The Pizza Pals Duo Turns DJ Sets of Glitchy Pop Into Playable Video Games
Photo: Andrew Hayward

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The Pizza Pals Duo Turns DJ Sets of Glitchy Pop Into Playable Video Games

Game developers turned pizza-themed DJs deliver playable games in one-of-a-kind sets.

It's Bit Bash 2015, Chicago's indie and alternative games festival, and two men in pizza-print shirts are doing something curious in a corner of the darkened warehouse. As glitchy, glistening pop tunes funnel through their MacBooks and blast through the speakers, they ecstatically jump and dance around to their own curated mixes.

Dozens of attendees start to take notice—some are even moving to the music, although not everyone seems to know how to react. That's because this isn't a typical DJ set, and it's not just the crew's pepperoni-adorned attire that sets it apart: the visualizer behind them isn't simply a bizarre mash-up of pizza imagery and gaming influences, but rather a playable video game built for the occasion.

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A DJ waves people near the stage to play the twisted, off-brand mash-up of Pac-Man and Asteroids featuring the performers' faces and pizza toppings. While one DJ keeps the beats and energy running high, the other manipulates the game for the audience. Even with controllers in hands, the first players aren't super clear on what's going on; a pulled-out cable soon forces one of the DJs to fumble beneath the table. But before long, everyone taking part is grinning, and the infectious joy spreads through the increasingly enthusiastic crowd.

This is Pizza Pals.

***

The Pals met through the Chicago game development scene. David Laskey, bearded and of varying hair colors and styles, is part of a small team behind an upcoming co-op action game called Tetrapulse. Benedict Fritz, meanwhile, clean cut with a boyish charm, co-created last year's Dudeski and is working on a new game with Ridiculous Fishing and Threes collaborator Greg Wohlwend.

Pizza Pals didn't begin as a DJ crew. It first came to life as a weekly online Twitch stream in spring of 2014 in which the two would grab a pizza, play a game, and chat with anyone who happened to be watching. (The name, "Pizza Pals," beat out other options like "Dave 'n Bensters" and "Post-Braidcore Gamesliving.")

One highlight, "Hey You, Pequodchu," finds them scarfing down deep dish from the great Pequod's while playing an obnoxious, 15-year-old Pokémon game.

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"I think Laskey gets me very excited about things that don't really make sense," concedes Fritz, who says they've also recorded unreleased podcast episodes about wearing jeans on a Saturday morning to relax. "I feed off of that in a way that makes it very fun to do stuff with [him]."

Photo: Brad Pector

They streamed steadily throughout much of 2014. When the call for performers came for last fall's first Bit Bash—which both had a hand in bringing to life—they jumped at the chance to take their collaboration from the stream to the stage.

Neither had ever been a DJ before. "I didn't even know where to begin with DJing stuff," Laskey said. His shaky pitch: "I have no idea, I have no equipment, and I have no sense of what I want to do. But that sounds awesome."

The Pizza Pals knew what they wanted their performance to be like, however. A major influence was a spirited DJ set by art and games collective Arcane Kids at the annual Wild Rumpus party—attendees could use NES Zapper guns to fling clip art onto the large screen behind the Kids, all while anime clips and Hello Kitty images rolled.

"I was dancing my ass off the whole time. It was amazing," Laskey said. "It was super fun, and I loved how it was like: let loose, be silly, and they made this goofy interactive thing that was really fun and simple."

Tough Coded, run by a masked man named Little Nando who generates intensely difficult shoot-'em-up levels on the fly for players on the stage, was another big inspiration. "It's like this weird mix between theatre, music, and games," Laskey said. "Between the two of those [events], that's what got me excited about DJ and live performance stuff."

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***

After plenty of practice, experimentation, and what Fritz describes as a "ramshackle" setup, the Pizza Pals debuted to the Bit Bash crowd in September 2014.

While not yet interactive, except for the slices of pizza being handed out, the performance captured the duo's spirit with a visualizer featuring Guy Fieri and an array of emoji and GIFs underscoring their frenetic song selections.

From the start, they've built their mixes via tracks from the vast community of SoundCloud composers and remixers, often gravitating toward songs with "a certain game-like energy," says Fritz. Sometimes their mixes go chill for a stretch, or dip into hip-hop; sometimes they're just loaded up with Ciara remixes. The Bit Bash 2015 set bounded between cutesy, glitched-out pop with pitch-shifted vocals, and dramatically remixed hit songs like "Ms. Jackson" and "Just Dance."

Upbeat as their sets tend to be, getting everyone in the crowd moving isn't a given, particularly at events where people would often rather interact with video games than music and performers.

"It's hard to engage people who are in a place to play games. It's hard to engage them on a level that they even look in your direction, in a way," Fritz said. "People don't know what to do when it's a laidback environment and there's a DJ. How do you stop people from being wallflowers?"

Fritz and Laskey both love to dance and occasionally go out to city clubs, but they find those spaces off-putting. "I think dance culture doesn't work out for me in a lot of ways. I like to go to bed early," Fritz said. "It's a very weird culture. It's great in a lot of ways, but going to a club is a very weird experience for me, and there's a lot of dissonance for me being in a club."

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"It's hard to find moments in which we can jubilantly celebrate dance music," Fritz said, given their adverse reaction to typical dance clubs. Bit Bash and other community events provide a comfortable setting amongst people with shared interests. "I can feel better about the environment, and this is an opportunity to experience what dance culture is all about, but in a context that fits me more."

Laskey believes that their silly demeanor helps warm up some of the more resistant people in the crowds, tempting them to dance as wildly as the Pizza Pals do onstage. "I'm not embarrassed or ashamed [by Pizza Pals] in the slightest," he asserts. "It's just so goofy, and we've lowered our barriers. We invite you to be ridiculous too."

Adding a playable game has helped bridge the gap, too: if you still can't be persuaded to dance, maybe you'll play a video game with the Pals.

***

The game was the missing piece that elevated the Pals' performance. One year after their debut at the Bit Bash, they were one of the highlights of the second event in August.

Dave Lang, head of Chicago's Iron Galaxy Studios, who saw Pizza Pals at both Bit Bashes, was impressed by their spirit. "I've never seen anyone do anything more joyfully than when those two don their pizza-print attire, take to the stage, and start to perform," he affirms. "I don't know how you could watch them and not have fun."

The Pals are open to performing outside of Chicago, perhaps at a GDC or Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) event—but admit that keeping things simple, fun, and low-stakes is crucial. Pizza Pals isn't a business or something they intend to do on a larger scale, even as their local fan base grows in size and admiration; it's a side venture, and a brief escape from working on lengthy game projects.

"We don't need anything back from it other than it's just fun to do," adds Laskey. "Keeping the nonsense nonsense, and then if there's an opportunity for people to get in on the fun in venues like this, then we're all for it."

"Just chill and goofy," he insists.