| BurgerTime | |
| European / 1st alternate North American arcade flyer of BurgerTime. | |
| Developer(s) | Data East |
| Publisher(s) | Data East Bally Midway |
| Designer | |
| Engine | Engine Missing |
| status | Status Missing |
| Release date | Release Date Missing |
| Genre | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Up to 2 players, alternating turns |
| Age rating(s) | Ratings Missing |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Intellivision, ColecoVision, NES, Atari 2600 & 7800 |
| Arcade system | |
| Media | Media Missing |
| Input | 4-way joystick, 1 button |
| Requirements | Requirements Missing |
| Credits | Soundtrack | Codes | Walkthrough | |
BurgerTime (バーガータイム) is a 1982 arcade game created by Data East for its DECO Cassette System. The game's original title, Hamburger, was changed to BurgerTime before its introduction to the US. The player is chef Peter Pepper, who must walk over hamburger ingredients located across a maze of platforms while avoiding pursuing characters. The game was popular in arcades. In the US, Data East USA licensed BurgerTime for distribution by Bally Midway. The Data East and Midway versions are distinguished by the manufacturer's name on the title screen and by the marquee and cabinet artworks.
According to Twin Galaxies, the record high score on BurgerTime is 11,512,500 points, by Bryan L. Wagner of Turbotville, Pennsylvania on September 19, 2008 at the Challenge Arcade in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.[1]
When Data East became bankrupt and defunct in 2003, G-Mode bought and currently owns most of Data East's intellectual properties, including BurgerTime, BurgerTime Deluxe, Super BurgerTime, and Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory.[2]
Gameplay
Screenshot of Data East's arcade version of BurgerTime.
When Peter Pepper walks the length of an ingredient (bun, meat patty, tomato, etc.), it falls one level. If it lands atop another ingredient, the latter in turn falls one level. A burger is completed when all vertically aligned ingredients have been dropped out of the maze and onto a waiting plate. Once all burgers are completed, the level is finished.
While making burgers, Peter Pepper must deal with three enemies: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Enemies can be dodged, killed, or temporarily stunned. Killing occurs when an ingredient is dropped atop an enemy, or when support for an ingredient is completely removed and the enemy falls with the piece. In the latter case, the piece will fall much farther than normal, depending on how many enemies are on it. Scoring depends heavily on killing enemies. The more enemies killed with a single sequence of falling ingredients, the higher the score. Therefore, to obtain the best score the player must endanger Peter Pepper by allowing more than one enemy to move onto the ingredient the player is on, just before the player drops it.
Peter Pepper has pepper shots to shake on nearby enemies to stun and render them harmless for a few seconds. Extra shots are obtained by collecting bonus foods, such as coffee, an ice cream cone, or french fries, which appear in the center of the maze when a certain number of ingredients have dropped.
Each level is more difficult, with the layout of later levels making it easier for Peter Pepper to be cornered and harder for him to reach ingredients.
Legacy
Sequels
An arcade spin-off, Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory, and an arcade sequel, Super BurgerTime (スーパーバーガータイム), were not widely released. Super BurgerTime stars Peter Pepper Jr. and allows two players to play at once and is fairly true to the original BurgerTime but with many added features and greatly improved graphics. Another planned sequel, PizzaTime, was in development when the video game market crashed; the game was not released.
A console-only sequel, Diner, was created after the 1984 purchase of Intellivision from Mattel by INTV Corp. This game was programmed by Ray Kaestner, the programmer of the original BurgerTime.
BurgerTime Delight
The mobile game, BurgerTime Delight, was released by Namco in 2007. The enhanced version is similar, but includes "new graphics, characters and power-ups".[3] There are six "arcade levels" and eight enhanced mode levels with perils of falling ice and rising fire from the grill. Perils kill the player as well as enemies. Besides the pepper of the classic game, there is now a salt shaker, that when collected stuns all enemies on the screen. Finally, letters appear briefly at various places; when collected to create certain words, the player gets two extra lives and automatically completes the level.[4] BurgerTime Delight has an option to change the game to be slower or faster than the arcade version.
Ports and remakes
Due to this game's success, it was ported to several home computers and consoles: Apple II, Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Intellivision, Mattel Aquarius, MSX, NES, and TI-99/4A. More recently, it can be found on mobile phones and Pelican's VG Pocket Caplet. A version was also released for the original Nintendo Game Boy titled as BurgerTime Deluxe (バーガータイムデラックス). This version adds to the original storyline and has a new human protagonist named Frank N. Furter. The arcade version was included in the Midway Arcade Greatest Hits Volume 2 for the PlayStation, due to being published in North America by Midway Games.
The 1984 ZX Spectrum game Mr. Wimpy takes the second half of its gameplay directly from BurgerTime.[citation needed]
BurgerTime in Bedrock is a remake of the game for the Game Boy Color that uses characters from The Flintstones.[citation needed] Data East was not involved in the development of this version, but was developed by Conspiracy Entertainment and was published in the US by Electro Source and in Europe by Swing! Deutschland.
As of 2007, BurgerTime is available through the subscription online game service, GameTap.
There is a free and open source version of the game, called BurgerSpace, available for Linux.
References
- ↑ BurgerTime 1st place record at Twin Galaxies
- ↑ G-Mode Buys Up Data East Catalog (Archived)
- ↑ BurgerTime Delight from Namco
- ↑ BurgerTime Delight user manual (PDF)
External links
- Official Burger Time series website
- BurgerTime at Museum of the Game
- BurgerTime at MobyGames
- 'Beef Drop' at MobyGames, a BurgerTime clone.
- BurgerTime wiki guide at StrategyWiki
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