games you can play while eating a cheese pizza

title says it all really. any video game you could reasonably play while also trying to eat a big hot cheese pizza.

title does not necessarily imply games that can be played one-handed - if you can make a reasonable argument for how the game could be competently played two-handed while also maintaining a reasonable rate of pizza consumption, please do make your case here!

i have also decided to employ a ranking system here, whereby rank is proportionate to enjoyment of simultaneous pizza consumption and game consumption. the higher the rank, the more likely you will be to enjoy yourself while eating a cheese pizza and playing said game. when suggesting a game, please consider where you feel that your chosen game would rank on the grid below.

can be played entirely with a mouse, has the option to auto-page dialogue, and doesn't require all that much player input while conversations are happening.

you could verily happily eat a pizza while playing this game and not find yourself in many situations where your pizza was preventing you from enjoying the game.
stand-in for all advance wars games.

turn-based games in general are kinda cheating here, but please do consider how much input the player has on their turn and the play-wait cycle of each turn-based game.

for example, in advance wars, you are required to input all your commands before handing off to the CPU or human opponent. this means you could technically take a bite between each troop command, or just wait until your turn is over and then eat a full slice while watching your enemy make their moves.

this flexibility leads me to believe that you could enjoy your pizza in a number of different ways while playing advance wars.
SEE: advance wars
the great thing about TSC is that you can just idle your thumb on the button and the text will page through automatically, allowing you quite a lot of pizza-eating options.

situations where the player is required to input directions as well as button inputs may prove to be a pizza-eating obstacle but lmao lets be real, this game is basically like reading a book most of the time.

TSC has the edge over reading a book, though, because auto-scrolling text is a helluva lot easier than turning pages with greasy fingers - hence the high rank on this list!
SEE: The Silver Case

even less player input than TSC means you have even more time to eat pizza.
any game that only requires a single button input is very likely to rank high here
shigsy did say this game's defining characteristic was its ability to be played with one hand, which leaves another hand free to hold/move pizza at all times
any pokemon game, really, but especially the early ones - most of the time you only either need to press a directional input or a button, which means you can very easily alternate your pizza between each free hand!
an be played entirely with the left hand (L button + Select button + D-pad) , so I'd say it's possible to eat a slice in the right.
SEE: divekick
stand-in for all Civ games
stand-in for all "The Sims" games

17

"similar to super mario run, littlewood is also capable of being played with one hand and is not so mechanically intense that you will be distracted away from your pizza" - jobosno
"Super Mario Odyssey is also a surprising example of this - you could map A/B (jumping) to L/R, L/R (camera reset) to the d-pad buttons, use motion controls for Cappy and be almost completely unimpaired."
"I feel like the Wii version of Skyward Sword gives you PLENTY of time to eat pizza during its copious start n stops. Perhaps somewhere in the middle of the ranking" - someone who hates skyward sword
probably not against a real player

28

"Lived experience" - eightwind
"Super hexagon, the only controls are left, right, and the button to start and respond, it also has music so you can jam out while enjoying a nice slice of pizza" - nightblade

24 Comments


2 years ago

I hope "eating a cheese pizza" isn't a euphemism for something else...

2 years ago

similar to super mario run, littlewood is also capable of being played with one hand and is not so mechanically intense that you will be distracted away from your pizza

2 years ago

that being said it would probably be on the lower-middle end. eating pizza is merely possible due to the game's design, but i wouldn't say it's among the greats of pizza games

2 years ago

@gyoza this list is about eating a cheese pizza while playing a video game

2 years ago

You can play as a cheese pizza while eating a cheese pizza in Pac-Man!

Using the Nintendo Switch's button remapping features, many games can be reasonably played (with some caveats) using a single Joy-Con. the easiest examples are most of the games on NES Switch Online, where ZL/ZR and L/R can be mapped to A and B depending on your preferences, but games like Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 and Downwell are also perfectly playable this way.
Super Mario Odyssey is also a surprising example of this - you could map A/B (jumping) to L/R, L/R (camera reset) to the d-pad buttons, use motion controls for Cappy and be almost completely unimpaired.

