Pepperman

* Normal
* Phase 2
* Mini

**Phil Pepperman**, better known as simply **Pepperman**, is the first boss and a antagonist of Pizza Tower.

## Description

Pepperman is a giant red bell pepper with limbs wearing a pair of white gloves and sneakers of the same color. Pepperman has big, blue eyes and is frequently seen sporting a great, confident grin on his face showing his teeth. His stem has shown to sometimes turn into a beret whenever he's focused in his artwork or admiring others' work.

His Boss Fight portrait depicts him in a more humanoid appearance and wearing a darker shade of red T-Shirt under a white artistic apron.

During fights in older demos, he was far bigger, and would change colors to orange, and then to light yellow depending on how many times he has been hit.

## Boss Room

To access the boss room, the player needs to pay Mr. Stick $100, or 10 Toppins.

The room is made out of purple bricks, full of Pepperman's artwork. As Peppino enters the boss fight, Pepperman is drawing a sad caricature of Peppino, which can be destroyed during the fight.

During the second phase, the background artwork starts laughing and the room is filled with fog.

## Boss Fight

### Phase 1

The phase is split between 5 attacks, that change after getting hit 2 times.

#### Shoulder Dash

Pepperman dashes towards the player until he hits the wall, giving an opportunity for the player to attack. At 8 HP after the player successfully jumps over or parries Pepperman's Shoulder Bash attack, he turns around and starts dashing in the other direction until hitting the wall.

#### Ground Pound

Pepperman jumps up in the sky and lands at the exact place the player is at. After the land, he is open for an attack. At 4 HP after landing, he bounces up towards the wall in the direction he is facing, then bouncing off it back to the ground, being open for an attack only in the air.

#### Art Marbles

At 2 HP, Pepperman constantly uses his double Shoulder Bash, while not giving any direct opportunity to hit him. The player instead needs to attack marble blocks, the first one appearing on the right at 2 HP, the second on the left at 1 HP. The marble blocks have 3 HP. After finishing the artwork, the player needs to let Pepperman to Shoulder Bash towards it, then he'll stop to admire it, giving an opportunity to attack.

#### Pepperman Drawings

At 8 HP, Pepperman Drawings start appearing from the corners of the arena. Once they spawn, they wait some time in the wall, then start slowly moving towards the other side of the arena, disappearing into the other wall. They can be destroyed by Pepperman, but deal damage if Peppino touches them at all.

#### Pepperman Statues

At 6 HP, Pepperman Statues start appearing at the top of the arena shortly before falling down. After reaching the floor, they get destroyed, but will hurt Peppino if they touch him on the way down.

### Phase 2

After getting hit 10 times, Pepperman's HP regenerates and his attacks become much faster. The marble blocks that drop during Art Marbles require 6 hits to be finished instead of 3.

#### Knight Pepperman Statue

The Knight Pepperman Statue works very similar to the Pepperman Drawings, except it has a bigger hitbox and it moves across the screen much faster. It also can destroy Pepperman Drawings and cannot be destroyed by Pepperman.

### End of the fight

After finishing the second phase, Pepperman shrinks down in size and runs away from the player when they get too close to him. When cornered against a wall, he jumps and starts running in the other direction. Any Pepperman artwork that was still on screen during the second phase is not removed, so the player needs to be careful to not get hit by them. He requires only a single hit to finish the fight, but he is also shrunk down only for a limited time. If the player does not hit Pepperman in time, he grows back up in size and performs Ground Pound with bouncing off the wall, requiring the player to hit him once more before he shrinks again.

### Boss Rematch

After beating the Final Boss’ 2nd Phase, the villain will bring in the four previous boss characters, and send each of them to attack. Despite each boss having 8 HP and extra 8 HP afterwards, 4 HP will be drained per hit. The player fights each of the bosses one by one, they use some of the same attacks as before. After defeating Pepperman, Gustavo will appear for the player to grab and throw him at the remaining 3 bosses to stun them.

Pepperman is the first boss fought. He does the same order of attacks as his original boss fight, but without the art-related attacks.

After 4 hits, Pepperman will go down, and the player will face The Vigilante.

## In the comics

Pepperman appears in *The Bad, The Ugly, and The Even Uglier* comics.

In The Bad, The Ugly, and The Even Uglier, he wears a cowboy hat and is first seen attacking a western town. He first goes to the Sheriff's building and finds The Vigilante there, who quickly surrenders after Pepperman asks if he was the sheriff. Afterwards, he robs the town's bank alongside a Pepperoni Goblin and a bandit Cheeseslime and ties up the banker and The Vigilante. However, soon after, right before he sets up camp there, he hears an explosion and is then attacked by The Vigilante, who had escaped. His fate is currently unknown, as the set of comics hasn't been completed yet.

## Pre-release

*For early appearances and scrapped ideas, see the pre-release page here: Pepperman/Pre-release*

