve customers or make pizzas in any particular order. Sometimes, you will make more money by quickly serving a customer who is in the middle or in the back of the line than you would if you served the first customer in line and delayed serving another customer.
10. Programming or sequencing commands. This aspect of the game is crucial as you go up in levels. You will notice that when you give Berry commands, a number appears on the item you click. Immediately after giving one command, you can click on something else that you want Berry to do once she finishes with the first command. For example, let's say you've just delivered a pizza, you need to make another one, and you have one in the oven. You can click on the appropriate circle on the pizza maker, then immediately click on a finished pizza in the oven, and then immediately click on the customer to whom you want to deliver it. You will see that a number two or three will appear on your subsequent commands to show the order in which you've told Berry to accomplish her tasks. Mastering this feature of the game will help you a great deal. As you will learn, however, the sequencing doesn't always work. For example, on my computer, it doesn't work at the topping station. Say, for example, you're trying to put all three toppings on a single pizza. You can't just click them in sequence and expect Berry to apply all of the toppings to that pizza. Instead, you have to wait until Berry has applied one topping before clicking the next. I'm not sure if this is a glitch or if it's intentional, but you will learn when you can and cannot use sequential commands as you play the game.
11. A tutorial. Finally, let me give you a detailed example of how I have used my list of levels to advance in the game. Level 7 was hard for me the first couple times I played it, but now that I know the pattern, it's a whiz. There are 10 customers on Level 7. The last 5 are easy: three quarter-sized cheese pizzas followed by two half-sized pizzas with multiple toppings. So, if I get through the first 5 customers without slipping up, the level is easy. Based on my upgrading strategy, I've got the fastest shoes, an upgraded stove, one topping station and two pizza makers when I get to this level. When I look at the list, I see that the level starts with two quarter pizzas, a half pizza, another quarter pizza and a whole pizza. So, after I do my upgrade and before I start the level, I say the following over and over in my head: "quarter, quarter, half, quarter, whole." Once I've repeated this several times, I start the level and immediately go to my two pizza makers and program two quarter-sized pizzas. Then I race to the counter and take the first two customers' orders so I know what toppings to apply. Then I pick up the first pizza, program that pizza maker to make a half pizza, and take the pizza to the topping station and start applying the first of the three toppings. Then I pick up the second pizza, program that pizza maker to make a quarter pizza, and start applying the topping for that one. When the toppings are affixed, I take both quarter pizzas to the oven. Then I pick up the half pizza from the first pizza maker, program a whole pizza, and take the half pizza straight to the oven (it doesn't have any toppings). After I've delivered the first two pizzas, I put the quarter pizza in the oven (again, no toppings), and start putting the toppings on the whole pizza. While the whole pizza is cooking, I can make all three quarter-sized cheese pizzas that are next in line. Even though I only have two pizza makers, I can take a quarter-sized pizza from one of them and put it on a topping station for storage purposes. Then I can make the thrid quarter-sized cheese pizza. When I take the whole pizza out of the oven and deliver it, I can immediately put all three quarter-sized cheese pizzas in the oven and start making the last two pizzas. In the end, the level is fairly simple because I know the sequence in advance. I haven't memorized the entire level yet. But I've memorized the last 5 pizzas, and I can use my "cheat sheet" to drum the first 5 pizzas into my head before the level starts.
That's all for now. Good luck with your pizza making. Again, I'll update this thread with the patterns for additional levels as I figure them out.
Re: Pizza Palace Patterns: a Method to the Madness 
Re: Pizza Palace Patterns: a Method to the Madness 
Linear Mode
