BurgerTime

This article is about the video game. For the restaurant, see Burger Time.

BurgerTime
European / 1st alternate North American arcade flyer of BurgerTime.
Developer(s)	Data East
Publisher(s)	Data East Bally Midway
Platforms	Arcade, Various
Release date(s)	Arcade
Genre(s)	Puzzle
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright, cocktail
Display	Raster, 19 monitor

BurgerTime (バーガータイム, Bāgātaimu) is a 1982 arcade game created by Data East for its DECO Cassette System. The game's original title, Hamburger (ハンバーガー), 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. 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.

When Data East went bankrupt in 2003, G-Mode bought most of Data East's intellectual properties, including BurgerTime, BurgerTime Deluxe, Super BurgerTime, and Peter Pepper's Ice Cream Factory.

Gameplay

Screenshot of Data East's arcade version of BurgerTime.

The object of the game is to complete a number of hamburgers while avoiding enemy foods.

When main protagonist, chef Peter Pepper, the player's character, 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 game level is finished.

While making burgers, the player must avoid the antagonists, three types of enemies: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg. Enemies can be dodged, stunned, crushed with a falling ingredient, or dropped by luring them onto an ingredient and then causing it to fall. In this last case, the piece will fall two extra levels for every enemy caught on it. Enemies that have been crushed or dropped return to the maze after a few seconds. Dropped enemies award larger point values than crushed ones; therefore, to obtain a high score, the player must attract more than one enemy onto an ingredient just before dropping 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.

There are six screens of increasing difficulty, with more burgers and enemies, burgers that have more parts, and/or layouts that make it easier for Peter Pepper to be cornered and harder for him to reach the ingredients. Completing all six screens takes the player back to the first one.

Legacy

Sequels

File:Super BurgerTime.jpg

Flyer for "Super BurgerTime"

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 Intellivision version of BurgerTime. In Diner, Peter Pepper must kick balls of food so that they roll off platforms and down ramps to land on a large plate at the bottom of the screen, while avoiding or crushing enemy food items that are trying to stop him.

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.

BurgerTime World Tour

A next-generation update of BurgerTime was announced by MonkeyPaw Games for the WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Microsoft Windows in late March 2011. Developed by Frozen Codebase, the new game is fully updated to 3D, and was released on November 2, 2011 on Xbox Live Arcade and November 15, 2011 on PlayStation Network. It was also released on February 9, 2012 in North America and Europe on WiiWare. As of year-end 2011, the Xbox Live Arcade version sold nearly 8,000 units. It was delisted from all digital stores on April 30, 2014.

Ports

BurgerTime was very successful. The Intellivision port was reportedly Mattel's most-popular game for the console. It was ported to several other home computers and consoles: Apple II, Atari 2600, BBC Micro, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Mattel Aquarius, MSX, NES, and TI-99/4A.

More recently, it can be found on mobile phones, Pelican's VG Pocket Caplet and the Wii Virtual Console. The game itself is also the last NES game released on the Virtual Console service for Wii.

A "Deluxe" 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), which this version was later added to the 3DS Virtual Console.

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.

An emulated version of the game was released in 2005 for PlayStation 2 in Japan as part of the Oretachi Geasen Zoku Sono-series.

As of 2007, BurgerTime is available through the subscription online game service, GameTap.

Clones

There are numerous clones for home systems: Mr. Wimpy, Burger Chase, BurgerSpace, Chip Factory, Burger Boy!, Basic Burger, Barmy Burgers, Burger Builder

Other appearances

• Peter Pepper appeared in Wreck-It Ralph. He is seen having a drink at Tapper's and his caricature picture on the video game celebrity wall (alongside Mr. Egg, Mr. Hot Dog, and Mr. Pickle). Peter Pepper was later sighted in Game Central Station generously giving Q*bert, Coily, Ugg, Slick, and Sam a burger that the characters can share.
• Peter Pepper, alongside the common enemies, appeared in Pixels as enemies attacking the city along with other 80's video game characters such as Joust, Frogger, Dig Dug's Fygar, Paperboy, etc.

Reception

BurgerTime received a Certificate of Merit in the category of "1984 Videogame of the Year (Less than 16K ROM)" at the 5th annual Arkie Awards. The Deseret News called BurgerTime "one of the real surprises of 1983 for the Intellivision", and gave the ColecoVision version three and one half stars.

Scores

In 1984, Billy Mitchell achieved a record score of 7,881,050. It was beaten on September 5, 2005 by Bryan L. Wagner of Turbotville, Pennsylvania with a score of 8,601,300 and improved to exactly 9,000,000 on June 2, 2006 According to Twin Galaxies, he improved it further to 11,512,500 points on September 19, 2008 at the Challenge Arcade in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania.

External links

• BurgerTime at the Killer List of Videogames
• BurgerTime at MobyGames
• BurgerTime guide at StrategyWiki
• BurgerTime video capture
• The MS-DOS version of BurgerTime can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive