Dolores Entertainment’s ‘A Pizza Delivery’ bills itself as a “surreal narrative adventure” game, and that it very much is. You’re a pizza delivery girl that goes by the name “B”, and right off the bat things don’t feel like they’re in the right place(s). Homes in the middle of barren fields, lopsided lights, walled-off areas that don’t lead anywhere. And in a sense, the “ugliness” of the world contrasts the colourful few cast members the player meets along the way. This is an experience about feeling alone in a world that should be your own, but for the characters within and likely B herself, they’re strangers to their own clothes.
A Pizza Delivery is a short game and quite linear, with a few puzzles here and there. Just about everything that dots the landscape presents itself more as part of the narrative rather than as a mechanical purpose—and sometimes, those features intertwine. Besides some collectibles you can pick up, just about everything B needs to reach her destination is on her: her trusty moped and the pizzas within. While you’re encouraged to share some pizza with the people you meet on your way to your recipients abode, but you don’t have to. Still, it’s odd to meet wanderers out in the middle of nowhere and sometimes, you really need that icebreaker to get across to someone else.
The interactions you have are the bulk of the adventure. But they are fleeting. Few in numbers, too. I found myself savouring every interaction because, for the short moments B and company share their struggles, they do so in a way that’s genuine. In a game that gets too on the nose with its central themes of being “stuck”, indulging in a moment of happiness with another person left me with a lasting impression in a such a way that not many other stories can pull off. Because sometimes, tossing a few stones across a lake is all you really need to do to connect with someone.
I think a lot of us often struggle with something, and A Pizza Delivery does itself few favours by stitching together a random set of experiences under self-doubt and confusion. But life really is just a road of things happening until it’s over—self reflection may be in order, but there’s no point wallowing in it. I really liked this game. ∎
A Pizza Delivery
Played on
Windows 11 PC
