BurgerTime
Description official descriptions
You play as Chef Pepper and your goal is to make giant hamburgers while evil eggs, sausages and pickles chase you around the game area.
To properly make a hamburger you must assemble all of the ingredients together, dropping them from higher up onto the burger area below. To actually do this you have to let Chef Pepper step over every burger ingredient. As soon as an ingredient (a piece of lettuce for instance) has been stepped on, it will fall to the level below. Falling food will squish any enemy following you and will also "bump" any other ingredient below it farther down. Also, as an emergency defense against the enemy food, you can collect pepper shakers which will allow you to puff out a small pepper cloud that will momentarily stun enemies, allowing you to walk past them.
Higher levels result in new level design, faster enemies and more ingredients to assemble.
Spellings
- アーケードアーカイブス バーガータイム - Japanese PS4 / Switch spelling
- ハンバーガー - Japanese spelling
- バーガータイム - Japanese Famicom spelling
- 汉堡时光 - Simplified Chinese spelling
- 버거 타임 - Korean spelling (Hangul)
Groups +
Screenshots
Promos
Credits (Intellivision version)
Program | |
Graphics | |
Music | |
Sound Effects |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 67% (based on 21 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 151 ratings with 10 reviews)
One of Intellivision's finest - get it!
The Good
Burgertime hails from that period in the early 1980s when the "Big Three" (Atari, Coleco & Mattel) were trying to maximize profits by releasing big games across all platforms (sound familiar?). As a result, there are multiple versions of Burgertime, presenting casual retrogamers with a bit of a problem, since the core game represents arcade gaming at its pinnacle - addictive, rewarding, yet very, very challenging.
The Intellivision version shines brightly. The graphics resemble that of the arcade to an acceptable degree, and the Intelly's circular pad does not hamper gameplay at all. Plus, you get a slew of stages to complete, some of them nightmarishly difficult.
If you're not familiar with the basics of Burgertime, you play a chef you needs to make burgers. He does this by running over components of the uncompleted meal (buns, meat, cheese, tomato, etc.), causing them to fall to the bottom of the screen where they land on a plate (thoroughly tenderized, one assumes). However, he is pursued relentlessly by evil hot dogs, eggs and pickles, who can be thwarted, but never killed. You can stun your foes with pepper (of which you have a very limited supply), drop burger components on them, or send them flying down with the burger components if you're skilled enough.
The Bad
It's quite difficult. Just try making it through one complete game cycle, and you'll see what I mean.
The Bottom Line
Well, it's Burgertime, except it's much better than the crap Atari 2600 version.
Intellivision · by Lucas Schippers (57) · 2003
Faithful port of an arcade classic
The Good
Colorful graphics
Multiple levels (called "patterns" in the game) are reproduced from the arcade original
The Bad
Enemies are single colored sprites (the yolk in the egg flickers between black and white instead of yellow).
Music is monotonous as it starts from scratch any time there's another in-game sound (such as walking over a burger ingredient).
The Bottom Line
In BurgerTime, you move your chef around the play field, walking over ingredients to build hamburgers. If an ingredient from a higher level falls on top of an ingredient on a lower level, the lower ingredient falls a level. This can "chain" so that an effective strategy is to try to build the burgers from the top down.
Giving chase are hotdogs, pickles (which flicker badly in this version), and eggs. If an enemy is on an ingredient part as you make it drop, it tends to fall further than just a single level (and may in fact fall all the way to the bottom, taking any intervening ingredients with it). You can also drop ingredients on top of the enemies, which temporarily removes them from play.
Failing that, you have a limited supply of pepper, which you can sprinkle on enemies to stun them for a short while. At limited times in the game, you can pick up an ice cream cone which replenishes your pepper supply by one "shake."
TI-99/4A · by Andy Frueh (173) · 2016
One of the best versions of Burgertime
The Good
This game has everything that the arcade had but downsized just a bit for the Colecovision. The music is very good and the graphics are very close to the arcade with the burgers and hotdogs actually making me quite hungry. The enemies are just enough to make you annoyed,but keep you coming back for more action.
The Bad
The controls are a bit sticky when trying to come off ladders and the evil food sometimes follows very predictable patterns.
These do not hinder the gameplay by any major degree though.
The Bottom Line
You are Chef Pepper and must make hamburgers for the hungry customers, while watching out for the hotdogs and eggs trying to ruin your day. Chef Pepper has a small amount of pepper to temporarily stun the enemies, while he tries to build the burgers.
ColecoVision · by Jordan Connor (4) · 2006
Trivia
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In the television commercial for BurgerTime, two teenagers drive up to a burger stand in which the chef is being chased around the kitchen by giant hot dogs. One of the hot dogs (an actor in a foam-rubber costume with only his red-painted face showing) slams the drive-up window while sneering into the camera "We are CLOSED now!" These prophetic words were repeated many times by the programmers as they packed up their personal belongings a few months later when Mattel Electronics was shut down.
Development
BurgerTime was created by Data East Corporation for its DECO Cassette System.
Egg
Ever wondered why one of the evil guys is an egg? In Japan where the game was made, it is common to add a fried egg to your burger.
High score
According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, the world record high-score on BurgerTime is 9,000,000 points, achieved by Bryan L. Wagner of Turbotville, PA on June 2, 2006 at the Funspot Family Fun Ctr. in Weirs Beach, NH. History's first documented Burger Time champion was Franz Lanzinger who scored 1,081,900 points at the Sunnyvale Golfland in Sunnyvale, California on November 1, 1982.
References to the game
An unofficial parody of the game was released in adult bookstores called Furrburger Time.
Unofficial DOS port
There is an unofficial DOS port of the game.
RGB versus Composite Monitor
The color card (CGA) for an IBM PC had two monitor outputs: RGB and composite video. The standard PC color monitor was RGB and displayed 8 colors. However, a composite monitor hooked up to the PC could display 16 colors. Few applications, though, used the additional available colors. Gene Smith, however, wrote completely separate graphic routines to take full advantage of each type of monitor. The results on a composite monitor were stunning - even visiting representatives from IBM were shocked. Information found on Intellivision Game Club
Additional Levels
The Apple II and IBM versions of BurgerTime have six additional levels not found in the arcade or Intellivision versions. Information found on Intellivision Game Club Information also contributed by Nélio, STiGMaTa_ch
Related Sites +
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BurgerTime.info
The Unofficial BurgerTime Homepage
Identifiers +
- MobyGames ID: 467
- Wikipedia (en)
Contribute
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by emerging_lurker.
Mattel Aquarius added by Rola. TI-99/4A added by Corn Popper. Wii added by Michael Cassidy. PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch added by Rik Hideto. Sharp MZ-80K/700/800/1500, Sharp X1, PC-8000 added by Infernos. Antstream added by firefang9212. Coleco Adam added by Hipolito Pichardo. Arcade added by Pseudo_Intellectual. ColecoVision, Apple II, Atari 2600, Intellivision, NES added by Servo. MSX added by koffiepad. J2ME, BREW added by Ms. Tea. Commodore 64 added by Katakis | カタキス.
Additional contributors: Grov, Shoddyan, Nélio, formercontrib, Patrick Bregger, STiGMaTa_ch, Rik Hideto.
Game added November 24th, 1999. Last modified December 6th, 2023.