Heat Meter

## Physical description

### First demo appearance

Playtest (First Appearance)April 2021 Build (First Non-Playtester Build Appearance)

**Heat Meter** is an unused mechanic in Pizza Tower.

## Behavior

The Heat Meter was a glass bar on the player's HUD, which fills up with red color over time when enemies are defeated, but gradually empties itself if none are being defeated.

The more the bar was filled, the more points Pizza Toppings will give, but the player would lose more points upon taking damage. Additionally, as the bar filled, enemies would become faster.

## Enemy Behavior

In the April 2021 Patreon build, if the Heat Meter was filled up enough, enemies exhibited new behavior depending on the enemy, usually in the form of a new attack. However, no enemies that give transformations had any special Heat Meter exclusive attacks, only getting faster. The bar was also separated between 4 stages, when the bar fills up, the next stage starts. The player needs to collect points and defeat enemies to fill up the bar. Otherwise, after some time the bar will quickly drain.

In PT\_Eggplantv15, new attack behavior was removed. Instead, some of the enemies are marked as elite, and can use their Heat Meter attacks. The bar became a singular one, with different stages being reused for different animations, and the drain became much slower.

## Trivia

* The mechanic was similar to a mechanic from God Hand. It was originally showcased in a video that was posted on the Pizza Tower Discord Server.
	+ However, Pizza Tower Guy was ashamed of it back then and made a new video where the heat meter idea was edited out. However, it has since returned.
* Previously, when enemies were able to use their Heat Meter attacks they would have been given an alternate palette to signify that they had changed.
	+ Some of the alternate appearances that enemies were going to use when the Heat Meter was at a high level were first used in the Noise's Hardoween demo. In Noise's Hardoween, these only served as recolors and did not affect the gameplay.
* Shrimp Thug was originally planned to have a blue knife-throwing variant as a separate enemy, but it was scrapped after the Heat Meter used this attack for the regular Shrimp Thug.
	+ This was brought back in the final game as Elite Shrimp Thug.
* Besides Shrimp Thug's, some other attacks were reused for the final game:
	+ Bandito Chicken now only drops explosive bones instead of regular ones. The explosive bones do not leave regular bones.
	+ Tribe Cheese's axe became its only attack.
	+ U.F.Olive's grounded variant became its own separate enemy.
	+ Pizza Slug's gun was used for Elite Pizza Slug.

* The Heat Meter can still be accessed with the debug console, however, it's not available in the games current version.

## Gallery

### Regular Animations

Heat Meter's animation. At level 1 the animation does not play, at level 2 and onward, the animation speed increases, as well as changes the palette.
### Scrapped Animations

Original Heat Meter level 1 sprite.Original Heat Meter level 2 sprite.Original Heat Meter level 3 sprite.Original Heat Meter level 4 sprite.Second variation of Heat Meter level 1 idle animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 1 popping animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 2 idle animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 2 popping animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 3 idle animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 3 popping animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 4 idle animation.Second variation of Heat Meter level 4 popping animation.