...with that logic, though, I'd honestly make the claim that a vast majority of games, especially on PC, are pizza friendly. I played a lot of 2D platformers on keyboard when I broke my dominant arm as a kid - I'd mapped up/down/left/right to RFDG and used space and Z as my primary and secondary buttons. It was actually surprisingly doable!

2 years ago

i just realized that by giving out my keyboard mappings i implicitly gave away which side my dominant arm is

2 years ago

EarthBound/Mother 2 can be played entirely with the left hand (L button + Select button + D-pad) , so I'd say it's possible to eat a slice in the right.

2 years ago

PLEASE adhere to the list policy of suggesting a ranking of your video game vis a vis pizza consumption, we dont want this descending into anarchy

2 years ago

I would make an argument for Doom, at least in the olden days where the most common way of moving was tank-style with the arrow keys and shooting was mapped to the control keys. Provided it's right control, the most action-heavy buttons could be accessed with one hand pretty easily

2 years ago

It's probably a really low ranker tho

2 years ago

I feel like the Wii version of Skyward Sword gives you PLENTY of time to eat pizza during its copious start n stops. Perhaps somewhere in the middle of the ranking

2 years ago

Oh, in that case, I'd argue somewhere in the top 5-7... On one hand, I have actual visual evidence of such an event occurring ( https://youtu.be/bkX1o81KEkU?t=25 ) which might place it high based on the amazing footage alone! But I can see somebody potentially getting so engrossed in the game (particularly the more climactic/emotional parts) that they'd forget about the slice in their hand, letting it go cold and uneaten... I'd say it's best for those periods when you have to grind, or navigating a particularly maze like area or dungeon, which there are plenty of!

2 years ago

Oh right, Pokémon Let's Go! That's only playable with one-handed controls if you're playing it docked. Considering that it's a turn-based RPG with input methods designed for one-handed play, I'd imagine it'd rank fairly high on the cheese pizza tierlist.
Dota 2

Lived experience

2 years ago

neo turf masters can reasonably be played with one hand while enjoying a delicious cheese pizza

2 years ago

i would place it high up there

also some matchups in samurai shodown v special are known to be played using only one hand (thus allowing for pizza consumption), but given that these are so few in number it must be dead last here

2 years ago

what happens if i attempt to play these games while eating a pepperoni pizza, is that still possible?

You could probably play Seaman with pizza in one hand pretty easily. You're very rarely going to have to be pressing more than one button at once, with most of what you do being talking, and there's long stretches where you have to wait for seaman to want to talk to you, providing ample time to eat in peace. Only issue would be spitting pizza on the mic, I suppose, but that could probably be prevented fairly easily. Point is, it'd probably be one of the easiest.

2 years ago

HEY i just want to make it clear that i have been an avowed Skyward Sword Liker for TEN YEARS

2 years ago

perhaps animal crossing new horizons? while clicking through menus and fishing?
sw/sh has a one handed mode apparently

2 years ago

x-com (ufo defense, but the newer ones, too)
planescape: torment
slay the spire
princess maker 2

hmmm i think tonight is pizza night

2 years ago

transistor is practically DESIGNED for pizza consumption, even having a short cutscene in which the main character gets a free pizza and chills out to eat it for a bit. the gameplay is real-time but lets you freeze time to plan out moves too, but a clever player could use those time freezes to instead eat some pizza! it's almost as if supergiant made the game particularly with pizza fans in mind.

2 years ago

Super hexagon, the only controls are left, right, and the button to start and respond, it also has music so you can jam out while enjoying a nice slice of pizza

1 year ago

Bravely Default, which lets you play the game entirely with just dpad, analog stick and ZL button


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