Burgertime

Basic Information

General Features

Main Credits

North American Release

Atari 2600 and Intellivision
1983
ColecoVision
1984
Nintendo Entertainment System
1987

Japanese Release

Family Computer
November 27, 1985

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.

Data East became bankrupt and defunct in 2003; G-Mode currently owns the intellectual property to BurgerTime, BurgerTime Deluxe, Super BurgerTime, and Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory.

Gameplay[ | ]

The object of the game is for Peter Pepper to assemble four giant burgers without colliding with any pursuing hot dogs, eggs or pickles (who appear in later stages), referred to as The Food Foes in some releases. Peter Pepper has to climb up ladders and walk across ramps to get to each of the burger fixings which include buns, beef patties, lettuce leaves and sometimes tomato slices and cheese slices. Peter Pepper has to walk across each of the burger fixings, so they will fall downward to the each of the lower ramps until they reach each of the plates below at the bottom of the screen. He must assemble all four burgers to advance to the next stage. As the hot dogs, eggs and pickles pursue him, he can stop them three different ways. He can throw a pinch of pepper on them to stun them and make them temporarily harmless, but his pinches of pepper are limited, so he will have to use it wisely. Additional pinches of pepper can be gained by getting bonus items the will occasionally appear on the screen temporarily including ice cream cones, French fries and cups of coffee.

Another way Peter Pepper can stop his pursuers is by crushing them with one of the burger fixings. He does this by dropping it onto them whenever they walk under it. The third way to stop them is by dropping them on one of the burger fixings whenever they walk onto it, this will also allow each of the burger fixings to fall two, three or four floors more depending on how many of them are on it. However the pursuers are put out of action, they will continue to walk around in each stage until all the burgers have been completely assembled.

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, and was based on a game design that was intended to be the sequel to the Intellivision Masters Of The Universe videogame.

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". 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. 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. It was included in the Midway Arcade Greatest Hits Volume 2 for the PlayStation. The 1984 ZX Spectrum game Mr. Wimpy takes the second half of its gameplay directly from BurgerTime.

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.

In Other Media[ | ]

Burgertime was featured briefly in the "Gameboy" episode of Captain N: The Gamemaster. Captain N, Mega Man and Simon Belmont were changed into the Food Foes and Gameboy was changed into Chef Pepper.

Playable characters

Enemies