## Trivia

* Pepperman's main attack seems to be inspired by Wario's Shoulder Bash, his signature move throughout the *Wario Land* series, which was the main inspiration for Pizza Tower's gameplay.
	+ However, the boss itself seems to take more inspiration from his first ever apparence as a boss in *Super Mario Land 2,* explicitly by it's heavy usage of ground-pounds, taking place inside a castle filled with statues, and his transformation into a smaller version of himself upon defeat.
* Pepperman was likely a nod to Spoiled Rotten, the first boss from *Wario Land 4*.
* In comic #4.5 of *The Bad, The Ugly, and The Even Uglier*, Pepperman is shown with green pupils, despite the fact that his eyes have always appeared blue. It has been suggested that his eyes turn green when he's scared, but that isn't the case in his in-game animations despite looking terrified when stunned, so it's most likely that this was just a continuity error.
* Pepperman is a hypocritical, contrarian artist, as confirmed by McPig.
* It has also been said that Pepperman's full name is Phil Pepperman, with him also being referred to as an apple.
* McPig stated that Pepperman would sound similar to Comic Book Guy, from The Simpsons.
* McPig has shared a concrete idea for a Pepperman spinoff game, titled American Pepperman. The gameplay would've centered around Pepperman travelling through the different states of America to spread his artistic influence, with enemies based off American iconography trying to stop him. McPig's referred to the gameplay style as a mix of Viewtiful Joe and Warioware, taking place in single screen challenges that move on to the next one when you beat it under a strict time limit, with the intensity and difficulty of each screen continually ramping up.
* Pepperman summoning crude drawings to fight for him is very similar to the main ability of the Painter from Castle Crashers.
* Despite being the first boss of the game, he has the most hit points of any boss.
* Upon entering this stage, the game's window will rename itself to "Fighting an artist in the Pizza Tower".

## Gallery

### Regular animations

Pepperman admiring his painting of Peppino.Pepperman turning around to look at Peppino.Pepperman preparing to laugh.Pepperman's laughing animation.Pepperman finishing laughing.Pepperman's idle animation.Pepperman preparing to Shoulder Dash.Pepperman Shoulder Dashing.Pepperman hitting the wallPepperman after running into a wall.Pepperman preparing to turn around.Pepperman turning around.Pepperman jumping.Pepperman preparing to Ground Pound.Pepperman falling during a Ground Pound.Pepperman landing after a Ground Pound.Pepperman rolling in the air.Pepperman in the air after getting hit.Pepperman contemplating a statue.Pepperman's hurt animation. Also used after Peppino goes enraged during the intro of the Pizzaface/Pizzahead boss fight's third phase intro and as his idle animation during The Crumbling Tower of Pizza.Pepperman's second phase idle animation. Also used as the initial idle animation during the Pizzaface/Pizzahead boss fight's third phase intro.Pepperman shrinking down.Mini Pepperman Idle.Mini Pepperman fleeing from the player.Mini Pepperman jumping.Mini Pepperman falling.Mini Pepperman defeat sprite.Mini Pepperman growing back up into regular Pepperman. Seen when you don't hit Mini Pepperman for long enough.Pepperman's walking animation. Appears during The Crumbling Tower of Pizza.
### Pepperman's Artwork

Pepperman's first drawing.Pepperman's second drawing.Pepperman's third drawing.Pepperman's first falling statue, a head sculpt.Pepperman's second falling statue, a bust sculpt.Pepperman's third falling statue, a fullbody statue of Pepperman flexing.Marble block.First statue's beginning process.First statue halfway finished.First statue, a muscular Pepperman posing.Second statue's beginning process.Second statue halfway finished.Second statue, a female body with the head of Pepperman.Third statue's beginning process.Third statue halfway finished.Third statue, a pizza-Pepperman statue resemblant of Pizzaface.Pepperman's Knight Statue.
### Arena

Pepperman's arena gate, a paint-covered stone archway with a carving of Pepperman on the top.Pepperman's arena gate background, Pepperman's face.Arena's ground sprite.Phase 1 background, where we can see The Pepperman Art Gallery.Phase 2 background.Background decoration #1. Fog.Background decoration #2. Fog.Pepperman's portrait of Peppino.
### In-game miscellanous

Pepperman's VS screen portrait.Pepperman's name on the VS screen.Pepperman's HP icon.Pepperman's Western District animation.Pepperman's grafitti in Western District.Pepperman's boss fight icon on Pizza Granny sign.Pepperman in the game's intro.Pepperman in the game's ending.Pepperman driving with his art as he intends to share his talent with the world. Appears in the ending.Pepperman losing in a hotdog eating contest against Brick. Appears in the ending.Pepperman in a costume party. Appears in the ending.Pepperman (along with the other bosses) chasing Peppino. Appears in the ending.Pepperman thinking about Peppino's offer. Appears in the ending.Pepperman looking at the tower, concerned in the ending.Pepperman dressed as some mad scientist. Seen at the floor 1 in Halloween update.Pepperman's grafitti in Oh Shit!
### Miscellaneous

Concept art of Pepperman alongside Clownmato.A sketch of Peppino fighting Pepperman featuring a scrapped feature where the game would look like a fighting game during boss fights.Concept artwork of various enemies and mechanics, including Pepperman.An image on the Steam page, showing Pepperman talking about his artwork, while The Noise points a revolver at Peppino.The original version of Pepperman's realistic portrait for the boss intro.Pepperman's Pizza Crawler sprite.Pepperman as a worm in some promotional art for a Pizza Tower Summer Sale.Doodle of Pepperman and other characters referencing the Donkey Kong Rap of Donkey Kong 64 made by McPig.
#### Noisette's Cafe Comic

Non-canon artwork of Noisette and Pepperman, giving an example of Pepperman's personality.Noisette getting scared over Peppermans maniac laugh.Noisette asking "Pizzaboy" (Gerome) to shoo Pepperman away, to which he executes with fantastic dance moves.Pepperman gets tired of Gerome's nonsense and leaves, however Noisette is getting concerned with how much Gerome is getting into whatever it is he's doing.Non-canon artwork of Pepperman and The Vigilante at Noisette's Cafe.
#### American Pepperman Concepts

Concept art of American Pepperman, showcasing Pepperman using multiple artforms as attacks.Concept art of American Pepperman, which visualizes the screen transitions.Concept art of American Pepperman, giving an example of the style.Concept art of American Pepperman, visualizing attack combos.